BILBAO, Spain — The good relationship that pro-independence parties the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) and EH Bildu have maintained during this last legislature – one with a Catalan support base and the other, a Basque one – became clear a few weeks ago when they decided to run together in the senate elections and held a joint event in the Basque Country with the presence of Oriol Junqueras and the Republican candidate for Congress Gabriel Rufián. And this Monday, the ERC president reinforced his commitment to a new self-determination referendum, with the proposal to hold simultaneous votes on the independence of the Basque Country and Catalonia. “If we do it simultaneously it will be much more difficult for them to defeat us, and we will open the doors to the international community, which knows that it cannot turn its back on peoples who peacefully and democratically demand that their individual and collective rights be respected,” said Junqueras.
Arnaldo Otegi would not put a date on Junqueras’ proposal.
