Impulso Ciudadano denounces that eight out of ten Catalan city councils do not display the Spanish flag on the facades of their headquarters and the Government "does not act against this institutional disobedience and attack on the rule of law".
The civic organization has presented a report today on the display of official symbols and institutional neutrality in the city councils of Catalonia, stating that only 17% of the 947 comply with the regulations. The association led by José Domingo details that only 160 display the flags of Spain and Catalonia legally and do not show nationalist or partisan symbols on their facades.
The study, conducted between October 2023 and mid-2024, reveals that 381 municipalities (40%) also do not display the senyera, 97 display the independence flag (estelada), and 62 have other nationalist symbols, such as yellow ribbons or banners about the amnesty of the procés.
Of the 114 municipalities governed solely by the PSC, 66 comply with the law (58%), while En Comú Podem [coalition of the comunes and Podemos] respects the symbols in the five municipalities it governs, and the PP in four out of five.
On the other hand, only 9% of the municipalities governed by Junts (30 out of 332) and 6% of those controlled by Esquerra Republicana (18 out of 311) comply with the law. In the 17 municipalities governed solely by CUP, the Spanish flag is not displayed.
The 2023-2024 report reflects "a slight but significant improvement" in compliance with the regulations on official symbols compared to the two previous reports, which analyzed the situation in 2021 and 2022. In the first case, 125 city councils (13%) fully complied with the law, and a year later, the number increased to 132 (14%). This change occurred due to the "notable increase in the number of city councils governed by the PSC" after the municipal elections in May 2023.
Nevertheless, Impulso Ciudadano describes the new data as "very concerning" because they show a "widespread non-compliance". "We cannot allow institutional disobedience in Catalonia to continue to be normalized; compliance with the law is not an option, it is a mandate," Domingo stated.
In his opinion, "favoring partisan positions from power is profoundly undemocratic and an attack on the rule of law, mostly promoted by nationalist forces that use institutions as a platform for propaganda".
The organization denounces that since June 2018, with Sánchez taking office at La Moncloa, the Government Delegation in Catalonia "has not made any requests to city councils to comply with the regulations on symbols, despite receiving more than 30 complaints affecting 530 local entities". Domingo also points out that there is no evidence that the Generalitat has done so during this period, when Junts and ERC, first in coalition and then the republicans alone [from October 2022 to August 2024], were in charge of the Government.