Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya

Logo of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) party.

Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia, ERC) is a left-wing political party that campaigns for independence for Catalonia and Catalan Countries from France and Spain.

Its basic political principles are defined in the Statement of Ideology approved at the 19th National Congress in 1993. This is organised into the three areas that give the organisation its name: Esquerra (commitment to the Left agenda in the political debate), República (commitment to the Republican way of organizing a State vs. Spain's current constitutional monarchy) and Catalunya (commitment to this territory only).

Led by Francesc Macià in 1931, the party declared an independent Catalan Republic that was curtailed by the new Constitution of the Second Spanish Republic.

In 1934, led by Lluís Companys, the elected Catalan President, the party declared an independent Catalan Republic within the Spanish Federation proposed by Companys, following the entry of Right Wing ministers into the Government of the Spanish Republic, however the party leaders (including Companys) and all the Catalan Government (called Generalitat) were arrested and jailed for this, and special autonomy laws for Catalonia were suspended until 1936.

In 1936 the party decided to become part of the Spanish Popular Front to contest that year's election, which it won. Esquerra became the leading force of the Popular Front in Catalonia and tried to maintain the unity of the Front in the face of growing tensions between the POUM and Communists.

The party was declared illegal (along with all other participants in the Popular Front) by Francisco Franco after he came to power in 1939. The former president of the Catalonian Generalitat, Lluis Companys, was arrested by German agents in collaboration with Vichy France, returned to Spain and executed in 1940.

Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya has (2003) 23 seats (3rd group by seats) in the Catalan Parliament in Barcelona, and it was one of the three coalition members of the Catalan Government until May 2006, when it was expelled from the government by Catalan President Maragall because of the many tensions the PSC-PSOE (Socialists' Party of Catalonia) and ERC had accumulated during this coalition government, being the turning point ERC's opposition in the last instance to the project of a new Statute of Autonomy in which redaction ERC has had partial lead. It has 8 seats (4th group by seats) in the Spanish Parliament in Madrid (since 2004) and 1 seat in the European Parliament.

Its current president is Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira and its secretary-general is Joan Puigcercós i Boixassa.

The party is also federated with parties in the Balearic Islands and Northern Catalonia, and maintains close ties with its sister party Republican Left of the Valencian Country in Land of Valencia. None of the latter currently have any parliamentary representation in their respective territories, though they do hold some municipal governments.

See also

*List of political parties in Catalonia
*Joventuts d'Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya Youth section's

External links

*Site of the party
*Ideological declaration (PDF)
*ERC's brief history (PDF)
*Joventuts de l'Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya Youth section's site
*http://www.carod-rovira.net