Minister Puigneró argues for a “digital republic”

The Catalan minister of digital policy and public administration, Jordi Puigneró, yesterday urged the creation in Catalonia of “a digital nation in the form of a republic” until an actual “physical” republic can be set up. Puigneró made his proposal in a talk on the second day of the Catalan Summer University in Prades, in Northern Catalonia.

The minister believes that the Spanish state is still working in an “analogue format”, which he says means that in the digital environment Catalans can be “invincible”. Puigneró also said that the creation of the Council of the Republic would make days similar to those of October 27 and October 1 possible. “Without digital tools” the October 1 referendum would not have got so far, he pointed out, as “everyone was in WhatsApp groups” to organise the polling stations, ballot boxes or digital census.

The minister also announced that the Catalan government is working to create a digital identity for citizens, to allow greater public participation in government in the digital world. Puigneró also thinks that people in Catalonia should build digital “state structures”, and he gave the example of Estonia, which is building a “digital nation” to allow the Estonian government to “continue existing without control of the physical territory” in the case of invasion.