At a municipal plenary session held on 27 November 2018, Granollers unanimously approved a City Council resolution to promote an initiative together with Mayors for Peace, ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) and Fundipau. The resolution expounds the grave threat that nuclear weapons pose to communities and paves the way towards their abolition for responsibility and safety reasons.
On 7 July 2017 – following a decade of advocacy by civil society, NGO and campaigners such as Mayors for Peace, the Hibakusha, ICAN and other partners – a majority of the world’s nations adopted a landmark global agreement to ban nuclear weapons, known officially as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Josep Mayoral, Mayor of Granollers, a Vice President of Mayors for Peace, has explained “this resolution is the result of a global campaign that has had the courage to demand the abolition of nuclear weapons”. Mayoral has affirmed that this “is not a symbolic resolution, it is a resolution initiated 3 years ago with a resounding success”. The United Nations adopted a Treaty and now nations should ratify it. For this reason, this resolution calls on the Spanish government to sign and ratify the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The Catalan Chapter of Mayors for Peace and Fundipau, a catalan NGO member of ICAN (2017 Nobel Peace Prize), promote this global campaign to demand governments through cities to sign and ratify the Treaty. From this point on, the Catalan Chapter of Mayors for Peace and Fundipau will share this resolution and will encourage other municipalities to join the initiative.
The resolution claims for:
1. expresses its solidarity with all the people and communities affected by the impact of atomic bombs and nuclear weapons tests.
2. calls on the states of the world to commit, in a clear and precise way, to nuclear disarmament and to take specific measures to achieve it.
3. endorses the ICAN Cities Appeal (promoted by the ICAN Campaign, awarded with the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize) that different cities of the world are signing: “Our city/town is deeply concerned about the grave threat that nuclear weapons pose to communities throughout the world. We firmly believe that our residents have the right to live in a world free from this threat. Any use of nuclear weapons, whether deliberate or accidental, would have catastrophic, far-reaching and long-lasting consequences for people and the environment. Therefore, we support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and call on our governments join it.”
4. urges the Government of State of Spain to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons approved by the United Nations.
5. will transfer this declaration to the Government of the Spanish State, to the secretariat of Mayors for Peace, to the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces and to Fundipau (Fundació per la Pau) members of the ICAN campaign.
>The resolution translated into English
>The original press release in Catalan on the Mayors for Peace Catalan Chapter website