“I don’t have children, but I would like to, and I would like them to know a Spain with Catalonia in it, and that can only happen if a referendum is held,” Pablo Iglesias, the head of Spain’s left wing Podemos party, told parliamentarians earlier this month, according to Spanish media reports. Mr. Iglesias’ was one of the few moderate voices in the Catalan crisis currently gripping Spain, urging a referendum — or at the very least dialogue — as the only way of settling the issue of independence in a democratic tension-calming fashion. His position would have appeared sensible to others keen to keep Catalonia, the prosperous region and home to Barcelona within Spain: ahead of the October 1 referendum support for independence was hovering around 40%.
Since then, things have moved on swiftly: the Catalan government’s decision to suspend the declaration of independence was met with a demand for clarity from the centre right government of Mariano Rajoy. Catalan President Carles Puigdemont instead of declaring independence outright put the question to a parliamentary vote, which voted in favour on Friday, as some opposition MPs boycotted the vote. The Spanish government has reacted by dissolving the Catalan parliament, dismissing Mr. Puigdemon, his cabinet and the Catalan police chief, and announcing elections for December 21, in Spain’s worst constitutional crisis since the attempted coup of 1982
Heavy-handed approach
The situation has moved forward rapidly since September 6, when the Catalan Parliament approved legislation on an independence referendum, the third referendum to take place in the region since 2011. The central government responded heavy handedly: within a day the constitutional court had declared the referendum illegal, and the government confiscated election material and pledged to show the full force of the law, which it did on the day of the referendum. Scenes of police closing down some polling stations were broadcast across the world, with Human Rights Watch documenting the use of “excessive force” by Spanish forces that resulted in many injuries.
The dramatic turn of events has led to a hardening of positions around the extreme: the Catalan government knuckled down, with its insistence on independence despite limited support regionally, with Mr. Puidgemont under pressure from hardliners within the independence movement not to buckle to pressure to back off a declaration of independence. (The referendum showed 90% in favour of independence, though many opposing it refrained from voting in keeping with the constitutional court ruling). On the other side groundswell of support elsewhere in Spain — including in the mainstream media — for a tough response, has heartened Mr. Rajoy, who is also enjoying considerable international support from other nations such as Britain, as well as the European Union, which is yet to add to its past position on the issue that is that it was an internal matter for Spain. Few within the Spanish establishment have spoken out, for fear of appearing disloyal.
Rewind to 1714
With politicians across Spain gravitating around the two extremes, it is difficult to see how the situation can move forward without major upheaval. The issue of Catalan independence is one that has long gripped Spain (dating back to King Philip V’s defeat of Catalan troops in 1714). In recent years, it has been exacerbated by economic factors: the independence movement gained momentum in the same period of economic crisis and austerity (2006/2007) that saw the rise of the indignados that triggered the global Occupy movement, as well as the feeling that little had been done to restore the autonomy violently wrested from the region under the Franco administration. The central government’s unwillingness to engage (a push for regional powers in 2006 were curtailed four years later when the Constitutional Court of Spain struck down sectors, including over the preferential treatment of the Catalan language over Spanish) has made things much worse than they might otherwise have been.
There is much uncertainty about the days and months ahead. One thing is for sure: in future years the crisis is likely to be held up as a textbook example of one that could well have been avoided had both sides listened to the voices of moderation.
