Analysis and commentary about the independence crisis in Catalonia by Nick Ottens (based in Barcelona) and Ainslie Noble (an expert in Basque and Catalan identity issues).
The Catalan branch of Spain’s ruling Socialist Party shared first place with the separatist Republican Left in regional elections on Sunday, but the unionist camp as a whole lost support relative to pro-independence parties.
Both the Republican and Socialist party leaders have announced they will put themselves forward as candidates for the regional presidency.
The Republican candidate, Pere Aragonès, is most likely to succeed. Read more “Catalan Election: Takeaways and What Happens Next”
Catalans vote in regional elections on Sunday that are unlikely to produce a breakthrough in their region’s acrimonious relations with the rest of Spain.
I’ll be live-blogging the results on Sunday night. In the meantime, this explainer will get you up to speed. Read more “Catalan Election Guide”
Pro-independence parties are projected to defend their majority in the Catalan parliament on Sunday, but the regional branch of Spain’s ruling Socialist Party could place first in the election.
The Catalan Socialists, led by former health minister Salvador Illa, who resigned from Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’ cabinet two weeks ago to campaign, are polling at 21-23 percent, up from 14 percent in the last regional election and 20.5 percent in the last national election.
The Socialists and their allies in the far-left Podemos (We Can), who have 6-8 percent support, oppose Catalan independence but do want to give the region more autonomy. Although talks about transferring more power to Barcelona are still on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic. Read more “Three-Way Race for First Place in Catalonia”
Catalonia’s ruling separatist parties are drifting apart.
José Antich writes in the pro-independence outlet El Nacional that the top candidates of Together for Catalonia, the senior party in the regional government, are “supporters of a path of greater confrontation with Madrid.”
The list of the Republican Left, by contrast — currently the smaller party, but the largest in the polls — is led by office holders, including Acting President Pere Aragonès and Health Minister Alba Vergés. Read more “Catalan Separatist Parties Go Separate Ways”
Allegations of Russian interference have swirled around the Catalan independence movement for the last three years.
I cautioned against exaggerating Russia’s role in 2017, when two million Catalans voted in a referendum that had been deemed illegal by the Spanish state to break away.
I still believe what I did then: that Russia is a convenient scapegoat for Spaniards who don’t want to understand why nearly one in two Catalans prefer their own republic.
“Easier to blame foreign manipulation than examine the root causes of Catalan separatism and the events which led to the current crisis,” I wrote — from the 2010 Constitutional Court ruling that overturned parts of Catalonia’s autonomy statute to former prime minister Mariano Rajoy’s years-long refusal to negotiate a revision of the charter to current prime minister Pedro Sánchez slow-walking his promise to do just that. Read more “Allegations of Russian Meddling Resurface in Catalonia”
Successive Spanish governments have treated Catalan separatism as a legal, rather than a political, problem. This has done nothing to weaken support for independence. It has radicalized Catalans.
The dismissal of Catalan president Quim Torra is the latest episode in a decade-long legal drama. Spain’s Supreme Court removed him from office on Monday for hanging a “partisan” banner from the balcony of his government’s medieval palace in the center of Barcelona during the 2019 election.
The banner didn’t express support for a political party, but rather called for the release of the nine separatists who were imprisoned for leading a failed breakaway from Spain in 2017.
Torra’s removal triggers early elections, which polls predict the separatists will win.
He is the second Catalan president in three years to be unseated by the Spanish judiciary. His predecessor, Carles Puigdemont, was ousted after leading the 2017 independence bid. He fled to Belgium to escape prosecution. Read more “Spain’s Judicialization of Catalan Separatism Has Failed”
I have a story in The National Interest about the independence crisis in Catalonia.
The arguments will sound familiar to those of you who have been reading my analyses and opinions. I blame the Spanish government for refusing to listen to Catalans when all they asked for was more autonomy. I think it was a mistake to deny them a legal independence referendum when the majority of Catalans were still opposed to breaking away.
Now half are in favor and hope of a compromise is fading. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez at least recognizes that the problem calls for a political, not a legal, solution, but he has postponed talks with the Catalan regional government due to COVID-19. Read more “Catalonia and Spain Are Reaching the Breaking Point”
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez needs to make good on his promise to open dialogue with the Catalan regional government.
Talks about more autonomy were put on hold when the COVID-19 pandemic reached Spain in March. Now that it looks like the country will have to live with coronavirus for many more months, Sánchez cannot delay indefinitely.
Catalonia is due to hold elections before the end of the year. If the Republican Left, the more moderate of the separatist parties, doesn’t have anything to show for bringing Sánchez, a fellow social democrat, to power in Madrid, hardliners could win in Barcelona and make a negotiated solution even more elusive. Read more “Sánchez Can’t Put Off Catalans Indefinitely”
The coronavirus pandemic has put the politics of Catalan independence on hold.
Talks about transferring more power to the region, which Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez promised in return for the support of Catalonia’s Republican Left, were postponed when COVID-19 broke out in March and have yet to be rescheduled.
So do snap regional elections Catalan president Quim Torra called for in January.
Torra, whose center-right Together for Catalonia rules in a coalition with the Republican Left, was disappointed when the other separatists agreed to enforce a ruling by the electoral commission to strip him of his status as lawmaker.
The electoral commission found that Torra had violated rules on government neutrality by hanging a banner from his palace in Barcelona during the last election that demanded the release of nine prominent separatists who are in prison for leading a failed independence bid in 2017. Read more “COVID-19 Has Put Catalan Politics on Hold”
