La crisis de la independencia catalana.

   

 Spain’s Recovery Won’t Mitigate Catalan Calls for Independence

By The Editors, on 24 Sep 2013, Global Insider

  

    

 

This month, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy offered to hold talks with Catalonia but did not offer a vote on independence for the Spanish region whose citizens have long sought greater autonomy. In an email interview, Elisenda Paluzie, a professor of economic theory at the University of Barcelona, explained the state of the Catalan independence movement.

WPR: What is the state of the Catalan independence movement in terms of its degree of organization and level of popular support?

Elisenda Paluzie: On one hand, there is an important grassroots movement for independence, which has strong popular support and is very diverse ideologically, gathering people from across the political spectrum. This social movement organized a symbolic referendum on independence, held in several waves in 554 towns including Barcelona, that brought almost 1 million people to the polls from September 2009 to April 2011. Some 92 percent of those who voted favored independence. Later, through territorial assemblies, the pro-independence movement organized massive a demonstration in Barcelona on Sept. 11, 2012, and a year later pro-independence demonstrators formed a human chain of some 250 miles, traversing Catalonia from north to south. Both events gathered more than 1 million people—Catalonia's population is 7.5 million.

On the other hand, this social pressure, accompanied by a recentralization wave in Spain, has changed the strategies of traditional Catalanist parties such as Convergencia Democratica and Unio Democratica, which have moved from a traditional policy of asking for gradual increases in self-government to a proposal to call for a self-determination referendum. Federalist-leftist parties like Iniciativa per Catalunya also back the referendum, and the traditionally pro-independence Esquerra Republicana increased its share of votes in the most recent Catalan parliamentary elections on Nov. 25, 2012. Now, 74 percent of the Catalan parliament is in favor of a self-determination referendum. Polls indicate that 80 percent of the population of Catalonia backs the referendum, and that the “yes” option would win the referendum by more than 60 percent. In opinion polls, more than 50 percent say they would vote yes, 25 percent would vote no and 25 percent are undecided or would not vote.

WPR: What is the region's importance to the Spanish economy and the government's budget?
Paluzie: Catalonia accounts for 18.7 percent of Spanish GDP and 26 percent of Spanish exports. The region pays 20 percent of total taxes collected in Spain, while receiving only 13.5 percent of public expenditures. The region has 16 percent of the Spanish population.

WPR: How is an economic rebound in Spain more broadly likely to affect the independence movement?
Paluzie: The pro-independence movement started to grow in the period 2006-2008, before the economic crisis, following debate on the reform of the Catalan Statute of Autonomy. The statute the Catalan parliament passed in September 2005 was blocked first by the Spanish parliament, and four years later, in 2010, by the Constitutional Court, which issued a decision that ruled out most of the statute’s advances toward more self-government and Catalan language protection, even though the statute had been approved in a referendum by the Catalans. Thus, growing political dissatisfaction in Catalonia preceded the economic crisis, though the crisis has given it more fuel.

An economic rebound could have two possible effects on the pro-independence movement. On one hand, it might calm down a fraction of the independence backers—those that joined the movement later and are less committed—but on the other hand it could actually facilitate the transition to independence. In any case, the recovery won't substantially alter the will of a majority for independence, because it is a deep current in Catalan society.