This Saturday, June 4, part of the Spanish Catalan separatists meet in Perpignan, France, for their annual congress. Divided for five years and the crisis around the illegal self-determination referendum, the separatists are trying to survive and maintain a semblance of cohesion, while waiting for better days.
The choice of the Junts Per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) party of Carles Puigdemont, a former separatist leader who has taken refuge in Brussels, to meet in Perpignan, a French city, is symbolic. The choice of the French city allows one of the three main Spanish Catalan separatist parties to recall that the ultimate goal remains the unification of the two Catalonias, South and North, in other words the Spanish part and the French part. A distant dream, when the question of independence is no longer the priority in the South.
A still young independence struggle
If the historical past of the region is very rich and dates back several centuries, the stiffening around southern Catalonia is recent. It’s been a little over twenty years that separatism is gaining momentum. Previously, recalls Benoît Pellistrandi, a historian specializing in contemporary Spain, the Catalan identity coexisted rather well with the Spanish nation. ” The best formula to sum it up is that of Jordi Pujol, when he was president of the Generalitat between 1980 and 2003. He said “I am Catalan and Spanish, but if to be Spanish I am asked to stop being Catalan, then I will stop being Spanish to stay Catalan.” »
It was the establishment of an increasingly decentralized Spanish state that developed Catalan independence. Originally, regions such as the Basque Country and Catalonia obtained the most autonomy. But quickly, these privileges extend to other regions. The autonomies look more and more alike, which tenses the separatists. ” We then see the revival of demands, with the reform of the statutes of autonomy which culminates in 2006, with a left-wing regional government. This new Catalan autonomy statute recognizes the fact that Catalonia is a nation “, describes Benoît Pellistrandi. A term censored by the Spanish Constitutional Court in 2010, which in fact revives the question of independence.
Especially since at the same time, Artur Mas, president of the generality of Catalonia from 2010 to 2016, put independence back at the heart of the political debate to counterbalance the loss of influence of his party towards the central power, estimates the ‘historian. ” As in 2011 the People’s Party has the absolute majority and leads the country, it does not need the support of the Catalan moderate nationalists. Artur Mas chooses to embrace the theme of independence to influence Madrid. He then allied himself with the left-wing independence party, the ERC, putting aside their political differences. Since then, independence has punctuated Catalan political life.
Seats but not enough votes
Its high point remains for the moment the 2017 referendum, organized by the coalition of center-right and center-left separatist parties led by Carles Puigdemont and supported by the CUP, a far-left separatist party.
More than 90% of voters say yes to independence, except that abstention is high: more than one in two Catalans does not go to the polls. Unconstitutional, organized without the Madrid agreement, the ballot will have no direct consequence on autonomy. Carles Puigdemont flees Spanish justice, and some party leaders are imprisoned. Independence seems to be slipping away.
Four years later, in February 2021, during the early elections to the Parliament of Catalonia, the separatists nevertheless achieved a symbolic score. For the first time, the addition of the votes of the separatist parties exceeds 50%. But this victory is to be put into perspective, due to a very strong abstention. ” The total votes of the separatists represent 37% of the registered voters. Admittedly, the score of those who are anti-independence is lower, but with 37% of registered voters, you are not proclaiming independence. And then we must never forget the singularities of the Catalan electoral system “recalls Benoît Pellistrandi.
The system gives a bonus of seats to certain sectors, which inflates the number of elected members of Parliament. Thus, a regional deputy in the less populated territories of Girona, Lleida and Tarragona is elected by approximately 18,000 voters, while in Barcelona 55,000 voters are represented by a regional deputy. However, these regions are for independence, when Barcelona is not. As long as the separatists do not have the support of the capital, it will therefore be impossible for them to obtain enough votes in a legal referendum.
The Catalan split
Another lesson from the 2021 election is the difficulty of dealing with the separatist patchwork. It is no longer Junts per Catalunya, party of Carles Puigdemont, which lays down the rules of the political game but the ERC, of the center left, with the CUP, of the far left, as kingmaker.
The new “king” being Pere Aragonès of the ERC, elected president of the Catalan Parliament in May 2021, after three months of negotiations. ” It seems that it is both the fact of having been the party whose leader [Oriol Junqueras] was imprisoned and sentenced by the Spanish judiciary and its more moderate approach to independence which helped put the ERC ahead of Puigdemont’s party “, analyzes Cyril Trépier, geographer researcher at the French Institute of Geopolitics of Paris 8 and specialist in Catalan independence. The new Catalan government is struggling to govern. United for a common goal, the separatists must now come to terms with their sometimes fundamental political differences. ” It’s as if today in France we had a government that would go from Philippe Poutou to Gérard Larcher sums up Benoît Pellistrandi.
Not to mention that the alliance is taking the brunt of an economic and geopolitical context that is not conducive to the question of independence. The Catalan economy, already fragile, is bloodless after two years of pandemic and the war in Ukraine is reshuffling priorities. The revelation by the Spanish press of links between Carles Puigdemont and advisers close to Vladimir Putinduring the 2017 crisis, also tarnished the image of the cause.
A paradoxical relationship with Madrid power
These internal difficulties are not without displeasing the Madrid government in power. Contrary to what one might have thought, the transfer of power between the former conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, deeply anti-independence, and Pedro Sanchez, leader of the left, does not necessarily facilitate the task of the separatists. Admittedly, forced to deal with the elected separatists to obtain power, Pedro Sanchez had to give in on certain points. ” This resulted in the presidential pardon granted to the nine main Catalan independence leaders who had previously been sentenced by the Spanish courts. “, explains Cyril Trépier. But on the other hand, the strategy for the PSOE is also to silence their demands by embodying a real alternative to right-wing austerity. The score of the Socialist Party in the Catalan elections of 2021, which came first in the first round, goes in this direction. But as the right had participated in bringing out the desire for independence among the Catalans, the separatist parties could, to remobilize their supporters, count on the return to power of their best enemies.
Except that the prospective heir of Mariano Rajoy, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, was president for thirteen years of the historic region of Galicia, also crossed by independence demands. He could, if he comes to power, initiate a constitutional reform and the modernization of the autonomies, without going as far as independence for all that: he blows hot and cold, speaking ” linguistic apartheid in Catalonia, while being a defender of the Galician identity. A subtle balancing act that could tense the most anti-independence wing of his party and push some voters into the arms of Vox, the far-right Spanish party.
In the meantime, the separatists hope to remobilize for the municipal elections of 2023. If it seems impossible for Barcelona to fall into their lap, that year, the results will make it possible to know between ERC and Junts Per Catalunya, which of the separatist parties is the most supported by the people.
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