Iker Garcia's response to Gemma Sala's lecture.

by Iker Garcia Plazaola, PhD Candidate, Spanish Literature.

This blog post was written in response to "Is the European Union driving increasing demands for secession in Scotland and Catalonia?" a guest lecture given at the EUC by Dr. Gemma Sala (Grinnell College, Political Science).

Photo Credit: Sasha Popovic,
via Flickr. License available here.

This is a timely moment to write about Catalonia and the European Union.  When I refer to Catalonia I mean, of course, the movement for independence, a major factor of political unrest in Spain as a whole.  Witness the results of Spain's presidential elections held on November 10th, 2019, with new extreme-right party VOX becoming the third-most voted option.  The reason, commentators agree, is the fierce defense of Spain's national unity by this new party, with such unfeasible plans as criminalizing parties that support Catalan independence, or transforming Spain's regional autonomous governments (in effect since 1978) into a centralized state with all competencies depending on Madrid.

About one month ago, after a trial that took months, Spain's Supreme Court issued 9- and 13-year prison terms to nine Catalan figures (politicians and leaders of cultural associations) who played a significant role in the attempt to organize a referendum for Catalonia's independence in October 2017.  The idea behind organizing this referendum, as newspapers have been explaining over the last two years, was that the Catalan Parliament declare the independence of Catalonia from Spain based on the results.  Carles Puigdemont, the then president of the Generalitat (Catalonia's government), today a fugitive of justice or an exile (according to your preference), announced the victory of the "yes" vote (92% of votes cast), made the declaration of Independence and put it immediately in wait for the response of the Spanish government.  The response was an application of Article 155, suspending Catalonia's government---an unprecedented step in Spain's democratic period, 1975-present.  After these events, Catalonia is NOT independent since there was no recognition of Catalonia's independence by any foreign country, or in particular, the European Union.  Moreover, many important Catalan companies moved their headquarters outside Catalonia, a clear sign that they prioritize economic benefits over the political agenda promoted by the independentists.  There were elections to the Catalan Parliament in December 2017, won by the Ciudadanos (an anti-independentist party), but the coalition of the three independentist parties in the Catalan parliament (Partit Democrata, Esquerra Republicana, and the so-called CUP) gave the Presidency of the Catalan Government to the independentist Quim Torra.

Professor Gemma Sala gave an insightful talk "Is the European Union driving increasing demands for secession in Scotland and Catalonia?", in which she defended an interesting thesis, namely (if I understood correctly) that some parties in Catalonia and Scotland have become independentist for electorally tactical reasons, i.e. to get votes from their independentist rivals (which until recently, at least in Catalonia, were a minority option).  I am probably simplifying somewhat Gemma's excellent arguments and analyses, I think her claim works quite plausibly for the party she probably had in mind in the case of Catalonia---the former Convergencia i Unió, today Partit Democrata de Catalunya.  Convergencia i Unió was in power in Catalonia from 1980 to 2002, and always defended a nationalist (non-independentist) position, when around 2010, with Artur Mas as new leader, they turned pro-independence.

As a native of Barcelona living in the U.S. since 2002, I have followed this process in the distance, and sadly things are getting more and more polarized in recent years.  I also teach Catalan at UIUC, and we discuss this topic in class.  One thing American students seem to be unaware of is that independence for Catalonia has been an option for many decades (although, looking further back in history, it is a relatively new political agenda, starting at the end of the 19th century).  What I strive to do is to explain to my students why precisely NOW independence has become so prominent in Catalonia.  In my mind there is a variety of reasons, but perhaps the economic crisis of 2008 has made many people in Spain look for political alternatives to the overall regime, and independence for Catalonia is one option on the table.