Catalonia, a New State in Europe

The 11th of september 1714—just under 300 years ago—is a critical date for understanding the Catalan problem of today. On this day the city of Barcelona was defeated and occupied by the troops of the Bourbon army.  The new king, Philip V, subsequently abolished all the rights of the Catalans (by means of the “Nueva Planta” decrees) and lay the foundation for a Spain that was to be centralised in the manner of France under the rule of his uncle, Louis XIV, the Sun King.

This bloody defeat of the Catalan people, who aspired to defend their laws and rights, is etched into their collective memory to the point that the national day of Catalonia is celebrated precisely on this day, the 11th of September.  This is not by some masochistic desire to remember the defeat, but rather based on the need to keep alive the memory of how Barcelona (and with it, Catalonia) was bombed, besieged and invaded by the military force of the enemy, and to ensure that the Catalan people will not forget its freedom or its sovereignty.  In the collective subconscious of the Catalans, the defeat has left a bitter aftertaste which, even after three centuries, has never vanished.  It should also be added that the central power of Spain has never, or almost never, given the Catalans any reason to forget.

So, Catalonia has been invaded and “hispanisised” by the Bourbons; bombarded again by General Espartero in the 19th century; and repressed and humiliated by Primo de Rivera and General Franco, who prohibited all manifestations of Catalan identity, however small, and who with the help of the Gestapo had the President of the Generalitat, Lluís Companys, executed by firing squad in 1940.  Yet it has stubbornly wanted to preserve its roots and has placed the maintenance of its own language and culture at the core of this resistance.  This language and culture, which had its golden era in the 14th century with authors like Ausiàs March and Joanot Martorell (studied at all the important universities in the world), has continued to stay strong and grow into our own time.  As a result, and thanks to the democratic liberalisation following the Constitution of 1978 and the incredible stubbornness of the Catalans, there are all kinds of publications, theatres and television channels in our language today, and Catalan is the teaching language for all the boys and girls going to school in this country, including the pupils arriving here from other places in Spain or the world.

It is undeniable that following the death of Franco Catalonia experienced its most important period of self-government and a return to a certain level of normality with respect to its identity, but, even so, it has not been sufficient.

Catalonia wanted to go further in its process of national reconstruction, so in 2006 its socialist President Pasqual Maragall proposed a new Statute of Autonomy that included important aspects, such as fiscal management, that were not included in the previous Statute (of 1978).  The new Statute was passed by the Spanish Parliament and approved by the Catalan people in a referendum, but was nevertheless taken to the Constitutional Tribunal by the Popular Party.  After four years of deliberations, this heavily politicised tribunal—with several of its members already retired and inactive, and with vacancies left unfilled in order to preserve its political majority—declared the Statute unconstitutional.  The verdict, which a great majority of the judges in the country (for example, Miquel Roca Junyent, father of the Spanish Constitution) considered based on political rather than legal grounds, denied the Catalan people’s status as a nation and introduced a restrictive reinterpretation of the concepts of self-government and sovereignty.  In Catalonia this led to an explosive wave of indignation expressed, for example, by a demonstration of over a million people led by the Catalan government, political parties and trade unions, protesting against the verdict in July 2010.

In the course of these years—and in parallel with all this—the complaints have been growing against the Spanish Government’s tax and budget policies which make Catalonia pay much more money to the central state in taxes than it gets in return in the form of investments.  These policies have resulted in Catalonia being a net financial contributor, both in Spain and in Europe, while it nevertheless finds itself at the back of the queue when it comes to receiving Spanish investments in infrastructure and social policies.  The financial discrepancy—which is what Catalans refer to as Spain’s “fiscal plunder”—currently represents 8% of Catalonia’s GDP, or about 16 billion euros per year, according to figures verified by senior academics at the Universities of Harvard, Princeton and Columbia (Andreu Mas-Colell, Carles Boix i Serra and Xavier Sala i Martín).

In Madrid all this has resulted in a wave of recentralisation based on reinterpreting the principles of the autonomous communities—particularly following the victory of the Popular Party in the Spanish elections of November 2011 (in which it obtained an overall majority of the Spanish parliament).  Day after day we are witnessing the dismantling of the feeble structure of democratically achieved Catalan liberties through all manners of manipulations, broken financial promises, the stoking of anti-Catalan hatred in the other autonomous communities and the systematic denial of the fiscal deficit (without ever releasing the official balances).  A recent example of this process was when the Spanish Minister of Culture, Mr. Wert, said in a plenary session of the Spanish Parliament that “it is necessary to ‘hispanicise’ the Catalan children”, proposing a form of “re-education” all too reminiscent of  the Francoist period.

All this has come in the context of an economic crisis and a time when social and cultural budgets are being cut more and more as each day go by.  Faced with these poor economic and cultural prospects, the Catalan people have organised a broad-based, civil movement—the Catalan National Assembly—(independent of the political parties) and called for a demonstration for independence.  On which day should they hold this demonstration?  Well, on the 11th of September, of course.  The success was spectacular.  One and a half million persons from all over Catalonia came together peacefully and happily in the streets of Barcelona with one banner—”Catalonia, A New State in Europe”—and one call: “Independence!”.

At the moment the situation is this: a great majority of the Catalans are asking for the establishment of their own state, but the reply from the central Spanish state is that according to the constitution this is not possible.  Catalonia wants to be treated in the same democratic manner by Spain as Scotland is by the United Kingdom, and as Quebec is by Canada.  That is, it wants to be able to hold a referendum by which the Catalan people may vote freely and clearly on whether they want independence or not.  If this requires a modification of the Spanish constitution, then so be it, as a democratic majority cannot be silenced by an obsolete law which, by the way, has been changed twice as a result of economic demands from Europe.

The Catalan people finds itself defenceless—unable to defend its democratic and national rights—faced with the refusal of the Spanish state to allow the consultation of the popular will.  It is for this reason that the hopes of the Catalans now rest on the better judgement of the EU and democratic countries in general, so that they may protect, support and promote their most inalienable right: freedom.

Joan Lluís Bozzo
@espremulla
Actor, Director and Writer.