Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Recent developments of EU-Catalan relations in the context of the Spanish presidential elections
By Carlo Civitarese, 7 minutes.
1. The role of Catalonia in the 2023 Spanish elections:
Spanish acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez clinched another term in office after his Socialist Party (PSOE) secured the backing of the Catalan separatist party ‘Junts’ to form a government in a deal that the country’s opposition condemned as “a humiliation”.
The post-election landscape was fraught with controversy over the prime minister’s decision to grant an amnesty to the leaders of the 2017 Catalan protests, the actions of whom had been deemed unconstitutional by the government at the time. This was because an autonomous state had been proclaimed without parliamentary approval, prompting Madrid to activate a law that gave it direct control over Catalonia, criminalising the secessionist leaders in the process. Sanchez’s decision was aimed at securing the votes of the Junts. In the build-up to the potential deal between Junts and the Socialists, the mood in the country had become increasingly febrile, with protesters clashing with police outside the Socialists' headquarters in Madrid.
The leader of the right-wing Popular Party Núñez Feijoo, accused Sánchez of “buying his investiture in return for giving his partners judicial impunity” and said Spaniards would not remain silent over the amnesty. Far right Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, described Sánchez’s deal with the Catalan parties as “a coup d’état in capital letters”, as well as a “huge assault on the rule of law”, and said it was the “most delicate moment in Spanish politics in the past 40 years”. Sanchez replied: “I ask them to respect the result at the ballot box and the legitimacy of the government we will soon form”; “I ask them to be brave and to say no to the bear-hug of the far right, and to abandon the reactionary path that they’re currently following towards the abyss”. He also stated that his government would provide for all Spaniards – “for four more years of social progress and coexistence”.
Moreover, Sanchez gave an implicit answer regarding the deal with Catalan secessionists: “Spain can only be governed if her political and territorial pluralisms are recognised”. To further legitimise the rule of his party that the far right consider undemocratic: “The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party is the only political force that can find mediation with all other political forces, apart from the one called Vox”. To answer the “Coup d’Etat” criticism, Sanchez reminded his opponents that the government had been voted in by the majority decision of parliament: “legitimate representatives of the popular will”. Patxi López, parliamentary spokesman for Mr Sánchez’s Socialist Party, claimed that the opposition parties’ anger was not really over the amnesty but over the fact that Spain’s parliament has again elected to support a progressive government, “They do not accept that Pedro Sánchez is the prime minister of this country by legitimate and democratic means,” López said.
Puigdemont, Catalan separatist leader of the 2017 protest, now exiled in Belgium and possibly near to exculpation, hailed the agreement between Junts and the Socialists as a “change of narrative” and a step towards resolving a “historic conflict” between Spain and Catalonia. He told reporters in Brussels that the amnesty offered reparation for what he described as “political persecution” by Madrid, and he guaranteed that it would not be repeated.
2. The EU’s role in the Catalan independence movement:
The 2012 pro-independence demonstrations in Catalonia brought to the attention of the public opinion the salience of the EU for the Catalan secessionist movement. Eleven years later, the EU continues to be an important discursive reference for both pro-independence and pro-unity camps. To the dismay of the partisans of independence, the EU has been relatively unresponsive to demands for intervention and has, in no uncertain terms, sided with the Spanish government to the detriment of the Catalan independence cause. The reason for this can be found in the EU’s general attitude and policy over regional politics: Maintaining by all means the territorial integrity of the state. Despite this, secessionists continue to argue that the issue of national sovereignty cannot be treated as an internal, exclusively Spanish problem, calling for the EU as a mediator. In a 2019 interview published by “The Regional Science Association International”, pro-secessionist participants openly criticised the EU for its indifference. The pro camp was eager to express their desire for EU involvement in the process highlighting the Catalans’ feeling of being European, with some going so far as to suggest that they feel more European than Spanish, “the majority of the citizens of Catalonia feel like European citizens … Catalonia is the most European part of Spain”.
On the other side of the debate, the anti-independence camp had a single perspective about the EU: It should not interfere since it has no jurisdiction over Spanish constitutional matters. Moreover, the anti-independence participants emphasised the secessionists’ misreading of international support given the incompatibility between the movement’s values and the EU integration processes, meaning the aforementioned attention towards territorial integrity.
Catalonia’s EU membership following a potential breakaway is a question the process and outcome of which is, at the moment, uncertain. Catalonia may become a member immediately after becoming a state or, otherwise, may have to undergo lengthy and onerous accession procedures. The EU must be clear about what of the two procedural paths it would undertake in relation to the new sovereign country. This clarity would be important in shaping those supporters of Catalan sovereignty who value the European Union and want Catalonia to remain in the EU. Ultimately, this group may re-evaluate their aspirations of independence and statehood if the latter precludes EU membership. At present, however, national independence looks as improbable as ever, with the recently elected government unlikely to give secessionists any amount of significant leeway after the highly controversial exculpation of its leaders.
3. What now?
The PSOE’s position has always been contrary to independence and harsh towards the movement in general. When the declaration of independence was produced in 2017 the PSOE, at the time the principal opposition party and with Sanchez already at its head, voted in favour of the approval of Article 155 of the constitution, which eliminates autonomous institutions, subjecting them to the central government’s control. This is to say that the recent deal can be regarded as purely circumstantial, by no means a PSOE change in perspective on the Catalan independence movement. The rationale behind Sanchez’s pact was along the lines of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, seeing that a deal with Puigdemont’s party, which despite being right wing is one of the Spanish right’s biggest enemies by virtue of its secessionism, actively marginalises Vox and the PP.
Two months after Sanchez’s investiture the Catalan question found itself again at the centre of Spanish politics. Early in January 2024 the government found itself negotiating with the Catalan party Junts because it threatened to block three important decree-laws, already approved by the Council of Ministers, regarding pensions, unemployment subsidies and allocation of European funds. The Catalans argued that certain sections contained in these measures invaded the competences of their regional government, hindered the hard-fought amnesty, and aggravated Catalan underfunding. Junts deputy Miriam Nogueras negotiated with the executive a pact according to which the Catalan deputies would abstain from voting on the decree-laws in parliament in exchange for greater Catalan self-regulation on immigration and value-added tax. This meant that the only opposition to the decree-laws would be the deputies from Podemos, which managed to block one out of the three proposals.
The new government’s first trial by fire seems a marginal and hard-won battle for Sanchez, which proves Puigdemont’s earlier warning that the president would have to earn the government’s stability day by day by respecting the amnesty agreements. These recent developments, coupled with the impending campaigns for the European elections, showcase the executive’s precarious stability, dependent on the demands of parties like Junts and Podemos.
