What some refer to as "the Catalan problem" has, for many years now, been Spain's problem. Still, the response from Madrid is to ignore political dialogue and resort to Spain’s Constitutional Court. The alleged arbiter is the same tribunal that struck down the Catalan Statute after it had been approved by the Catalan Parliament, trimmed down by Madrid’s Congress and Senate, and ultimately approved in a referendum by a majority of Catalans. The Constitutional Court’s ruling put an end not only to the Statute, but also to the spirit that the Spanish Constitution once embodied; and, with it, the political pact of the Transition. The PP has done the rest by applying a persistent reversal of the decentralized national model, seasoned with massive doses of contempt.
The pro-independence majority in the Catalan parliament is solid and has the legitimacy of 72 representatives and 48% of votes. This is not only a sentimental majority, but a rational one, a majority that has broken away from the Spanish project and renounced any participation in the country’s regeneration. As a matter of fact, Spain also appears to have given up on its own political regeneration.
President Puigdemont has probably saved another match ball and secured the necessary votes to win the vote of confidence in September. The Catalan independence process will continue to move forward. The latest figures published by the CEO —Catalonia’s government polling body— indicate that the pro-independence majority is clearly making progress, and society’s central spectrum —politically speaking— favors an independence referendum. In any case, politics must be employed. But for this, Spain must understand that it has a problem.
