Semantron 20 Summer 2020

The Catalan independence referendum

Henry Collins

The Catalan independence referendum of 2017 was a vote held in October of that year in the Spanish autonomous community of Catalonia. It was called by the government of the region and asked Catalan voters their opinion on the formation of Catalonia as a sovereign state. Even before the referendum took place, it was declared illegal in September 2017 by the Spanish government, on the grounds that it breached the Spanish Constitution. Nevertheless, the vote proceded and the pro-independence side won. The vote was the result of an increasingly assertive call for independence by modern Catalonian political parties, stimulated largely by two major factors. Primarily, following the Spanish financial crisis, nationalist politicians in Catalonia successfully redirected popular anger at austerity towards the Spanish government in Madrid. Moreover, in Barcelona in 2010, Spain’s constitutional tribunal rejected parts of a new statute that would have given Catalonia more autonomy. Globally, these provocations coincided with the cases of Canada-Quebec and the United Kingdom-Scotland – in which governments recognized the democratic principle as the essential foundation of decision-making – which roused pro-independence Catalans. When examining the complexities of the Catalan referendum, the picture that emerges is one of an unresolved, entrenched confrontation between the Catalan and Spanish national projects. Pro-independence Catalans claim that a vote on the matter would be entirely within the basic principles of democracy, the principles outlined in Article 1 of the Constitution. The Spanish government, however, refers to article 2 of the Constitution, which states that the constitution is based on the ‘indissoluble unity of the nation’ . Thus, the government argues that any referendum which aims to break up the nation can have no legal authority. The arguments of both are constitutionally founded yet contradict each other, producing a political deadlock. The central government founded its argument for the illegality of the referendum on the Spanish constitution, which was written in 1978. The constitution doesn’t explicitly allow a referendum where one autonomous region of Spain can decide by itself to break away from the nation. Following the crucial articles, 1 and 2, Catalonia doesn’t exist as a nation with the right to decide its own constitutional future; rather, it exists as part of the ‘indivisible homeland of all Spaniards’ . Spain is a single ‘demos’ formed by ‘all Spaniards’; the Catalans are regarded as a part of that single demos and this automatically deems any attempts to hold a referendum on self -determination in Catalonia illegal. Accordingly, for a legal referendum to take place, either the Spanish parliament would have to change the constitution, or if there was no reform of the constitution, the entire Spanish electorate would need to be consulted on the separation of Catalonia from the nation state. Such a referendum would still require the consent of the central government and must be voted on by all eligible to vote. Thus, the government and Mariano Rajoy argued that Puidgemont, then President of the government of Catalonia, acted illegally when he attempted to force through first the referendum and then the independence of Catalonia.

The s tate’s argument was strengthened further by article 149.1.32 of the constitution, which covers the constitutional regulation of referendums. In particular, this states that only the central state is

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