Reasons for the Catalan Crisis

'The elections in February [19]36 was celebrated with [the former Catalan President, Lluís] Companys* and his [Catalan] government [still] in prison, later what followed was the proclamation of the Catalan republic inside the federal Spanish republic.  Then with the victory of the Popular Front [parties] came amnesty [for Companys and the other Catalan politicians].  How it is that history repeats itself, unfortunately with other parameters, but without gun shots, physical violence, and despite the social break (the catalan society is divided in two parts)" '

Carlos Beltran:  former representative in the Madrid CGT / CNT 

GERALD Brenan, the anthropologist and historian (who lived in Spain from 1919 until his death in 1987), in his book 'The Spanish Labyrinth' (1962) wrote:
'Both linguistically and culturally Catalonia was originally an extension of the south of France rather than a part of Spain and, under the rich merchant class which ruled it during the Middle Ages, it acquired an active, enterprising character and a European outlook very different from that of its semi-pastoral neighbours on the interior plateaux.'

More recently in 2006, after lengthy negotiations a Socialist PSOE government had agreed a Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia that devolved further powers to the Catalan region in 2006.

This statute was put to a vote in the Spanish and Catalan parliaments and it was endorsed in a referendum in Catalonia.  At that stage, support for Catalan independence stood at just 14 percent. The conservative People’s Party (PP), then in opposition, promised to reverse the statute unilaterally and took the issue to the Constitutional Court. In 2010, the court struck down a large part of the statute.  The response in Barcelona was a huge demonstration of more than a million people under the slogan  'We are a nation. We decide.'

The following year, Rajoy’s PP won an outright majority in the general election.

As a consequence, the Catalan government and its supporters were annoyed and attempted to negotiate with Rajoy about what should happen next.  Rajoy refused to engage.  The results were to drive up support for independence, increased success for separatist parties in regional elections, the first of a series of attempts to hold a referendum on independence, and the replacement of the Catalan government’s centrist leader Artur Mas by the more radical Carles Puigdemont.  Thus it was Rajoy and his refusal to negotiate that almost single-handedly brought about the election of a majority-separatist government in Catalonia in 2016.

Meanwhile, a Madrid judge has jailed eight MPs involved in the Catalan government that had declared independence.   


Now with television channels showing images of police vans with flashing blue lights said to be taking the former ministers to different prisons, Catalans took to the streets in anger and disbelief.
There were protests in front of the Catalan parliament in Barcelona, the regional capital, with police estimating a crowd of 20,000.  Others gathered outside town halls across the region including 8,000 people in both Girona and Tarragona.

Marta Rovira, a lawyer and Catalan separatist lawmaker, briefly broke down in tears as she spoke to reporters in Madrid after the announcement of the detentions.
'The Spanish state is a failed state, a state that has failed democratically," she said. "I'm convinced we won't surrender, we won't, we will fight until the end.'

Carles Puigdemont, the fugitive former president of Catalonia, on Sunday handed himself over to Belgian police before a European arrest warrant invoked by a Spanish judge triggered his capture and detention.

Today, the Belgian vice-premier and interior minister stated that Madrid had overreacted and all efforts must be made to ensure that Mr Puigdemont and his colleagues get a fair trial if he is returned to Spain. Jan Jambon, who criticised the “silence” of the European Union on the issue, said:  'I am just questioning how a European Union member state can go this far and I am asking myself whether Europe is to have an opinion on this.'

*   Lluís Companys i Jover (Catalan pronunciation: [ʎuˈis kumˈpaɲs]; 21 June 1882 – 15 October 1940) was a leftist politician. He was the President of Catalonia (Spain), from 1934 and during the Spanish Civil War.
He was a lawyer and leader of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) political party. Exiled after the war, he was captured and handed over by the Nazi secret police, the Gestapo, to the Spanish State of Francisco Franco, who had him executed by firing squad in 1940. Companys is the only incumbent democratically elected president in European history to have been executed.^{[3][4] [5]}

^*******