621Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russian Federation (MGIMO University), 76, Vernadskogo Prosp., Moscow 119454, Russian Federation;
Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences (INION RAS), 51/21, Nakhimovskii Prosp., Moscow 117418, Russian Federation
Abstract. The nationalist movement in Catalonia with its centuries-old history has never gone beyond demanding the expansion of the region’s rights within the Spanish state. In times of the crisis, the situation changed fundamentally: the nationalist sentiments and practices developed into a strong and steadfast separatism movement. Referring to the current legislation, Spanish authorities denied the Catalan government the right to hold a referendum on independence, which it insisted on. That resulted in the legal deadlock and the most acute political crisis in the relations between the sides. After the Catalan authorities unilaterally proclaimed the independence in October 2017, Madrid introduced direct control over the autonomous region dissolving the local parliament and government. The Catalan experience points at the extreme difficulty, if not impossibility, for the part of the state to secede by means of a referendum without an agreement between the ruling regional elite and the central government, without support of the majority of the region’s population and without recognition by the international community. The three points above are missing in the case of Catalan separatism. It is apparently impossible to solve or soften the Catalan crisis only by restrictive and repressive measures. The maintenance of the policy of bans and the refusal to negotiate with independence supporters may pose a risk that the Catalan conflict in its acute phase will become chronic in character, and will be perceived as unresolvable. This will result in growth of alienation, emotional enmity between Catalonia and the rest of Spain, as well as weakening of stability in the European Union. It is significant for further relations between Madrid and Barcelona to recognize the Catalan peculiarity in both financial-economic and political-cultural senses, which is inseparable from the reformation of the Spanish legislation, starting with the 1978 Constitution. Meanwhile, the country is missing broad intraparty and societal consensus necessary for solving this difficult problem. Different opinions are clashing over the question of changing the Spanish territorial model. At the same time, even the alleviation of the problem will not be able to fully solve it. There is no such solution which would satisfy the overwhelming majority of the region’s population. The Catalan problem will continue to be “in-built destabilizer”, Spain’s chronic “malaise” it has to live with.
Keywords: Spain, Catalonia, separatism, unionism, autonomy, referendum, elections, People’s Party, “Ciudadanos”, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party
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