Two months on, the outcome of the messy sequence of events triggered by Catalonia’s independence referendum remains unclear: neither side has secured its desired result and, in their own ways, both have behaved badly. How did Spain arrive at this bitter impasse, and what will happen next in the Catalonia saga? If the optimism of Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish PM, is to be believed, there could be an end in sight very soon. Rajoy, who dissolved the Catalan parliament and called regional elections for December 21, says he is hoping for a restoration of ‘peace and social harmony’ in Catalonia.
Rajoy’s statement, made in a TV interview this week, was a barely-disguised plea to Catalans to put an end to the secessionists’ latest attempt to divorce Spain. Yet the most recent polls suggest that the December elections will be an extremely close-run affair. Catalonia, it seems, has still not fallen out of love with the idea of independence. In
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