Is Catalonia’s independence movement dead in the water? Elections held in the region on Sunday reveal that support for separatist parties dropped significantly. Between them, the hard-line Junts per Catalunya, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and two small separatist parties only managed 61 seats – of which 35 went to Junts. In the regional parliament, 68 seats are required for a majority.
This is an anticlimatic end to an impassioned, and at times dramatic, saga for the region. On 27 October 2017, confident that the European Union would welcome a new, freedom-loving net-contributor to its budget, Catalonia boldly declared itself ‘an independent and sovereign state’. But rather than a warm welcome, the European Union gave the region the cold shoulder, siding instead with Madrid.
Sánchez has already ruled the referendum out (though few, of course, now trust his promises)
Slowly the realisation dawned on the separatists responsible for Catalonia’s attempted dash to freedom that the moment the region ceased to be part of Spain it would also cease to be part of the EU – a prospect too terrible, it turned out, to be contemplated.
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