Catalonia

Spain’s northeastern corner

Catalonia is a triangle in the northeast of Spain, made up of the provinces of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona. The Pyrenees separate it from France and Andorra to the north, the Mediterranean is to the east, and Aragon and Valencia are to the west and south.^[1]

It is the richest and most industrialised part of Spain. Most people live along the coast, especially in and around Barcelona, while the interior has been losing people.^[1]

A principality that lost its autonomy in 1714

At the end of the 8th century Charlemagne made the area the Spanish March, ruled by a count. From 1137 the counts of Barcelona shared a ruler with Aragon, and Catalan merchants dominated trade in the western Mediterranean in the 13th and 14th centuries.^[1]

After Spain was united, Catalonia kept its own institutions, the Generalitat among them.^[1] It revolted in 1640 and put itself under the protection of Louis XIII of France, but the revolt was put down in the 1650s. In the War of the Spanish Succession it backed the losing side, and in 1714 the Bourbon king Philip V abolished its constitution and autonomy.^[1]

In the 1850s a movement called the Renaixença (“Rebirth”) revived Catalan as a written language with its own press and theatre, and Catalan nationalism grew into a political force.^[1]

Won, lost and won again

Catalonia won a slight degree of autonomy by 1913, but the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera repealed it in 1925. Under the Second Republic a statute of autonomy became law in September 1932.^[1] General Franco’s victory in the civil war in 1939 ended it, and his government suppressed Catalan nationalism.^[1]

After Franco’s death, limited autonomy came back in September 1977, and the statute of 18 December 1979 set up today’s autonomous community.^[1] Spain’s 1978 constitution is based on “the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation” but guarantees self-government to its “nationalities and regions”. It makes Castilian the state language and lets other languages be official in their regions under their statutes.^[2]

A new statute in 2006 called Catalonia a nation and gave it more control over taxes. In 2010 Spain’s Constitutional Court struck down parts of it, ruling that Catalans were a “nationality” but that Catalonia was not itself a “nation”.^[1]

The push for independence

In the euro-zone debt crisis many Catalans wanted more control over their own money.^[1] On 9 November 2014 the regional president, Artur Mas, held an informal, non-binding vote on independence that Madrid had challenged in court. More than a third of registered voters took part, and over 80% of them backed independence.^[1]

President Carles Puigdemont called a binding referendum for 1 October 2017. Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled it illegal.^[3] Spanish police seized ballot papers beforehand, and on the day riot police used batons and rubber bullets to keep people out of polling stations. More than 900 would-be voters and dozens of police were hurt.^[1] Catalan officials put turnout at about 42%, with 90% for independence; Britannica calls those figures approximations at best.^[1]

On 27 October 2017 the Catalan parliament voted to declare independence. The Spanish Senate, by 214 votes to 47, let Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy use Article 155 of the constitution, which allows the national government to compel a region that breaks the constitution.^[1][2] Rajoy dismissed the Catalan parliament and called new elections, and Puigdemont left for Belgium.^[1] Self-government was restored in June 2018.^[1]

“The Constitution is based on the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation, the common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards; it recognizes and guarantees the right to selfgovernment of the nationalities and regions of which it is composed and the solidarity among them all.”^[2]

Trials, pardons and an amnesty

In October 2019 Spain’s Supreme Court sentenced nine Catalan officials and activists to 9 to 13 years in prison for sedition. The government of Pedro Sánchez pardoned them in June 2021.^[1]

On 30 May 2024 Spain’s parliament passed an amnesty law by 177 votes to 172, with the support of two Catalan separatist parties. It covered people facing prosecution over the independence bid, including Puigdemont, and police officers charged over their actions.^[3]

Separatist parties had run Catalonia’s government since 2012. In the election of 12 May 2024 they lost their majority, and the Socialists under Salvador Illa won 42 of the 135 seats.^[4][1] Illa was sworn in as president on 10 August 2024. Days earlier Puigdemont had briefly come back to Barcelona to give a speech, then left Spain again.^[5]