The regional Government of Catalonia held a referendum on Catalan independence on 1 October 2017, also known as 1-O.
Self-determination is the right people have to determine its own destiny. In particular the principle allows a people to choose its own political status and to determine its own form of economic, cultural and social development. Exercise of this right can result in a variety of different outcomes ranging from political independence through the full integration within a state.
The regional Government of Catalonia held a referendum on Catalan independence on 1 October 2017, also known as 1-O.
This referendum was first called for in June 2017 and was approved by the Catalan parliament in a session on 6 September 2017 along with a law which states that independence would be binding with a simple majority, without requiring a minimum turnout.
Opposition parties refused to participate in the session and called on their voters to boycott the vote, except Catalunya Sí que es Pot who abstained but supports participation.The law is illegal according to the Catalan Statutes of Autonomy which require a two third majority in the Catalan parliament for any change to Catalonia’s status. The referendum itself is also illegal according to the Spanish constitution, Then It was suspended by the Constitutional Court on 7 September 2017, with the Catalan government stating the court order was not valid for Catalonia and proceeding to gather the support of 750 of 948 municipalities of Catalonians, This led to a constitutional crisis in Spain and started a police operation to stop the referendum.
The referendum question, which voters answered with “Yes” or “No”, was “Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic?”. The “Yes” side won, with 2,020,144 (91.96%) voting for independence and 176,565 (8.04%) voting against, on a turnout of 42.58%. So why do catalonians want independence from spain? Here is why : The History of Catalonia is distinct from Spain going back as far as 1,000 years they also speak a different language in the region, Catalan, Before the Spanish Civil War, Catalonia was an autonomous region of Spain, however, their autonomy was suppressed under Franco’s dictatorship from 1939-1975.
During this period, all Catalan institutions were banned and the use of Catalan, the region’s official language was banned. The region experienced a period of rapid economic growth from the 1950s to ’70s and saw it become heavily industrialised and grow as a tourist destination.
When Spain became a democracy in 1975, Catalonia recovered its political and cultural autonomy once again and this is written in the 1979 constitution of Spain as the Statute of Autonomy. Since then Catalonia has slowly tried to achieve greater autonomy and independence from Spain by altering articles of the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia but these efforts have been blocked by the Constitutional Court of Spain. If Catalonia were to become independent it would be the 34th largest economy in the world according to the OECD , the Catalan contribution to the Spanish economy is twice that of the Scottish contribution to the UK.
Note (We received an interesting mail from Enrique, a Young Diplomats reader from Spain, that we believed was important to add at the end of the article)
“The author limits itself saying that they have 1000 years of distinct history while that’s not correct. Catalonian regions and other spanish regions history have always correlated. Catalonia has been a region of their own little years of their history being rapidly associated with the Aragon crown. The alliance of this two crowns will later form the Spanish nation. I am not going to keep explaining all of its history as there is a lot of articles that would explain it better than me. I just want to say that statement is not true.
In Catalonia people speak Spanish and Catalan. You will rarely find someone that doesn’t speak the two. Spain is a country formed with Autonomous regions. Some of these regions share the spanish language with their own cultural language. As in Galicia and the Basque Country among others.
The article also could focus more in the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia since all the powers of the Catalonian government are within it. There were some big changes recently (the new statute of 2006) that lots of people think led to todays situation.
————–
About the Author : David Imoisi student of international relations, 22 years studying in Cyprus
