The Spanish Government Supports Catalan Separatism

Spain’s ruling, socialist-led coalition has long sought to accommodate regional separatists. 

The aim is, at minimum, to weaken the country’s ability to pursue its geopolitical interests but, in the long-term, facilitating secession may indeed be intended.

This accommodation of separatists occurs in a wider context, with the government:

• Surrendering Spanish influence in North Africa, including the key, strategic, western entry into the Mediterranean (see Surrendering the Sahara part I and part II), as part of what we may describe as its long-term subordinationism to certain foreign interests, including those of the U.S.
• Passing legislation to stop Spain from exploiting its own resources and (re-)developing its industry.

Government acquiescence to pro-independence groups (Junts per Catalunya, Esquerra Republicana, etc.) can therefore be understood as part of this general push to hollow out the nation, even apart from the socialist’s reliance on the votes of Basque and Catalan separatists (who are overrepresented in the national parliament on account of Spain’s gerrymandered electoral map).

A few recent developments are worth highlighting:

• The connection between Soros-funded organisations and the development of an app [mobile application software] meant to facilitate a future independence referendum in Catalonia (an app on whose vote ‘counting’ we would have to rely).
• The government’s recent elimination of anti-sedition laws, following its pardon of those involved in the—according to international observers—fraudulent 2017 independence referendum and subsequent declaration of independence.

With respect to the second point, we should note that laws prosecuting sedition are the norm in Europe. Spanish procedures for regional separation have, until now, been equivalent to those of other countries. Most European constitutions do not consider the independence of their regions to be a ‘right,’ and do not contemplate the partition of its territory by establishing legal means for it. Initiatives towards sedition are impeded by Article 21 of the German constitution, and Article 89 of the French, for example. (In Catalonia, separatist parties enjoy a parliamentary, not an electoral, majority in the region, with local polling showing that supporters of independence are in the minority.)

The Spanish exception is not in the country’s restrictions on regional autonomy, but in its indulgence thereof. Spain is one of the most administratively decentralised members of the EU, conceding more regional competencies to its parts. Such autonomy allowed Catalonia to become one of the most corrupt regions in Spain: under its one-time president Jordi Pujol, 3% of the budget of every public work awarded by the regional government went to his political party. This illegal ‘tax’ has constituted one of the sources of separatist funding.

The connivance of the establishment Left (and, though less explicitly, the Right as well) with the long-term strengthening of separatism has been a feature, not a bug, of Spanish democracy. 

The electoral map of Catalonia was designed to give pro-independence voters more representation, and regional autonomy has allowed them to design a local, public-school curriculum that indoctrinates young people who remain ignorant of Catalonia’s actual history, a history in which this region’s identity has consistently, from the earliest mediaeval sources, been articulated as a subset of Spanish identity. 

Law enforcement groups have now openly criticised the government for “disarming the state” in order to facilitate the country’s breakup and, indeed, it seems we are witnessing a push to conclude a long-term plan to break Spain.