Why Catalonia’s Independence Drive Faded

Note to euroskeptics: the EU is a central reason for it

Gaudi’s oddly still-unfinished masterwork (Dan Perry photo)

The Catalan independence movement once shook Spain to its core, with massive protests, a controversial referendum, and a unilateral declaration of independence that for a few seconds in 2017 turned Barcelona into the capital of a self-proclaimed republic. Yet the movement is losing momentum and descending into irrelevance, not so much because of a change of heart among Catalans but due to a bigger picture.

To begin with, the existing nations which together call the shots have an anti-separatist bias, because many of them are vulnerable: China, Russia, India, Canada and even European countries like Britain, France and Italy all face internal separatist challenges, and the last thing they want is to validate independence movements. The global order is therefore built on the inviolability of borders (though Vladimir Putin forgot about it with Ukraine).

And thus, there was little global opposition to Spain’s decision to lower the boom on the Catalonia movement – jailing for a few years the local leaders who insisted on the 2017 referendum (in which independence handily won). And the national parliament invalidated the Catalonian one’s declaration of independence on the same day, Oct. 27, 2017.

Perhaps the biggest reason this worked out for Spain is the European Union — a political entity that fundamentally alters the calculus of separatism. It’s true that many mock it and Britain left it and it has problems – but it’s critical nonetheless. By binding member nations into a supranational entity, the EU dilutes the urgency of statehood. If everyone is part of the same political and economic structure, the significance of national borders diminishes.

So Catalans live, work, and study freely across Europe, enjoying the benefits of EU citizenship, including economic integration, political representation, and protection of minority rights. In this context, the nation-state becomes an “in-between entity,” whose importance pales compared to the overarching structure. For a place like Catalonia, it basically means that whether or not it is separate from Spain, they are both part of something bigger, and that greater Europeanness can make independence seem quite small.

Is it so terribly unfair?