Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced this weekend that his government would invoke Article 155 to depose the current regional government and impose direct rule over Catalonia until new elections can be held in six months. On Friday, the Spanish senate will vote on this response to the Catalonian independence referendum held on October 1. While Catalan President Carles Puigdemont is expected to make an announcement at a Catalonian parliamentary session today. The Cipher Brief’s Fritz Lodge spoke with Marc Gafarot, a Public Affairs consultant and expert on secessionist movements based in Barcelona, about how this crisis may play into the political goals of some leaders in Madrid.
The Cipher Brief: How has the Spanish government’s decision to invoke Article 155 of the Constitution and begin the process towards imposing direct rule changed the Catalonian crisis, and what happens now?
Marc Gafarot: It’s difficult to predict because things are constantly changing one way or the other, but one important point to keep in mind is that Article 155 is very difficult to put into practice because the Catalonian administrative government is quite autonomous.
Only nine percent of the civil servants in Catalonia work for the central government, and the rest work mainly for the regional government of Catalonia or the local municipalities. Similarly, Spanish political parties have very limited direct influence in Catalonia. Ciudadanos – one of the largest Spanish political parties – has no mayors in the region, and the ruling People’s Party [Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s party] has only one affiliated mayor in Catalonia. The health system, education system and many other government functions are also all totally devolved.
Of course, the Spanish government can interfere in the daily operations of Catalan institutions, but to put Article 155 into practice – essentially putting an end to autonomy in Catalonia – this would be very difficult.
In addition, if you want to impose direct control over Catalonia, you need to change legislation, people in government, etc. Six months is not enough for this, but this is the time period that Rajoy has given.
TCB: What is the mood in Catalonia right now? How are people feeling, and has this move by the government driven more or less support for independence?
Gafarot: Everyone talks about independence in different ways. For sure, those who advocate independence are more vocal about all these issues. However, if you would come to Catalonia today, unless you deliberately go to some sort of demonstration, the situation is pretty normal.
People go to the markets, go to work, go to school, little about daily life has changed. But, of course, everyone is talking about it. If you go to a bar or coffee shop in Catalonia, people are discussing the crisis, asking what the Catalonian president is going to do on Thursday when he attends the parliamentary session in the senate. Everyone is talking but the situation is pretty normal.
People have gotten more into politics, and, in the past few years but especially now, people have become more radicalized. For instance, people who leaned towards independence but were not totally convinced, now they are very vocal about it. On the other side, people happy with the status quo may have become more vocally unionist.
But the violence that happened in October between police and Catalans trying to vote in the independence referendum has convinced many people on the pro-independence side that there is no possible return to normalcy within the Spanish state.
TCB: When you think about the parliamentary session that’s going to happen on Thursday and Catalan President Puigdemont’s participation there, what are the best and worst scenarios that you can see coming out of that?
Gafarot: I would say that the majority of people here think Mr. Puigdemont will proclaim independence on Thursday or Friday. But there are also many people who regard Puigdemont and his government as not clear enough. Hardliners say that Puigdemont and his government are not trustworthy, and they have been spreading doubt about his intentions. They argue that at the last second, Puigdemont will pull out and take other actions to avoid the implementation of Article 155.
At the moment, there are many rumors swirling here in Catalonia. In one day, we move from white to black to yellow, it’s very fluid.
TCB: What happens if Puigdemont declares independence, and what would you tell outside observers to look for as the crisis unfolds?
Gafarot: Some people claim that Puigdemont delayed his appearance in the Catalan Parliament due to several phone calls from very important people. I don’t know whether it was Angela Merkel or the ghost of George Washington but this was used to explain why he did not come out with a declaration of independence on October 10.
So they might come up with this kind of excuse again in order to delay an announcement and gather more influence or start a proper dialogue with the Spanish government, perhaps with the goal of moving towards a Scottish-style referendum, which is agreed with the central government for 2018. But this is not the official position of the Catalan government.
What happens if he finally declares independence? Well, of course this would be a big problem between the Spanish and Catalonian governments.
Puigdemont has always presented himself as pro-independence, but he is facing pressure from his own political party. They claim not, but now the reality may be that they are looking for a way out, an excuse to escape Article 155. However, I think that is impossible at this state.
This situation has released a lot of old ghosts in Spain, and I think it is regarded by the Spanish nationalists, particularly in the People’s Party and Ciudadanos but also in the Socialist branch, as a perfect opportunity to establish a proper recentralization of the country. Of course, this is very difficult to reconcile with a more devolved image of the country, which many Catalans felt comfortable with for decades.
So the problem is like a snowball on both sides, it is hard to stop it from getting bigger and bigger. It is a very difficult situation to control. The the more courageous, resolute and resilient player will be the winner.
Should Puigdemont declare independence, Catalonia also has the example of Croatia and Slovenia in the Balkans (Yugoslavia). At first no one was going to recognize them, even the President of EU Commission at the time, Mr. Jacques Delors, made clear that these new countries would never be part of the EU. But after a while, they managed to get some support, and finally they obtain statehood and international recognition.
This crisis is also about being sturdy and patient. New political realities will reap their fruit sooner rather than later, and accommodating these new realities within the international system eventually becomes an acceptable option for the majority of states.
If Puigdemont wants to begin to go down this path, he will need to declare independence. Otherwise, the situation will just get more complicated. If he does not declare, the Spanish government will see this as a clear indication of weakness from the Catalan government, and they will take advantage of this situation. Since the People’s Party looks like it will be in power for the near future, it can be assumed that they will use this opportunity to assert more direct authority over the Catalan government, because in a way, the Catalan government will be seen as traitors who tried to put an end to unified state, which is seen as a sin in the eyes of the nationalists.
