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ANALYSIS: Spanish government crushes Catalan independence dreams – at a high price

Europe has had a rocky ride with referendums in recent years: think of Greece’s anti-austerity vote in 2015, or the Brexit shock and Italy’s failed constitutional referendum in December 2016. As the UK found with the 2014 Scottish independence vote, even holding a referendum at all can be highly destabilising to the traditional political order and political party systems.

ANALYSIS: Spanish government crushes Catalan independence dreams – at a high price
Photos: AFP

But something different happened in Catalonia on October 1st 2017: a referendum that in practice wasn’t a referendum at all. It was considered a referendum by the supporters of Catalan independence, but not their opponents – the Spanish government – who called it “illegal” – for the EU, or any known government in the world.

The reported 42.3 percent turnout and near-90 percent vote for independence do not carry any meaningful legitimacy. Even for those who did turn out, anything approaching normal voting was prevented by a heavy and at times violent Spanish police presence.

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Still, this doesn’t mean the vote isn’t destabilising. The events of October 1st mark a turning point in the ever-growing – but containable – dispute between the government in Madrid, led by the conservative Popular Party, and the pro-independence coalition of parties in Catalonia’s regional government. Since mass pro-independence protests of 2012, the dispute between Madrid and Barcelona has simmered along as a low-intensity political conflict.

The Catalan elections of September 2015 gave an ambiguous result, and the referendum on independence was launched as the mechanism to break the deadlock.

But Madrid refused to accept the legitimacy of any such vote, and promised to block it by all legal means. Even as tensions rose to their highest level yet in September 2017, the Madrid stock market seemed impervious to the apparent turbulence in the weeks leading up to the referendum. This was because nobody seriously believed Spain really was about to lose a fifth of its economy, which is what Catalonian independence would really mean.

Yet still, the independence side made a serious noise, and Madrid was rattled enough to send thousands of police officers to Catalonia with the express intention of stopping the vote.


Oh no you don't.Riot police try and clear a polling station in Barcelona. Photo: AFP

In the days leading up to the referendum, police confiscated millions of ballot papers, blocked websites related to the referendum, and warned a range of public officials of the danger of breaking the law. The day of the vote itself saw a very heavy police presence, with high drama and tension giving way to outright violence: police forced polling stations to close, charged into crowds of protesters, and even fired rubber bullets.

But for all the Catalan government’s promises, the vote failed to be a true reflection of opinion, and its legitimacy is highly questionable.

Pyrrhic victories

The referendum legislation setting October 1st as the date was only formally passed by the Catalan parliament on September 6 2017, barely four weeks before the vote was due. There was no referendum campaign in any real sense. Opponents of independence simply did not campaign, instead boycotting the referendum or simply ignoring it. There was no serious public discussion or debate over the merits of “yes” or “no”, and the pro-independence side was always guaranteed a victory: pro-independence voters are not only the most committed to turning out, but they are the only ones committed to the legitimacy of a referendum. That means there’s a very high correlation between simply turning up to vote and voting “yes”.

Ballot papers were distributed widely in the week leading up to the vote and the Assemblea Nacional Catalana (Catalan National Assembly), the major pro-independence organisation, issued over 1m to its supporters. The Catalan government’s parliamentary spokesman, Jordi Turrull, even called on voters to download their own ballot papers from a government website. These actions gravely undermined the seriousness and credibility of the vote in the days leading up to it.


Still dreaming? People gather in Barcelona's Plaza Catalunya after the vote. Photo: AFP

By the time of the vote itself, the Catalan government seemed to accept that a meaningful referendum was no longer possible, and as the day unfolded, it instead became a show of the civic strength of Catalan independence. The Spanish government, meanwhile, demonstrated that it retains full legal and political control of Catalonia. Crudely speaking, Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, got his wish: he promised a referendum would not occur, and his government successfully ensured that what transpired on the day was too incoherent and chaotic to be legitimate.

But this victory comes at a very high price. Rajoy’s government hoped to prevent the vote without police sequestering ballot boxes using violent tactics on ordinary people; instead, the spectacle of police preventing people from voting and firing rubber bullets at protesters, by some reports injuring up to 900, has done deep damage to Spain’s international credibility, and helped poison relations between Catalonia and Madrid even further.

The referendum-that-wasn’t may be over, but the stakes remain high. In the weeks and months to come, the crisis could lead to the fall of the Spanish government, and the Catalonian one at that. The dream of an imminent independent Catalan state has been shattered for now, but those Catalans who support independence are now more alienated from Spain than ever.

By Andrew Dowling, Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies, Cardiff University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

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ANALYSIS

Will Spain have a sixth coronavirus wave?

While Covid infections are rising across Europe, Spain has managed to keep cases and hospitalisations low so far this autumn. But there are already signs things may be changing. 

people walk without masks on ramblas barcelona during covid times
Spain’s epidemiological situation is the most favourable in the EU and a sixth wave but will there be a sixth wave? Photo: Pau Barrena/AFP

Coronavirus cases have been rising quickly across Europe since October but not so in Spain, which has maintained one of the lowest infection, hospitalisation and death rates on the continent. 

According to prestigious medical publication The Lancet, Spain could well be on the verge of reaching herd immunity, a statement the country’s Health Minister tends to agree with.  

READ ALSO: Has Spain almost reached herd immunity?

Add the favourable epidemiological indicators to the almost 80 percent rate of full vaccination of Spain’s entire population and the immunity claim doesn’t seem so far-fetched. 

But if there’s one thing this pandemic has taught governments around the world – or should have – is to not assume Covid-19 can be eradicated after a few encouraging weeks. 

Not that Spain is letting down its guard, the general public continues to take mask wearing in indoor spaces seriously (outdoors as well even though not required in many situations) and there are still some regional restrictions in place. 

READ MORE: What Covid-19 restrictions are in place in Spain’s regions in November?

And yet, Covid infections are on the rise again, although not at the pace seen during previous waves of the virus. 

On Thursday November 4th Spain re-entered the Health Ministry’s “medium risk” category after the national fortnightly infection rate surpassed 50 cases per 100,000 people.

From Friday 5th to Monday 8th, it climbed five more points up to 58 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. 

It’s the biggest rise since last July but this shouldn’t be cause for alarm, especially as hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths all remain low and steady.

A closer look at the stats shows that 1.52 percent of hospital beds across the country are currently occupied by Covid patients, 4.41 percent in the case of ICU beds. 

Daily Covid deaths in October were under 20 a day, the lowest rate since August 2020. 

With all this in mind, is a sixth wave of the coronavirus in Spain at all likely?

According to a study by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, Spain will have a sixth wave.

The Seattle-based research group predicts an increase in infections in Spain from the second half of November, which will skyrocket in December reaching the highest peak towards the end of the year. 

The country would reportedly need about 24,000 beds for Covid patients (4,550 for critical ones) and there would be almost 2,000 deaths. 

Increased social interactions would mean that on December 30th alone, daily Covid infections in Spain could reach 92,000, the study claims. 

If restrictions were tightened ahead of the holiday period, including the use of face masks, the sixth wave’s peak wouldn’t be as great, IHME states

It’s worth noting that the IHME wrongly predicted that Spain wouldn’t be affected by a fifth wave whereas it ended up causing more than a million infections and 5,000 deaths. 

two elderly women in san sebastian during covid times
The vaccination rate among over 70s in Spain is almost 100 percent. Photo: Ander Guillenea/AFP
 

The latest message from Spain’s Health Minister Carolina Darias is that currently “the virus is cornered” in the country, whilst admitting that there was a slight rise in cases. 

“I do not know if there will be a sixth wave, but first we must remember that immunisation is not complete in all patients despite vaccinations,” Dr. José Polo , president of the Spanish Society of Primary Care Physicians (Semergen), told El Periódico de España

“That’s because 100 percent effectiveness doesn’t exist in any drug, or in any medicine”.

Despite having one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, Spain still has around 4.2 million eligible people who haven’t been vaccinated, mostly people aged 20 to 40. 

The majority of Covid hospitalisations across Spain are patients who have not been vaccinated: 90 percent in the Basque Country, 70 percent in Catalonia and 60 percent in Andalusia.

Among Covid ICU patients, 90 percent of people in critical condition across all regions are unvaccinated. 

“Although there are many people vaccinated in Spain, there will be an increase in cases because we know how the virus is transmitted and when the cold comes and the evenings are darker we will tend to go indoors, and the virus spreads there,” Cesar Carballo, Vice President of the Spanish Society of Emergency Medicine of Madrid, told La Sexta news.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already warned that Europe is at a  “critical point of regrowth”  and that it has once again become the “epicentre”  of the pandemic, due to the generalised spike in cases in recent weeks.

Does that mean that Spain’s daily infections won’t be in the thousands again as winter nears? Or that regional governments won’t reintroduce Covid measures ahead of Christmas to prevent this from happening?

Nothing is for certain, but as things stand Spain’s epidemiological situation is the most favourable in the EU and a sixth wave seems unlikely, but not impossible.

The Spanish government continues to push ahead with its vaccination campaign, reopening its vaccination centres, administering booster shots to its most vulnerable and considering vaccinating under 12s to meet an immunity target of 90 percent. 

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