Fired up by Scotland’s looming independence referendum, nationalists in Catalonia vowed to throng the streets yesterday for noisy protests to demand their own vote on breaking away from Spain.
Scotland’s referendum on Thursday next week has put the wind in the sails of nationalists in this northeastern Spanish region who want to seize sovereignty of their land from Madrid.
“If a nation such as Scotland can vote, why not Catalonia?” said regional President Artur Mas, who has defied Madrid by calling a vote on Catalan independence for Nov. 9.
Photo: Reuters
“If the Catalan population wants to vote on its future, it’s practically impossible to stop that forever,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.
The Scottish vote was due just a week after the most sensitive day of the year for Catalonia: yesterday’s Diada, the annual Catalan national commemoration.
Spain’s national government fiercely opposes any move toward independence for Catalonia. It has branded the planned vote illegal and vowed to block it.
“I think it’s absurd to pretend that [the illegality of the vote] could be so and I think the Spanish government will have to realize that,” Mas said.
He said Scotland’s vote could smooth the way for Catalonia on its own drive for independence.
EU officials have said that breaking away to form new states would leave Scotland and Catalonia automatically out of the EU, but Mas said: “If the ‘Yes’ wins, I am sure there will be negotiations very quickly, even immediately, to try to keep Scotland in the EU.”
The Diada marks what many in the region see as the day Catalonia lost its autonomy: Sept. 11, 1714, when Barcelona fell to Spanish and French forces in the War of the Spanish Succession.
Mas kicked off commemorations on Wednesday evening to mark the 300th Diada by laying a wreath at a mass grave for Catalans killed in the 1714 siege of Barcelona.
On Thursday afternoon, supporters of independence were to mass along two central Barcelona avenues in the shape of a giant letter V for “vote,” which they hope will stretch for 11km.
Organizers say more than half a million people signed up for the demonstration, which aimed to fill the streets with red and yellow Catalan flags.
“Three hundred years ago, they took away our freedom by force. Now we will get it back by votes,” said Ramon Puig, a retired banker of 66.
Proud of their distinct Catalan language and culture, many of Catalonia’s 7.5 million inhabitants feel shortchanged by the national government in Madrid, which redistributes their taxes. Catalonia accounts for a fifth of Spain’s economy, but it was hard hit by the 2008 financial crisis, fueling a surge in pro-separatist sentiments.
Opponents of secession think cutting themselves off from Spain would be an economic disaster.
The Catalan Civil Society movement called for a rival gathering in the town of Tarragona, outside of Barcelona, on Thursday to denounce independence as a “dead end.”
Secession “does not make sense economically, it is not justified politically and it divides us socially,” society vice chairman Joaquim Coll said.
The vote “cannot and will not take place,” Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in July.
Mas has vowed to pass a regional law that he says would allow him to push ahead with the “consultation,” but his efforts risk being thwarted by Spain’s Constitutional Court.
“We have never been so close to breaking free,” Ramon’s wife, Pepita Puig, 64, said holding a red-and-yellow Catalan flag she had just bought for the demonstration.
“It’s now or never,” she added.
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