Ratcheting up the tension in an already edgy relationship between the Spanish national government and Catalonia, the restive region in northeastern Spain, the Catalan parliament passed a resolution in which it “solemnly declared the initiation of the process of the creation of an independent Catalan state in the form of a republic.” Or, in other words, secession from Spain. The resolution is unlikely to lead to independence in the immediate future, but it inspired an equally solemn yet hyperbolic response from the central government in Madrid. “The government is not going to let this continue,” Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Monday, announcing that the government would appeal the Catalan motion to Spain’s constitutional court. “We are committed to using all democratic means to defend democracy. We will use only the rule of law, but all the rule of law. Only the law, but all the law; only democracy, but all the force of democracy.”
Today’s vote is the latest outbreak in years—centuries, actually—of tension between Catalonia and the central government in Madrid, and the debate before the vote involved impassioned speeches, both from those who heralded an irreversible “disconnection” from Spain and from those who said that they would allow no one to “expel” them from Spain. Tensions were high.
So is Catalonia leaving?
Not now, at least. Rather than a clear statement of secession—a la the U.S. Declaration of Independence—the Catalan parliament’s resolution is a much more diffuse document, another move in what Teneo Intelligence political analyst Antonio Barroso calls, “the game of chicken between Catalonia and the central government.”
Full Article: Catalonia Votes to Secede from Spain, But Not Yet – Fortune.