Independentism in Catalonia

With only about 8000 inhabitants, Arenys de Munt, the small stronghold of secessionist forces near Barcelona, celebrated the first – symbolic, nonbinding – municipal referendum on Catalan independence in 2009 as an act of protest against the Constitutional Court that ruled out the possibility of holding a referendum on self-determination. Promoters could hardly imagine that a few years later, on 10 October 2017, the then president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, would step in front of the Catalan Parliament to declare unilateral independence – even if Puigdemont immediately put the declaration on hold and it was never put into effect. While Catalonia’s immediate bid for independence failed – secessions are indeed rare phenomena – polarization over the territorial framework and the struggle for self-determination in Catalonia continued.