Not only possible, but also necessary

There are still those who main­tain that the in­de­pen­dence of Cat­alo­nia from Spain is not pos­si­ble. How­ever, the in­de­pen­dence of Cat­alo­nia is not only pos­si­ble from an eco­nomic, legal and po­lit­i­cal point of view, but it is ab­solutely nec­es­sary for the peo­ple of Cat­alo­nia and also for Eu­rope and the world.

It has been ar­gued that Cat­alo­nia is too small to be vi­able as an in­de­pen­dent state. Nev­er­the­less, in Eu­rope, the coun­tries with the high­est per capita in­come are rel­a­tively small. And Fin­land, a coun­try in the Eu­ro­pean Union with a pop­u­la­tion of 5.5 mil­lion, less than Cat­alo­nia, this year has been named the hap­pi­est coun­try in the world for the sec­ond year in a row, ac­cord­ing to the World Hap­pi­ness Re­port of the United Na­tions.

From the eco­nomic point of view, it is clear that with the elim­i­na­tion of the large fis­cal deficit with the Span­ish state of 8% of the an­nual gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GDP) on av­er­age, even if state struc­tures that have not ex­isted until now have to be paid for, the gain would be con­sid­er­able. Nobel lau­re­ates such as G. Becker, E. Kyd­land and J. Stiglitz have stated the eco­nomic vi­a­bil­ity of the Cata­lan state. On the con­trary, re­main­ing part of Spain sup­poses se­ri­ous eco­nomic dam­age for Cat­alo­nia. The plun­der ex­em­pli­fied by the big fis­cal deficit of more than 16 bil­lion euros each year is pro­gres­sively im­pov­er­ish­ing it.

With re­gard to in­ter­na­tional law, the right of na­tions to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion is recog­nised in the Char­ter of the United Na­tions. Spain rat­i­fied it and also the in­ter­na­tional covenants where the right of peo­ples to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion is en­shrined. And the Span­ish Con­sti­tu­tion in ar­ti­cles 10.2 and 96 obliges re­spect for rat­i­fied in­ter­na­tional agree­ments. And also quite clear is the will of the Cata­lan peo­ple to self-de­ter­mine. In the past decade, we have seen the largest demon­stra­tions in Eu­rope in re­cent times in favour of in­de­pen­dence, while suc­ces­sive elec­tions to the Par­lia­ment of Cat­alo­nia have been won by the par­ties which de­clared for in­de­pen­dence. More­over, a de­mo­c­ra­tic ref­er­en­dum was held on Oc­to­ber 1, 2017, in which 90% of the votes were in favour of Cat­alo­nia’s in­de­pen­dence from Spain.

And in ac­cor­dance with this will ex­pressed at the polls, the Par­lia­ment of Cat­alo­nia pro­claimed the in­de­pen­dence of Cat­alo­nia on Oc­to­ber 27, 2017. It was a uni­lat­eral procla­ma­tion, but there are many cases. A re­cent ex­am­ple would be Kosovo, which is al­ready recog­nised by the vast ma­jor­ity of Eu­ro­pean Union states.

Fi­nally, there are those who say that the in­de­pen­dence of Cat­alo­nia is not pos­si­ble be­cause Spain is too strong. And so far the re­pres­sion against the Cata­lan peo­ple has had some ef­fect and con­tra­dic­tions have been ac­cen­tu­ated within the in­de­pen­dence move­ment. But the out­dated Span­ish im­pe­ri­al­ism has shown its weak­ness be­cause it can­not offer any­thing bet­ter to the Cata­lan peo­ple than colo­nial re­pres­sion, im­pov­er­ish­ment and cul­tural geno­cide. In ad­di­tion, nowa­days Spain is in a very weak eco­nomic sit­u­a­tion, which has its roots not in Covid-19 but above all in the struc­tural in­ef­fi­ciency and cor­rup­tion that char­ac­terise it.

On the other hand, if Eu­rope con­tin­ues to tol­er­ate the anti-de­mo­c­ra­tic and dic­ta­to­r­ial be­hav­iour of Spain, which has car­ried out mas­sive human rights vi­o­la­tions in Cat­alo­nia, de­nounced by many in­ter­na­tional en­ti­ties and ob­servers, the Eu­ro­pean Union, which is based on democ­racy and human rights, will dis­in­te­grate. There­fore, the in­de­pen­dence of Cat­alo­nia is not only ab­solutely nec­es­sary for the Cata­lan peo­ple, but also for the Eu­ro­pean Union and all de­moc­rats.