Catalonia's 300 years of repression

Today, Saturday January 16, marks three centuries of what is known as the Decree of the “Nueva Planta” which changed the legal and cultural status of Catalonia following the Spanish War of Succession. The Royal Decree legitimised policies that amounted to the repression of citizens with the aim of crushing the Catalan identity, from the elimination of all its institutions, laws and taxation, to establishing the Spanish language as the only language of communication in Catalonia. The decree has never been repealed and therefore can still be considered a current law, and in the words of the historian Jaume Sobrequés, “the first in the history of a dictatorship in Catalonia.”

Many of today's historians and economists who defend the establishment of a Catalan state argue that as the Decree was based on the right of conquest, it should be formally abolished, and as such, should Catalonia secede from Spain, it would simply amount to a return of the sovereignty which was in force prior to the Decree.

With the new king on the throne and the process of creating a single kingdom, the ministers of the Crown ordered that a regime be established which could create a legal system in Catalonia and Valencia, which also shared the same fate as Catalonia. The crux of the new system would be that laws related to Catalonia would be derived from the Crown, removing any legal power from Catalonia. A new municipal and administrative system was imposed that had little to do with the reality of the country. As well, Catalans were required to pay the costs of the setting up of the new system. Existing commercial or guild institutions were abolished and could only be reformed with the blessing and control of the central government.