Catalonia's independence campaign after a collapsed government: 'Momentum is clearly gone'

The future of Catalonia's independence campaign is completely up in the air after the government collapsed on October 7, after junior coalition partner Junts decided to leave the cabinet.

"The momentum is clearly gone," Ernesto Pascual, Doctor in political science at Barcelona's Autonomous University, said during an interview with Catalan News. 

"Painful or not, the truth is that there have been several phases in the road to independence," he said explaining the full swing seen during 2017, months ahead and after the independence referendum that took place on October 1.

For him, that time has long passed and "is very painful for all the people who had high hopes on the idea of an independent Catalonia," he added as "this will not come true in the short term" as a reconstruction of the movement "is needed in order to be a better project."

But the future of Catalonia's independence movement did not derail because of the government collapse. 

Listen to our Filling the Sink podcast episode published on October 15, 2022 to learn more about the reasons behind the government's collapse.

It all started during the 2017 independence push as it created "a collective excitement in a part of Catalonia," however, the failure to exit Spain disappointed many, and "this disappointment has to be managed," Pascual told this media outlet.

While back then Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), currently the solo governing party of Catalonia, and far-left CUP pushed for a more "unilateral" push, Junts per Catalunya preferred to "be more pragmatic."

Now, this has changed as ERC became more practical when Pere Aragonès became the Catalan president, while Junts moved to a more confrontational approach, Pascual highlighted.

Solo governing party

After Junts per Catalunya decided to leave the cabinet, in response to Aragonès sacking their highest-ranking member in the executive, Jordi Puigneró, who acted as vice president, territory, and digital policies minister, the future is completely uncertain.

"There is no tradition of minority governments in Catalonia, so everyone's effort to negotiate is required now," Ernesto Pascual said. 

One of the first moves from Aragonès was to "appoint ministers that come from different political backgrounds from his and that cover all the range of the old Catalan politics," this political analyst added.

These upcoming months will be crucial to see how the new cabinet works, as one of the main challenges ahead is the 2023 budget that will need to be greenlighted in parliament. ERC only has 33 MPs out of 135 seats, so it will need to negotiate with several parties to get them approved.

But, if the government does not succeed and gets a spending plan for 2023, "it will not be as complicated as it may seem, as Catalonia already has had situations where budgets were not approved," Ernesto Pascual said.

What indeed may complicate governing solo for the rest of the legislature, around 2.5 more years, are the upcoming Spanish elections, expected by the end of 2023, and the local elections scheduled for May.

If the "Spanish government changes and the People's Party and right-wing Vox get a majority, the Catalan government's backbone would tumble," Pascual explained.

"The Socialists would be forced to try to gain more power in Catalonia. This is a real possibility," which may end up pushing Esquerra to ask "far-left CUP and other nationalists for support arguing that the Spanish government will suppress their rights," this political analyst said.

But even if the independence campaign is far from levels seen in 2017, the "independence sentiment will not disappear, because this is now ingrained in the collective conscience," Pascual concluded.