Is Catalonia About to Go All In?
An extremely high-stakes game of political poker, not just for Catalonia and Spain but for Europe.
For a nation that doesn’t officially exist, Catalonia sure knows how to throw a national-day party. September 11, approximately 1.4 million people filled the streets of the region’s capital, Barcelona (urban population: 1.6 million), to commemorate La Diada, the fateful day 301 years ago when Catalonia was defeated during the War of the Spanish Succession.
This year’s event was widely praised, even among some unionists, for its near flawless organization, and once again the atmosphere was one of peaceful joviality, resolute defiance and collective hope.
Here are some photos I took in the evening after the march, at an event held in our neighborhood. In the first one, you can see a Castellers (human tower):
In the second one you can see the “Arc de Triomf” in the background, with a massive independence flag swaying in the breeze:
But now the festivities are over, and the really hard work of nation building begins. Hope, catchy slogans, and huge demonstrations alone are not enough to create a new nation.
Institutions of State
A nation needs a viable economy, which Catalonia already has; it needs international acceptance and recognition, which could be a much higher mountain to climb, especially given the threat posed by separatist movements in other European countries (France, Italy, the UK, Belgium); and it needs the basic organs and institutions of state. According to Catalonia’s premier, Artur Mas, these are now under development.
“One crucial task for the next government will be to create the state structures that will succeed those of the Spanish state: the tax authority, for example, which we have already worked on for the past year and a half, or social security or the central bank,” he told the Financial Times.
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