Is Catalonia better today than in 2017, as the President of the Government assures? The data seems to prove Sánchez right, although the only sure answer is that it could be worse. To do this, it is enough to imagine five more years of a political strategy limited to police action and followed by a judicial artillery whose technique of killing flies with cannon shots has received such critical and public success in all the courts in the rest of Europe. Based on this counterfactual speculation and its foreseeable consequences in the field of public order, the interpretation of the current indicators of the CEO and CIS polls takes on another meaning.
Among the most relevant data, the drop in support for independence has been pointed out, which in the fall of 2017 was close to 50%, almost six points ahead of the rate of opponents of the break with Spain. However, the value of that figure is beyond any comparison with the current correlation. And it is that the events of October five years ago reversed some percentages that only four months before registered a majority of 49% against independence, compared to only 41% in favor of secession.
In short, the substitution of a political strategy for a crude police action has already proven to be an inexhaustible fuel for the radicalization of Catalan society for independence. Almost two years had to pass since the end of 2017, for the waters to calm down and the rejection of the break with Spain to come back to the fore. And even so, the conviction of the Supreme Court, at the end of 2019, momentarily brought the correlation back to the field of the technical tie.
Instead, the approval of the pardons, in June 2021, strengthened the majority against independence. And to this day, supporters of continuity in Spain oscillate between 50% and 52% of those consulted, while support for secession has fallen to just over 40%. In other words, after four years of the “reunion agenda”, support for independence has fallen by more than seven points and, in parallel, the contingent in favor of continuity in Spain has grown by more than six. And most importantly: the number of Catalans who saw the break as the only desirable solution to the territorial conflict has been reduced.
Between October 2017 and April 2018, the number of citizens of Catalonia who bet on independence as the only way out rose to 41%. It had reached 45% in 2014, but a few months before 1-O it fell to 35%. However, after that autumn of unleashed anger, it took two years, until the summer of 2019, to return to the previous percentage of 35%. And, once again, the Supreme Court ruling in the fall of that same year caused a slight rebound, while the pardons of 2021 consolidated the decline of secession as the only formula. Currently, only a third of Catalans defend a break with Spain, compared to 30%, in favor of the current autonomous status quo, and another 20% who would prefer a federal Spain.
Finally, two other indicators also reflect the degree of harmony between Catalonia and the rest of Spain: satisfaction with Spanish democracy and the very identity of the Catalans. In April 2018, after the application of article 155, more than 83% of Catalans felt dissatisfied with democracy. And although that rate had fallen 14 points last March, it currently stands at a dismal 74% (but almost 10 points less than in 2018). Even more important is the evolution of the identity of the Catalans. As of 2012, the percentage of citizens who felt more Catalan than Spanish or only Catalan rose to 51%; that is, almost twice as much as in the 1980s.
In fact, this peak in disaffection with Spain was ten points more than in the most belligerent stage of José María Aznar towards peripheral nationalisms, and up to 20 points more than in the final period of Felipe González. Currently, almost 38% of those consulted feel more or only Catalan, eight points less than in 2017 and a figure similar to that registered with the governments of Rodríguez Zapatero. And most importantly: the percentage of Catalans who also feel Spanish has increased (not counting the 12% who consider themselves more or exclusively Spanish and which has fallen by half since the 1990s).
Today, 44% of the citizens of Catalonia feel as Catalan as they are Spanish, six points more than in 2017 and a figure similar to that registered between 2005 and 2010, under the presidency of Rodríguez Zapatero. What's more, the current percentage is practically the same as it was in 1999, when Aznar still spoke "privately Catalan". A Catalonia, the one of then or the one of now, very different from that of 2017.
