Catalonia Independence Bid Pushes Spain Toward Crisis
This time, Catalonia’s government has promised that the referendum will be binding, even if it is declared illegal by Spain’s constitutional court
and even if Catalan opponents of independence boycott it.
In response, Carles Puigdemont, the leader of Catalonia, told Catalan television that no politician or court in Madrid could stop the referendum.
Josep Borrell said that Having better macroeconomic data doesn’t mean people have more to spend and feel better off,
Separatist leaders now face fines and suspension from office if they go ahead with the referendum, which
has been declared illegal by the central government in Madrid, with the support of Spanish courts.
The move only fueled the sense in Catalonia — Spain’s most economically powerful region — that Madrid was unfairly sucking away its wealth.
Monday’s Catalan national day commemorates a Catalan defeat at the hands of Madrid: the 1714
capture of Barcelona by the troops of Philip V, the first Bourbon monarch of Spain.