The Odd Bedfellows Fighting for Catalan Independence
"The pro-independence movement has all different social sensibilities – from left to right, including pro-liberal, socialist and communist." To further complicate the picture, the broader independence coalition includes a far-left youth movement, Arran, which hopes independence will break the neoliberal economic order
that it also holds responsible for problems like the rising rental prices in Barcelona tied to tourism.
To achieve a pro-independence majority in the Catalan Parliament in 2015, the largest political group at the time – the conservative
and recently renamed Catalan European Democratic Party – ran on a joint election platform with its main left-wing rival, as well as with a minor Christian democratic party and a small group of social democrats.
Eduardo Reyes Pino said that The fact that we don’t all agree on what kind of Catalan republic we want is not a weakness, but proof
that we all want the new Catalonia to be much modern than Spain — and very, very democratic,
In fact, left-wing parties have been spearheading the independence movement since 2015, leaving Mr. Puigdemont
as a captain under the permanent threat of parliamentary mutiny from the Popular Unity Candidacy.
9, 2017
BARCELONA, Spain — What links an anarchist youth group, a conservative party of free marketeers
and a left-wing party committed instead to enhancing the welfare state?
The decision was complicated further on Monday by a stark warning from a spokesman for the governing party of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain
that Carles Puigdemont, the leader of Catalonia, could be charged with insurrection if he declared independence.