Catalan leader pressured from all sides

By : AFP

Date: 21 October 2017 11:03am WAT

Catalan regional vice-President and chief of Economy and Finance, Oriol Junqueras (2ndL), Spain's King Felipe VI (7thL), Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy (6thL), President of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont (9thR), Spanish vice-President of the Government and Minister of the Presidency and of the Regional Administrations Soraya Saenz de Santamaria (5thL), Barcelona's mayor Ada Colau (8thR), President of the Catalan parliament Carme Forcadell (4thL) and officials observe a minute of silence for the victims of the Barcelona attack at Plaza de Catalunya on August 18, 2017, a day after a van ploughed into the crowd, killing 13 persons and injuring over 100 on the Rambla in Barcelona. Drivers have ploughed on August 17, 2017 into pedestrians in two quick-succession, separate attacks in Barcelona and another popular Spanish seaside city, leaving 13 people dead and injuring more than 100 others. In the first incident, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, a white van sped into a street packed full of tourists in central Barcelona on Thursday afternoon, knocking people out of the way and killing 13 in a scene of chaos and horror. Some eight hours later in Cambrils, a city 120 kilometres south of Barcelona, an Audi A3 car rammed into pedestrians, injuring six civilians -- one of them critical -- and a police officer, authorities said. / AFP PHOTO / JAVIER SORIANO

The battle between Spain’s central government and the separatist leaders of Catalonia escalates day after day, forcing Catalan society to take a stand.

Political parties, football clubs, businesses and civic society groups have picked their side — for or against independence, for or against holding a referendum — and they are all trying to convince Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont.

Football clubs

FC Barcelona, one of the world’s most popular football teams whose motto is “more than a club”, has long been a symbol of Catalan nationalism.

The club says it is neutral on whether Catalans should chose independence but it has been vocal about Catalonia’s right to hold a secession referendum.

Its supporters regularly chant “Independence” at matches at its Camp Nou stadium and during Barcelona’s Champions League match against Olympiakos on Wednesday fans held up a nearly 50-metre banner that pleaded for “Dialogue, Respect, and Sport”

Barcelona’s crosstown rivals Espanyol refused to take a public stand but have said that “today, being brave means to not stir up the conflict in Catalan society.”

Like Barcelona, Girona, another Catalan club in the Spanish first division, backs Catalonia’s right to hold a referendum.

Political parties

During the last regional election in Catalonia in September 2015, three separatist parties won a majority of seats in the regional assembly.

But they are very different.

Puigdemont’s conservative business-friendly PDeCAT party ran together with the left-wing ERC party in a coalition called “Together for Yes”.

Both are moderate and cautious on declaring immediate independence, even if ERC has a harder line than PDeCAT.

But the tiny anti-capitalist CUP party, their ally which holds the balance of power in the assembly, is pressuring Puigdemont to move faster towards an independence declaration.

Pro-unity parties are also divided. Ciudadanos, the main opposition party in Catalonia, along with the Socialists and the conservative Popular Party back the suspension of some of Catalonia’s powers to stop independence.

But the left-wing coalition “Catalunya si que es pot” maintains that dialogue is the way out of the crisis.

Companies

Nearly 1,200 firms have moved their legal headquarters out of Catalonia since the beginning of the month when a banned independence referendum took place, including several listed multinationals.

Of the seven Catalan firms that were part of Spain’s Ibex-35 index of most traded shares before the crisis started, only one — biopharmaceuticals manufacturer Grifols — has kept its headquarters in the region.

The company’s president, Victor Grifols, is one of the few major Catalan entrepreneurs to have spoken out in favour of independence.

In 2014 he urged Puigdemont’s predecessor, Artur Mas, to keep pushing towards independence.

Associations

The leaders of Catalonia’s two major grassroots independence associations, Jordi Cuixart of Omnium Cultural and Jordi Sanchez of the Catalan National Assembly, were remanded in custody on October 16 by a court investigating them for “sedition”.

They are accused of encouraging protesters to block officers from Spain’s Guardia Civil police from leaving a Catalan government building last month in an operation aimed at stopping the referendum on October 1.

Another association, the Sociedad Civil Catalana, says it represents the “silent majority” of Catalans that want to remain in Spain. It staged a massive demonstration in favour of Catalan unity in Barcelona on October 8.