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ARCHIVED - Spanish region of Catalonia could have a new referendum on independence in 2023
Last time the Catalans tried to secede from Spain in 2016, the top brass were jailed for treason; now a new, legally binding referendum could be on the cards
The President of the Generalitat of Spain’s Catalonia Region, which includes Barcelona, said on Monday December 26 in his Christmas message that “2023 has to be the year to give shape to the Catalan proposal for a clear agreement” for a referendum on Catalan independence.
Pere Aragonès urged Catalans to reach a pact among themselves “on when” the community “must be able to exercise its right to decide again” and “under what conditions it must vote again”.
“It is time to open the way again,” he said.
The Catalonia region of Spain has a fierce sense of independence, and a culture and language all its own (as many other regions of Spain do). In 2016, then President Carles Puigdemont launched a unilateral referendum on independence for Catalonia from Spain, which was not officially sanctioned by the central government in Madrid.
That informal referendum came out in favour of independence, making Catalonia a separate country in the eyes of Catalan leaders. However, many of these were subsequently jailed for the crime of sedition and trying to subvert the mandate of the State and the Crown, while Puigdemont went into exile in Brussels.
Speaking from the National Library of Catalonia, Aragonès stressed the need to “open a new phase of negotiation” with Spain’s central government and “find a solution to the political conflict at its source”.
“It is the responsibility” of the government and the Generalitat, he said, “to build, through dialogue, negotiation and agreement, a democratic path that includes everyone, to make it possible for the citizens of Catalonia to decide the future of the country”.
Could Catalonia really become an independent nation in 2023?
More than just empty rhetoric, Aragonès’s words may have some truth to them as “the crime of sedition for which the political prisoners were convicted no longer exists” after the central government in Madrid effectively repealed it and reduced the prisoners’ sentences barely a month ago, likely as a political 
move to gain support from Catalan separatist parties as possible coalition partners in the 2023 general elections.
move to gain support from Catalan separatist parties as possible coalition partners in the 2023 general elections.At the same time, the Spanish government is positioning its own judges in the Constitutional Court who might be sympathetic to interpreting certain elements of the Spanish constitution in such a way as to make a Catalan referendum possible. Opposition parties are strongly against such a move, of course, claiming it undermines the impartiality of the Constitutional Court.
Such political manoeuvring certainly points to the possibility of a new referendum being on the horizon, but in public statements the government has gainsaid this, claiming it will never support an independence referendum for Catalonia.
In fact, they have backed up this statement by refusing to support independence for Scotland within the EU without the rest of the United Kingdom as this would pave the way for Catalonia to claim precedent and unilaterally declare independence for itself.
Time will tell which way the fickle political winds blow in Spain in 2023, but if the ruling Socialist PSOE parties wins the elections and forms another coalition government in November, we could see some form of separation from Spain for Catalonia, or at least and increased devolution of power.
As Aragonès concluded, “it is clear that dialogue and negotiation to resolve the political conflict with the State is beginning to bear fruit.”
Image 1: Generalitat de Catalunya
Image 2: Archive
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