On April 23, the people of Barcelona flocked to the streets to celebrate Sant Jordi Day, the Catalan national holiday that fuses the romance of Valentine’s Day with the love of literature of World Book Day. Book stands lined Passeig de Gracia. Young couples walking arm and arm affectionately exchanged novels and roses. The day is a particular source of pride (and business) for Catalan literature. Take a close enough glance at one of the many displays and you will find novels written in Spanish residing in the foreign language section, a subtle sign of how much Catalans consider themselves culturally distinct from the rest of Spain.
As I wandered from stall to stall, the relaxed nature of the crowds struck me as in keeping with a transformation in Catalan politics that was once dominated by the procés – the term used to capture the most recent phase of the Catalan nationalist movement for independence from Spain that began in earnest in 2010. Catalans held mass protests, the central government violently quashed an independence referendum, the Catalan Parliament was dissolved, and Catalan political leaders were jailed on sedition charges.
To me, the genial mood of this year’s Sant Jordi Day reflected the current frame of mind of the political movement: committed to preserving Catalan culture, yet resigned to the reality that statehood is out of reach. In 2024, for the first time in 14 years, a pro-union party, the Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSC), took power in regional government. It sealed the end of one of the most potent separatist efforts in Europe and perhaps much of the world.
What happened? Why did the PSC succeed at the expense of pro-independence parties? And what has emerged in the wake of a nationalist movement that was once so pervasive throughout Catalan society that it transfixed dinner table conversation and led to demonstrations that could bring nearly a quarter of Catalonia’s eight million population into the streets?
Interviews and discussions from Barcelona and Brussels with current PSC politicians, government officials, academics, and journalists depict a Catalan society that has moved on from any prospect of independent statehood, fatigued by the constant political battles and disillusioned by separatist leaders, and an electorate that found resonance in the PSC, which offered a future for Catalonia that would remain in Spain and return to the less confrontational period before the procés began.
‘People no longer perceive independence as something they will see in their lifetime as they did in 2015 and 2016,’ Daniel Cetrà, a professor at the University of Barcelona (UB), told me. ‘You don’t want to spend the rest of your life fighting for something you don’t think you are going to see in your lifetime.’
The Breakdown of a Movement
Catalan electoral politics cannot be solely understood in the frame of traditional left-right divide on social and economic issues, but instead operate along a second dimension of centralism vs. regionalism. Through much of the procés, where one stood on the question on independence was the singular issue that dominated political discourse. By the end of 2013, support for independence reached peaks of 48.5 percent – effectively dividing Catalan society in half, according to official polling. In such a polarised environment, a political party’s salience to the public almost entirely depended on whether it took a hard position on the future of an independent Catalan state.
But societal and structural changes – including the failed 2017 referendum, the pandemic, and the release of several previously jailed Catalan politicians – began chipping away at the fervour that had propelled the separatist movement. Civil society organizations, including Òmnium and Assemblea Nacional Catalana, had been tremendously successful in shaping political consciousnesses and mobilising Catalan society to take to the streets for Catalan independence. Nonetheless, social movements have a cyclical nature and it can be difficult to maintain sustained momentum towards the cause over many years.
Moreover, a primary driver for the movement in the first place stemmed from the policies of the Partido Popular (PP) government of Spain, which sought to further centralise power in Madrid and erode Catalonia’s self-governance. In 2018, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) under the leader of Pedro Sánchez, defeated the PP and took a more accommodating stance towards the region, in effect reducing the existential threat many in Catalonia felt.
Perhaps most importantly, the necessary political imagination and belief in a sovereign Catalan state was difficult to sustain in the face of the failed 2017 referendum for independence. Disappointment with pro-independence leadership transformed into a pervasive sense of fatigue and disillusionment. According to Toni Rodon, a professor at Pompeu Fabra University, ‘a substantial amount of people that were pro-independence – and maybe still are deep down – see this as a very difficult path or a path not worth pursuing right now.’
Assessing the PSC’s Surging Popularity
While the PSC had made steady gains in the previous Parliamentary elections held in 2021, the pro-independence alliance still managed to cobble together a coalition to form a government, led by the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC). By the 2024 elections, however, the PSC earned enough support to form a minority government in partnership with two support parties. The question of Catalan independence during the election was simply not a salient one, outshadowed by more bread-and-butter issues, such as housing and cost of living.
A major feature of the results was the extent to which the traditional pro-independence electorate abstained from voting, according to Jordi Muñoz, an academic and former director of the Centre for Opinion Studies (CEO), an agency of the Catalan government. ‘[Abstentions were] really high,’ Mr Muñoz told me. ‘It had already been high in 2021 within the pandemic context, which was a bit exceptional. So I found it remarkable that it got as high for the 2024 election.’
Some experts attributed the success of the PSC less to any savvy political manoeuvring and more to capitalising on the rising tide of disenchanted independence voters. ‘I don’t think [the PSC] has done something particularly wise or [made] a brilliant move,’ said Professor Cetrá of the University of Barcelona. ‘I think they identified a window of opportunity, and they went for that.’ Current members of the PSC argued that the party offered a sense of normalcy and calm that Catalan society was desperately yearning for at a time when some independence voters were angered with their leadership. ‘Voters were digesting the fact that everything they were told was a lie,’ remarked Javier Rodriguez, a Barcelona City Council official affiliated with PSC. ‘There was this movement of people saying they know better…but in the end, it was clear they didn’t know what they’re doing at all.’
Meanwhile, the PSC had the ideal messenger for the moment in Salvador Illa, the composed and mild-mannered leader of the party. The current president of the Government of Catalonia, Illa previously served as Spain’s Minister of Health and projected an air of competence and bridge-building. ‘He’s very middle of the political spectrum,’ Pol Pareja, a journalist at El Diario, a Spanish language newspaper said. ‘He defines himself as someone on the left, but at the same time, he goes to church every weekend. He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t insult people. I think that people needed some of this style after so many years of shouting and insulting each other.’
The party presented a restorative message that appeared to resonate with a strained electorate fatigued by years of contentious politics. Such tone was exemplified by Illa’s message immediately following the elections: ‘the Catalans have decided to begin a new era’ open to all – ‘whatever they think, wherever they come from, wherever they live, whatever language they speak.’
The PSC as a Political Project
The current shape of the PSC is premised on compromise and ameliorating a deeply divided society where its only ideological commitment appears to be to avoid any political confrontation. In governance terms, this approach translates into what Jordi Riba, a PSC representative in the Catalan Parliament, described to me as ‘institutional normalisation’ – the somewhat nebulous term intended to capture the desire to promote apolitical, functioning institutional designs within Catalonia and recover working relationships with the central government in Spain. Bringing calm to institutional relations ‘is implicit in every policy,’ Mr Riba said. ‘It has to be implicit because if it’s explicit, it generates discontent.’ This conciliary approach is also a product of necessity as the PSC governs over a precarious minority government with a disparate coalition.
The task at hand for the current government is to return Catalonia to the less contentious times of the pre-procés era where the spoils of politics were more evenly distributed among winners and losers. ‘Basically, [the PSC is] there to calm things down, to allow business to do business as usual,’ Mr Muñoz, the former director of CEO, said. ‘They don’t have a very ambitious policy agenda.’ This pragmatism is evident in the make-up of the current PSC-led government, which sources ministers for different parties, most notably evident in Illa’s selection of Jaume Duch as Minister of European Union and Foreign Action of Catalonia, who is not affiliated with the PSC.
I met with Minister Duch, who embodies polished, technocratic governance after a thirty-year career in the European Union, in his office at the ministry, a grand, 14th century building tucked away in Barcelona’s cobble-stoned Gothic quarter. Duch’s background highlights the importance of pragmatism to the government. ‘The building is connected to the president’s,’ the ministry press officer noted pointedly before ushering me into a waiting room.
Duch acknowledged that the past decade was “quite bumpy” for Catalan society and believed people were yearning for a return to a time when politics emphasised cooperation. ‘We need to go back to an ambiance where politics is not something which is dividing people almost every day and in every occasion,’ Minister Duch said. ‘We need to focus on the real problems of people. We cannot spend more years discussing things that in reality don’t make any difference for the citizens in concrete terms.’
For Duch, these concrete issues mean foremost negotiating a more favorable deal addressing Catalonia’s fiscal imbalance – a major flashpoint in the independence debate and consists of the difference between what the region pays to the Spanish government in taxes and what it receives in return in investment. Catalonia, along with the other regional governments of Spain, contribute tax revenue to a centralized pot, which is in turn filtered through political deliberations and returned as investment to the regions. The party sees no harm in Catalonia’s tax revenue subsidizing less affluent regions in Spain as long as they do not surpass Catalonia in overall return investment from the central government. Mr Riba succinctly captured the PSC’s approach to Catalonia’s fiscal deficit, and perhaps the party’s spirit as a whole: ‘I think in politics, it’s better to win 3-2 than 5-0. Everyone’s happier. You are the winner, but it’s better if the loser doesn’t lose everything.’
Current Zeitgeist of Catalonia
The PSC also benefited from a sea change in Catalonia’s cultural mood, according to Mr Muñoz, the former director of the CEO. WhatsApp group chats, once flooded by recent political developments, now are more concerned with the latest gossip surrounding FC Barcelona. Journalists are seeing fewer interactions from online audiences on political stories. One of the best-selling fiction books from this year’s Sant Jordi Day, previously dominated by releases grounded in politics and current affairs, is a Catalan novel written by Xavier Bosch about a young woman in the 1980s who leaves Barcelona for Manhattan in search of her identity in an advertising agency.
The PSC’s rhetoric aligned with the cultural winds of the moment and offered a less politicized and confrontational message. ‘The movement has faded away, but there’s been basically nothing to replace it,’ according to Mr Muñoz. ‘It’s a period of depoliticization…and my impression is that the Socialist Party has been very smart in capturing this zeitgeist.’
Support for independence in the PSC-era has fallen to a decade low, according to official polling. Crucially, throughout the entirety of the procés, no coalition of pro-independence parties ever breached the key threshold of 50 percent of the total vote. And while the general consensus in academic circles is that support for independence has a floor of around 30 to 35 percent of the population, the nationalist movement is in disarray.
‘They are a little bit lost,’ said Toni Rodon, the Pompeu Fabra professor. ‘The feeling is that they tried to do something that they thought would work, which is independence, but also trying to push change. They failed miserably as they themselves recognise.’ Disillusionment with the independence movement is particularly acute for young people, according to Javier Rodriguez, the City Council official whose portfolio encompasses youth and adolescents. ‘Among the youth, there’s a strong sense of deceit,’ Rodriguez said. ‘The independence movement is not a trend anymore. When I was in my 20s and in school, it was trendy to be for independence back then. Now, when I talk to parents, what I see is that it’s not trendy anymore.’
The major spark of mobilisation in recent years has centred around Catalonia’s overheated housing market, fears of evictions, and backlash against over tourism – most visible when hundreds gathered in January to protest against the forced removal of residents from the historic Casa Orsola building in Barcelona’s Eixample neighbourhood. Yet, even by Catalan standards, this mobilisation pales in comparison to independence demonstrations in 2012 which by some estimates reached 2 million people.
‘People here are not talking about [independence] anymore,’ said Pol Pareja, the El Diario journalist. ‘It seems like society has turned the page.’