The Catalonian Independence Movement Tears Apart Its Government

Catalonian flags hang from a balcony. Catalonian President Pere Aragonés fired Vice President Jordi Puigneró on September 28, creating a rift between the two major parties in support of Catalonian independence (Flickr).

On September 28, Catalonian President Pere Aragonés of Catalan Republican Left (ERC) fired Vice President Jordi Puigneró, a member of Together for Catalonia (JxCat) after members of JxCat threatened a motion of no confidence during a general policy debate in Parliament the previous day. President Aragonés said that he “lost the confidence in Mr Puigneró in the past few hours” because the Vice President failed to warn the President about the vote of confidence beforehand.

The firing of Puigneró marks a split in the coalition government composed of the ERC and JxCat, the leading parties in favor of Catalonian independence from Spain. The moderate ERC party believes in prioritizing talks with the Spanish Government in Madrid to persuade them to approve of succession. However, the hard-liner JxCat party takes a more radical approach and believes they need to move swiftly with independence, regardless of Spain’s opinion. 

Catalonia declared independence from Spain following a successful referendum for self-governance in October 2017. Spain took direct rule over Catalonia, dissolving their parliament and calling for a snap election. Nine Catalonian politicians were charged with sedition and misuse of funds. This sparked mass protests across Catalan, which turned violent as “voters were dragged from polling stations and beaten, and rubber bullets were fired into crowds.”

Since 2017, tensions between Catalonia and Madrid have lessened. President Aragonés has pushed for legal negotiations with Spain in exchange for supporting Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his Socialist Workers’ Party. A ‘clarity agreement’ passed just before the fifth anniversary of the 2017 referendum to continue negotiations between the two governments. 

President Aragonés succeeded in getting pardons for the leaders of the 2017 push for Catalonian independence in June 2021. He also managed to have Catalan approved to be spoken in schools through negotiations. Despite President Aragonés’s successful cooperation with the Spanish government, JxCat sees Prime Minister Sánchez’s position is no different from the conservative stance taken by the governments before him. The party believes that the limited talks between the President Aragonés’s and Sánchez’s governments  are designed to stall a push for Catalonian independence and that Spain will never negotiate independence with Catalonia. 

The head of the JxCat party, Laura Borrás, called the current Catalonian government "a failed government that has lost democratic legitimacy that has prioritized deals with Spain's governing Socialists, and whose proposals have not benefited Catalonia's citizens." JxCat decided to leave the coalition government after a slim 55.73 percent majority of JxCat cabinet members voted to resign during a vote within the party on September 7. 

President Aragonés announced that rather than calling a snap election, he would appoint new ministers to the previous JxCat positions for the rest of the term, which ends in February 2025. He announced that unlike JxCat, he will not "abandon citizens in difficult times like this," believing stability to be important for the Catalonian government. Yet, President Argonés now only has the support of 33 of the 135 MPs in his parliament. 

President Aragonés filled the vacant minister positions on October 9. Borrás called the new cabinet "politically and democratically illegitimate," stating that the cabinet should be approved by Parliament or in an election. President Aragonés argued the new cabinet "represent[s] the consensus of 80 percent of citizens," but President Aragonés now leads a minority government without JxCat.

ERC and JxCat have governed Catalonia as a coalition government since February of 2021, and this split comes after 10 years of cooperation between these parties. As a result of this separation, the ERC will likely need allies outside of the independence movement in Catalonia to stay in power. 

This fighting within the independence movement in Catalonia could be damaging to their goal. This year’s Catalonia National Day celebrations, held on September 11, had a much smaller turnout rate than years previous, and support for independence in the polls has fallen to 41 percent, eight points lower than it has been in previous years. If neither party shows a willingness to cooperate, it will only hurt Catalonia’s movement towards self-governance.