During the last couple of months I have been following this situation very closely, reading a lot of history, reports and even the Spanish constitution, but I'm obviously not an expert, so please feel free to correct me if there are any mistakes here:
1) What I understood from reading various sources is that Catalonia was completely independent between the years 987 (death of Louis V of France) and 1137 (Marriage of Ramon Berenguer IV and Petronila of Aragon) [1][2]. Although in my opinion that is not relevant for the current independence movement.
3) This is a valid point actually, although it would be fair also add that the Gurdia Civil, the National Police, and at some level the Mossos d'Esquadra, did everything they could (including violence in some cases) to stop people voting in this referendum.
4) Catalonia have a budget surplus [4], so I would argue that what "they" want is to contribute less.
5) Do you mean because of things like the Fueros of Pais Vasco and the Reino de Navarra? In any case, as you probably know, not everybody in Euskal Herria wanted/wants to coexist with the Spaniard state... I wouldn't be surprised if after Catalunya some other autonomic regions look for independence too.
6) True. The institutional situation in the Generalitat and Parlament is chaotic and unfortunate, and from what I heard from friends even most independentistas think so.
7) Well, this is a very opinionated point. If any generalization can be made about what "the world cannot understand" is why did the Spanish government handle this situation so poorly.
8) I personally agree with you that elections are necessary, but that will not solve the issue: the Catalans and the rest of Spain needs to know what every part wants and then start building some solution from there. And a review of the Constitution of 1978 would be useful too.
1) What I understood from reading various sources is that Catalonia was completely independent between the years 987 (death of Louis V of France) and 1137 (Marriage of Ramon Berenguer IV and Petronila of Aragon) [1][2]. Although in my opinion that is not relevant for the current independence movement.
2) The act of voting is not illegal: there is no single article in the Spanish Constitution of 1978 that prohibits citizens to vote something specific. The Catalan independence referendum though was, of course, unauthorized (referendums requires the participation of the King, the PM, and the Congress [3]). I wanted to point out that this idea of voting as something "illegal because of the content of the referendum" probably originates from the Spanish newspaper El Pais, with articles like "Mitos y falsedades del independentismo" which is full of false citations of the constitution (check for instance the articles cited in the paragraph starting with "Además, la ley del referéndum es ilegal por su contenido [...]").
3) This is a valid point actually, although it would be fair also add that the Gurdia Civil, the National Police, and at some level the Mossos d'Esquadra, did everything they could (including violence in some cases) to stop people voting in this referendum.
4) Catalonia have a budget surplus [4], so I would argue that what "they" want is to contribute less.
5) Do you mean because of things like the Fueros of Pais Vasco and the Reino de Navarra? In any case, as you probably know, not everybody in Euskal Herria wanted/wants to coexist with the Spaniard state... I wouldn't be surprised if after Catalunya some other autonomic regions look for independence too.
6) True. The institutional situation in the Generalitat and Parlament is chaotic and unfortunate, and from what I heard from friends even most independentistas think so.
7) Well, this is a very opinionated point. If any generalization can be made about what "the world cannot understand" is why did the Spanish government handle this situation so poorly.
8) I personally agree with you that elections are necessary, but that will not solve the issue: the Catalans and the rest of Spain needs to know what every part wants and then start building some solution from there. And a review of the Constitution of 1978 would be useful too.
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[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Catalonia#Orig...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Catalonia#The_rise_...
[3] - http://www.congreso.es/consti/constitucion/indice/titulos/ar...
[4] - http://www.minhafp.gob.es/es-ES/CDI/Paginas/OtraInformacionE...