THE NATIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION OF CATALONIA: PROS AND CONTRAS

The author reviews the current political situation in Catalonia both with the issue of self-determination of the region. Recently the issue of whether a region may have the right to secession (in this case it concerns Catalonia) has been widely discussed especially interms of the policy conducted by the Catalan prime-minister Artur Mas and aimed at self-determination of this autonomous province and separation from Spain. The Catalan self-determination referendum was expected to be held on November 9th, 2014, but later the Constitutional Court of Spain declared that the referendum would be unconstitutional. And instead of the self-determination referendum for Catalonia there has been held an unofficial consultative public opinion poll on the future of Catalonia. The author analyses its results and the politicians’ and analysts’ opinions. The author also considers the possible ways for Catalonia to get separated from Spain and the related hurdles.The Catalans claim they have the «historical right» to run their own state and accuse Madrid of budget discrimination towards the region. The author outlines the three arguments put forward by the Catalans in favor their independence: lingual and cross-cultural (language, culture, mentality), historical and economic. During the period from the Franco’s win in the Civil war and up to the beginning of the reign of the King Juan Carlos I it was forbidden to use regional languages. The Catalans are afraid of new oppressions of their language and culture and believe that creation of their own state would guarantee preservation, diffusion and prosperity of the Catalan language.The opinions of both politicians and historians on the «historical right» of the Catalans to have their own state are divided. throughout the history there have been undertaken several attempts to declare the independence of Catalonia but those periods of independence were so short that it is difficult to say whether those times may be considered as real independence.The author considers the economic argument to be quite reasonable: Catalonia ranks the third in terms of payments and the tenth in terms of public funds received which sparks anger among the majority of Catalans.

struggle for independence, Generalitat, Spain, history of Catalonia, the Catalan language, Catalonia, consultative public opinion poll, language policy of Spain

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