‘Spain is not going to let us get away with it’
It began with a furtive whisper, rather than a bang. One by one, deputies padded across the burgundy carpet of Catalonia’s half-empty parliament chamber to drop secret ballot papers into a small box on the speaker’s bench.
It was a hardly the confident step of the leaders of a brave new nation.
But within an hour, the shock waves of Catalonia’s declaration of independence had echoed across Barcelona, Madrid and all the way to Brussels and beyond.
And on the streets of the Catalan capital, the mood was euphoric – if laced with foreboding and uncertainty.
“I have cried. I have been waiting 60 years for this,” said Ángel Colomé, one of thousands of Catalans who took to the streets of Barcelona last night. “But I am less optimistic than my son; Spain is not going to let us get away with it. They will put the pressure on and Puigdemont will be taken prisoner, I am sure of it.”
Despite the celebration, the outcome of the vote yesterday afternoon was far from certain.
Opposition members of Catalonia’s regional parliament had earlier stormed out in protest after proindependence parties forced the secret ballot to shield their members from criminal charges.
Just 82 members cast their vote, 70 in favour, 10 against and two abstaining, in a poll that ushered in an uncertain future for Spain, its richest region and the European Union.
When the results were announced just before 3.30pm, the separatists, who hold a slim majority, broke into applause before rising to their feet to sing the Catalan anthem. The song is called The Reapers, and those present could be forgiven for wondering what they would reap after sowing the seeds of Spain’s greatest constitutional crisis since the death of Franco.
Among their number was Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan president, who has spent the last month playing a high-stakes game of chicken with Madrid. If he loses, he faces charges of treason and a lengthy prison sentence.
Yesterday, he was greeted with calls of “President!”
The separatists were flanked by the empty opposition seats, now draped in the distinctive flags of Catalonia. If Mr Puigdemont gets his way those flags, which adorn many an apartment balcony in Barcelona, will be the symbol of his new republic.
Outside the parliament, there was little sign of nerves as thousands cheered and danced in the streets. Singing the anthem, chanting “independence” and drinking Catalan cava, they celebrated the new republic.
Away from the crowds and among those in Catalonia who want to remain part of Spain, the atmosphere was very different. Major companies had fled the region before today’s vote and looming over everything is the uneasy fear of violence.
Madrid’s Guardia Civil could yet return to Barcelona to take control of government buildings for the first time since the illegal Oct 1 referendum.
Shocking images of police brutality, including the use of truncheons and rubber bullets, were broadcast around the world during the referendum.
Older memories of the Spanish Civil War, when Barcelona was the de facto capital of the republic after the national capital fell to Gen Francisco Franco’s fascist forces, have also been awakened.
“We already had the attacks,” said Ana Moran, 34, referring to the jihadist attacks in and around Barcelona that killed 16 people in August, “and with what the Catalan government is doing…”
Carlos Silva, a teacher in Barcelona, watched masses marching along Barcelona’s Via Laietana with concern and anger.
“It’s so worrying. It’s like the final act in a series of absurdities, and now we are at the start of something new that no one knows how it will end,” he said. “These people are not aware of the seriousness of what has happened.
‘These people are not aware of the seriousness of what has happened. They have been seduced by lies’
They have been seduced by lies, and the idea that democracy is nothing more than pieces of paper in a ballot box someone pulled out of their hat.”
While pro-separatist Catalans celebrated in Barcelona, in Madrid, Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish prime minister, acted immediately.
By mid-afternoon, the Spanish senate had agreed to his request to revoke Catalonia’s autonomy and place it under direct rule.
It was a step he had resisted, perhaps conscious of the bitter legacy of Franco’s oppression of Catalonia that it could reawaken. But he told senators that direct rule was needed to restore “law, democracy and stability”.
Away from the fervour in Catalonia, reality was soon beginning to bite.
The US state department released a statement solidly supporting Mr Rajoy and the Spanish government.
Berlin soon followed suit. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, also offered his support to Mr Rajoy. Britain, too, refused to recognise the new republic.
Even the European Union, to which Mr Puidgemont, has appealed again and again for mediation, was unmoved. The vote had changed nothing for the EU, said Donald Tusk, the European Council president. Madrid would remain the “sole interlocutor” for the EU.
Jean-claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, was characteristically blunter. “I do not want a situation where, tomorrow, the European Union is made up of 95 different states,” he snapped.
An independent Catalonia would not be a member of the EU, would not be able to use the single currency and would not be a member of the passport-free Schengen zone. But if Catalonia makes a success of independence, it will only encourage other separatist movements across the continent to reach for statehood. Mr Juncker’s European Commission takes its instructions from the very nations that fear splintering if the EU offered Catalonia any hope.
Yesterday evening, Mr Puigdemont and his supporters were alone, outnumbered and without allies abroad. But the would-be leader of the new Catalonia, and many celebrating in Barcelona, struck a defiant note.
“We are going to have to come out in the streets every day,” said Ángel Colomé, the Catalan separatist worrying about a crackdown. “There are two million of us who voted in the referendum.”