How much is Catalonia complying with Madrid?

Question

It's very easy to look at the situation from the outside, declare the Catalan independence declaration illegal and say "that's that". However, inside Catalonia, the declaration was very popular amongst a significant portion of the population.

In reaction, Madrid has declared the independence referendum illegal, suspended the government and removed key Catalonian government officials and civil servants from office.

On the ground in Catalonia, how much are these orders being followed? Is it the opinion of the Catalonian people that they are still under Madrid's rule or that their independence was successful, so they don't need to obey Madrid anymore? Obviously, there will be people on both sides, since there were many Catalonians who wanted to remain part of Spain. Have the people removed from office complied, or are they still doing their jobs because they have the support of the locals?

@immibis If the referendum was recognised by Spain and their constitution allowed for it, it would have been legal. However, this is moot since neither of those this exist in this situation. — CJ Dennis, Oct 28 '17 at 22:25
Just pointing out that very few countries would ever permit it in their constitution. To a first approximation, all independences are illegal, so the fact this one is also illegal should make on difference. — Reasonably Against Genocide, Oct 28 '17 at 22:28
@immibis Britain allowed Scotland's referendum, and had it been "Yes", no doubt would have allowed it to separate. So "ever"? Yes, sometimes. There are examples where independence was actually achieved legally. — CJ Dennis, Oct 28 '17 at 23:01
Croatia and other former Yugoslavian republics were given independence rights in Yugoslavian constitution. But still the rest of the EU said it is Yugoslavian internal affair instead of stopping the bloody war that began. But later example Kosovo which did not have that constitutional right separated and EU and USA stood on Kosovo's side. — croraf, Oct 29 '17 at 12:12
@immibis Brazil's.... Then again, mostly because it was proclamed by the Mocharchy of Portugal and not by Brazil — Oak, Oct 29 '17 at 17:40
Also Czechoslovakia as an example of a very controlled dissolving of one state into two successor states without violence (though AFAIK also without referendum, and without majority in the population) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_Czechoslovakia — cbeleites unhappy with SX, Oct 29 '17 at 19:40
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's about an on-going event and there's too little information to give a good answer. — JonathanReez, Oct 30 '17 at 11:20
@CJDennis While Scotland is not a sovereign nation, it is still a separate nation - currently in union with 2 other sovereign nations and 1 "province" to form the sovereign state United Kingdom. By the declarative theory of statehood, they both fulfill the criterias for being a state and they have the recognition of being a state (they participate in Olympics as "Scotland" - as an example). It would be hard, by law, to declare illegal a scottish majority vote of independance. The difference between Scotland and Catalonia is significant. — Stian, Oct 30 '17 at 13:28
@StianYttervik you're arguing about semantics. In practice the UK government can easily block their secession, which is why the Scottish government didn't try to vote without London's consent. And legally speaking Catalonia has more autonomy than Scotland does. — JonathanReez, Oct 31 '17 at 07:23
@JonathanReez Semantics, certainly, but in my opinion important semantics. There is very little similarity between Catalonia and Scotland, in their "right to a state" as per theory of statehood - in the legality of such a declaration versus the constitution of the "mother country" - and finally, the validity of the vote it self based on neutral observers and media... — Stian, Oct 31 '17 at 08:50

SJuan76 · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-29T17:22:34.940

It is weekend and most of the local administration is not working, so it is difficult to tell. And even on Monday, it will depend of what orders are issued. But so far:

There have been some declarations by public employees (mainly from education and the regional public TV/Radio station network) about not recognizing Madrid orders.
Regional police forces have stopped providing security details to the suspended government members. There are some exceptions due to security concerns (i.e., they get security as private citizens who could be at risk).
The government member in charge of the regional police and the police chief have acknowledged their suspension and replacement, writting farewell messages.
The former President of the Generalitat has refused acknowledging his dismisal. There has been some stirs since the regional TV network still introduced him as President in active.
Some minor trade unions have announced 10 days of strike. Right now, they have cancelled the first one (October 30) and they say that they will "keep updating" about the other days... UPDATE: Some newspaper claimed that, according to unofficial declarations of the organizers, the objective of the strike would not be so much to effectively perform the strike all of those days¹ but to provide legal cover for workers to be free to leave their job (to attend protests, etc...) at specific moments. I lost the reference to link to it (so many news these days) but that makes way more sense than 10 continued days of strike with a previsible low attendance (again, due to ¹).
Some town halls have made declarations about not allowing the use of their facilities for the upcoming elections of December 21st.

¹I have been through several strikes in Spain and I can tell you that asking people to lose like half month of pay in a strike would be like asking them to throw themselves down a cliff.

score 15 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 17 '20 at 09:20

The main political situations happened on Friday afternoon, so it needed some days in order to have working hours and see the position of each key member.

Let me summarize the events that have taken place, in the hope that a timeline of almost-simultaneous actions can shed more light:

Independece was declared on Friday 27th October by 15 h (Catalan parliament votes to declare independence from Spain).
In the meanwhile, the Spanish Senate approved to apply the article 155 of the Spanish Constitution (What does "direct Spanish rule over Catalonia" actually mean?).
By 16 h the president of the Spanish Government announced that he would dissolve the Catalan parliament and fire the whole cabinet of the Catalan Government (see Rajoy dissolves Catalan parliament). Also, he announced election would be held by 21 December (see Why are Spanish parties imposing new elections in Catalonia?)
However, since the application of the article 155 needed to be put down in the official documents, the dissolution of the Catalan Government did not become effective until Saturday 28th October by 3.40 AM (in Spanish El BOE publica la convocatoria de elecciones y el cese del Govern).

So as of writing, the Catalan government has been fired for the whole Saturday, together with the main leader of the Catalan police (in Spanish, Zoido cesa a Trapero a los 20 minutos de estrenar sus competencias en Cataluña). However, by 14 h Carles Puigdemont has called for "democratic opposition" to direct rule from Madrid, meaning that he does not accept the takeover. Also, he vows 'peaceful resistance' as Madrid takes control of region. From this linked article in The Guardian:

Activists had offered to form human chains around buildings to protect officials, and some of the region’s 200,000 civil servants have already said they will not accept orders from Madrid.

One Catalan union has called a 10-day strike in support of the new republic starting on Monday, although larger trade bodies have not so far joined.

So by now, and in the days to come, there will be a conflict on legitimacy: some will follow Spanish law, while some will follow Catalan law. This also means that some will accept elections in December as applying to the Autonomous Region, while others may even not take part because they do not recognise their call.

By Monday and Tuesday several actions by main parties and associations revealed that Catalonia is complying with Madrid:

The president of the Catalan Parliament accepted its dissolution after the call for elections to be held on December 21th.
The two main independentist parties announced that they will participate in the elections.
One of the two main independentist associations, Assemblea Nacional Catalana, accepted the call for elections.

On the other side, the other independentist party, CUP, asked the president to keep on working in the disconnection with Spain while asking for Republican action.

(See a description of the three main independentist parties in Catalonia)

How much is Catalonia complying with Madrid?

2 Answers2