On Catalans, Republicans and the King of Spain

The ceremonial investiture of new Spanish judges is an unlikely moment for political posturing. Since the birth of the new democracy in Spain in the 1970s, this annual event at Barcelona’s Advanced Legal College, has been presided over by the Spanish monarch, in whose name the law is still made. This year, the event sprang to the front pages of every newspaper because, at the behest of his government, King Felipe was barred from attending. 

Was this symptomatic of a wider attempt by the current government to diminish the Spanish King, as many commentators alleged? Or was it, as the government argued, merely a practical measure to shield him from the belligerent nationalist movement that would be marking the “anniversary” of the aborted referendum on that day?  

Either way, the government of Pedro Sanchez is keen to give the impression that he will side-line the King whenever he sees fit. Such a stand-off between the Head of State and the government is a new, undoubtedly tense development in Spanish politics. But since Sanchez relies on a Leftist Republican party, Podemos, and some Catalan and Basque deputies to keep his fragile majority in place, being seen to belittle the King gives Sanchez political capital.

Dividing the Right is also an essential element of Sanchez’s survival strategy. Such divisive politics draws a wedge between supporters of the PP (the main right of centre party) from those who would support Vox, a radical anti-immigrant party, whose appearance in Spanish politics arose in part from outrage at the way the Catalans were heralding the break-up of Spain. Meanwhile, evidence that Russian media outlets, such as RT, broadcast the more outrageous and often doctored photography of government officials preventing the referendum in 2017, raised the suspicion that there would be other beneficiaries of the independence of Catalonia. If Catalan separatism gives Brussels serious unease, that is in Putin’s interest. And Puidgemont, disappointed by the lack of support in Brussels for his cause, turned openly to Russia as a way of advancing his cause. It is not just in Scotland, Britain and the US where the inference that Putin’s Russia is intervening to break up the unity of Western institutions is being spoken of. All of this radicalises the opponents of independence in their turn.

Into this crisis emerges a devastating pandemic and the deep recession that inevitably follows. 

For those with long memories, the side-lining of the King bears some eerie echoes of the state of affairs in 1931, when King Alfonso XIII eventually left Spain on a warship for Marseilles. His self-imposed exile came after municipal elections that year were understood to imply that the King was not popular — though monarchist parties actually won the vote — and which set the stage for the dramatic years of the short-lived Spanish Republic (1931-6). This is a powerful contrast to the unity that accompanied the restoration of the monarchy in 1975, and the central role that King Juan Carlos played in securing the trust of centrists, communists and conservatives at that time. 

Today’s Republican movement, borne of the radical Left in Catalonia — which is currently campaigning for a referendum on the monarchy — carries with it an agenda that will assist those who seek to break up Spain. For the Spanish monarchy is one of the few symbols of a united Spain. 

Like Britain, Spain is often referred to as an “old” nation. Unlike Greece or Italy or even Germany, which came together through the determined zeal of 19th-century nationalists, Spain was a collection of medieval kingdoms brought together through the strategic unions of monarchs. Isabella and Ferdinand’s marriage in 1469 famously united Castille and Aragon (which included Catalonia). Scotland first joined England via the blood relations of the Stuarts to the Tudors. Had Bloody Mary lived for longer, and had her marriage to Philip II of Spain prevailed, Spain and Britain might have been conjoined twins. But that is counterfactual history. For there the similarities end.

Some thought otherwise. When David Cameron launched the Scottish referendum in 2014, he unwittingly helped to spread a fire that was raging in Catalonia. Artur Mas (the then President of Catalonia) was already veering towards “independentism” in a bid to regain lost popularity after too much austerity. The Scottish Nationalists missed their objective in 2014, but the Catalan independence movement was given headwind by the measures taken in far-away Britain. 

If Scotland could have a referendum on independence, the Catalans could surely have one too? It seemed logical. The Scottish and Catalan flags were seen at the same rallies. They supported each other’s causes. But Madrid denied Catalonia the right to hold a plebiscite because in the Spanish context a referendum would break the Constitution of 1978 – which had itself been agreed on by national referendum in its time. The Catalans held their own “invalid” vote in October 2017, calculating that the prevention of the vote would make it look as if Madrid were thwarting the will of the people. It was the perfect PR stunt to set their agenda in the wider world.

Those who dismissed the arguments of the Madrid government as legalistic or unimaginative have overlooked the importance of the 1978 Constitution. It represented Spain’s own Velvet Revolution, heralding a new democracy in which the constitutional monarchy lay at the centre. One of the most dramatic reversals of Franco’s centralised regime was in the powers it gave the 17 self-governing regions (the autonomías) of Spain. Catalonia and the Basque country, the most demanding of the 17, would have some of the highest indices of self-government of any region in Europe. The constitution seemed to solve the centrifugal instincts of Spain at that time, by radically decentralising the country. 

Forty years on, and the demands for independence (in Catalonia and the Basque country) have only gathered momentum. A new generation, educated under the separate regional educational authorities (regional authorities control their own media too) have no direct memories of more difficult times. Stymied by legal constraints on staging their own vote, secessionists see that the crisis enveloping the Spanish monarchy could serve their agenda, and Juan Carlos’ exile was precipitated by those who milked the scandal for political ends. For if Spain were to become a republic, the constitution would have to be amended, thus providing an opportunity to delineate a new set of demands. 

But the hereditary element of monarchy is precisely what corners it into committed neutrality. What republicans forget is that a straight swap of a monarch for an elected president will require a ceremonial figure as powerless as a monarch. A candidate for such a role will not be easy to find in today’s divided Spain.

And would a republic of the kind that the secessionists and Podemos wish for be as accommodating a regime for the right-wing conservatives as Juan Carlos’ monarchy was for the Left? It would seem unlikely. Republicans should be careful what they wish for.  

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