“I assure you. There will not be no secession of Catalonia". To speak is the manager of a well-known Catalan company, which has also been present in Italy for some time. "We Catalans, as is right, will still get a little more autonomy, but no independence".
Therefore, the million people in the streets for Diada day are not enough to tip the scales. The feeling is that Catalonia will continue to be part of Spain in the next elections on 27 September, perhaps obtaining a few more concessions than the current ones, so that the transfer of money to the central government in Madrid is less onerous and painful.
After all, the premier Mariano Rajoy he certainly cannot afford to lose Catalonia if he intends to win the general elections at the end of the year and obtain a new mandate at Moncloa for the next five years. Moreover, a negative result would be a setback, now that the situation in the country has significantly improved, the GDP is growing by more than 3% and the unemployment rate is going down, hardly certain, but it is going down.
The fact remains that the general political picture is confused and complicated. The two blocs (right and left) that have historically governed Spain have been in crisis for some years. The advent of We can need Ciudadanos, two alignments that have received the protest of the Spaniards and understood the ever greater detachment of traditional politics from everyday life, have shuffled the cards. Suffice it to say that Madrid and Barcelona have changed administrations and that to govern in the main regions there is now a need for broad coalitions compared to the single color, blue or red, of the past.
Spain, despite this political upheaval, remains a conservative and traditionalist country. Because of this it is probable that in the end “safe second-hand” will prevail, in this case the leader Mariano Rajoy, compared to new experiments that are good at the local level, but not at the national level. Just as a bull is not enough to make Spain, so it will probably take some time before we defeat the ancient art of bullfighting.
However, Spain remains a land of contrasts. Not only North South or industry-agriculture. We are referring above all to culture, to the fact that Madrid is a politically born capital on paper because it is in the center of the country and equidistant from its borders, but not because it is truly loved or chosen by the people. While the popular love for Barcelona, or San Sebastian, or Malaga and Valencia is stronger, which represent the different souls of the same peninsula.
We will see the outcome of the consultation-referendum in the next few days Catalonia to understand what will happen at the end of the year in the general elections in Spain. It is unlikely that the renewing wind of Podemos and Ciudadanos will turn into a storm and sweep away the old parties at the end of the year. Even if the new Spanish government that will emerge from the polls will probably no longer be a monochromatic one, but an enlarged coalition. A sort of Italianization that hopefully will not have negative consequences in the management of the Iberian country after years of stability.
