A constitutional crisis took place in Spain from 2017 to 2018 as the result of a political conflict between the Government of Spain and the Generalitat de Catalunya under the then-President Carles Puigdemont—the government of the autonomous community of Catalonia until 28 October 2017—over the issue of Catalan independence. It started after the law intending to allow the 2017 Catalan independence referendum was denounced by the Spanish government under Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and subsequently suspended by the Constitutional Court until it ruled on the issue. Some international media outlets have described the events as "one of the worst political crises in modern Spanish history".
Puigdemont's government announced that neither central Spanish authorities nor the courts would halt their plans and that it intended to hold the vote anyway, sparking a legal backlash that quickly spread from the Spanish and Catalan governments to Catalan municipalities—as local mayors were urged by the Generalitat to provide logistical support and help for the electoral process to be carried out—, as well as to the Constitutional Court, the High Court of Justice of Catalonia and state prosecutors. By 15 September, as pro-Catalan independence parties began their referendum campaigns, the Spanish government had launched an all-out legal offensive to thwart the upcoming vote, including threats of a financial takeover of much of the Catalan budget, police seizing pro-referendum posters, pamphlets and leaflets which had been regarded as illegal and criminal investigations ordered on the over 700 local mayors who had publicly agreed to help stage the referendum. Tensions between the two sides reached a critical point after Spanish police raided the Catalan government headquarters in Barcelona on 20 September, at the start of Operation Anubis, and arrested fourteen senior Catalan officials. This led to protests outside the Catalan economy department which saw Civil Guard officers trapped inside the building for hours and several vehicles vandalized. The referendum was eventually held, albeit without meeting minimum standards for elections and amid low turnout and a police crackdown ended with hundreds injured. The Spanish Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that up to 431 officers had been injured, bruised, or even bitten.
On 10 October, Puigdemont ambiguously declared and suspended independence during a speech in the Parliament of Catalonia, arguing his move was directed at entering talks with Spain. The Spanish government required Puigdemont to clarify whether he had declared independence or not, to which it received no clear answer. A further requirement was met with an implicit threat from the Generalitat that it would lift the suspension on the independence declaration if Spain "continued its repression", in response to the imprisonment of the leaders of pro-independence Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Òmnium Cultural, accused of sedition by the National Court because of their involvement in the 20 September events. On 21 October, it was announced by Prime Minister Rajoy that Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution would be invoked, leading to direct rule over Catalonia by the Spanish government once approved by the Senate.
On 27 October, the Catalan parliament voted in a secret ballot to unilaterally declare independence from Spain, with most deputies of the opposition boycotting a vote considered illegal for violating the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Spain, as the lawyers of the Parliament of Catalonia warned. As a result, the government of Spain invoked the Constitution to remove the regional authorities and enforce direct rule the next day, with a regional election being subsequently called for 21 December 2017 to elect a new Parliament of Catalonia. Puigdemont and part of his cabinet fled to Belgium after being ousted, as the Spanish Attorney General pressed for charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds against them.
A constitutional crisis took place in Spain from 2017 to 2018 as the result of a political conflict between the Government of Spain and the Generalitat de Catalunya under the then-President Carles Puigdemont—the government of the autonomous community of Catalonia until 28 October 2017—over the issue of Catalan independence. It started after the law intending to allow the 2017 Catalan independence referendum was denounced by the Spanish government under Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and subsequently suspended by the Constitutional Court until it ruled on the issue. Some international media outlets have described the events as "one of the worst political crises in modern Spanish history".
Puigdemont's government announced that neither central Spanish authorities nor the courts would halt their plans and that it intended to hold the vote anyway, sparking a legal backlash that quickly spread from the Spanish and Catalan governments to Catalan municipalities—as local mayors were urged by the Generalitat to provide logistical support and help for the electoral process to be carried out—, as well as to the Constitutional Court, the High Court of Justice of Catalonia and state prosecutors. By 15 September, as pro-Catalan independence parties began their referendum campaigns, the Spanish government had launched an all-out legal offensive to thwart the upcoming vote, including threats of a financial takeover of much of the Catalan budget, police seizing pro-referendum posters, pamphlets and leaflets which had been regarded as illegal and criminal investigations ordered on the over 700 local mayors who had publicly agreed to help stage the referendum. Tensions between the two sides reached a critical point after Spanish police raided the Catalan government headquarters in Barcelona on 20 September, at the start of Operation Anubis, and arrested fourteen senior Catalan officials. This led to protests outside the Catalan economy department which saw Civil Guard officers trapped inside the building for hours and several vehicles vandalized. The referendum was eventually held, albeit without meeting minimum standards for elections and amid low turnout and a police crackdown ended with hundreds injured. The Spanish Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that up to 431 officers had been injured, bruised, or even bitten.
On 10 October, Puigdemont ambiguously declared and suspended independence during a speech in the Parliament of Catalonia, arguing his move was directed at entering talks with Spain. The Spanish government required Puigdemont to clarify whether he had declared independence or not, to which it received no clear answer. A further requirement was met with an implicit threat from the Generalitat that it would lift the suspension on the independence declaration if Spain "continued its repression", in response to the imprisonment of the leaders of pro-independence Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Òmnium Cultural, accused of sedition by the National Court because of their involvement in the 20 September events. On 21 October, it was announced by Prime Minister Rajoy that Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution would be invoked, leading to direct rule over Catalonia by the Spanish government once approved by the Senate.
On 27 October, the Catalan parliament voted in a secret ballot to unilaterally declare independence from Spain, with most deputies of the opposition boycotting a vote considered illegal for violating the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Spain, as the lawyers of the Parliament of Catalonia warned. As a result, the government of Spain invoked the Constitution to remove the regional authorities and enforce direct rule the next day, with a regional election being subsequently called for 21 December 2017 to elect a new Parliament of Catalonia. Puigdemont and part of his cabinet fled to Belgium after being ousted, as the Spanish Attorney General pressed for charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds against them.
After a pro-independence coalition formed by the Junts pel Sí alliance and the Popular Unity Candidacy won a slim majority in the Parliament in the 2015 regional election, Carles Puigdemont replaced Mas as President of the Generalitat. Puigdemont promised to organise a binding independence referendum based on results from a multi-question, non-binding vote in 2014, when about 80% of those who voted were believed to have backed independence for the region, and up to 91.8% supported Catalonia becoming a state—albeit on an estimated turnout around or below 40%. The Catalan government invoked the right of people to self-determination and Catalonia's political, economical and cultural background to back up its proposal for a referendum on Catalan independence. The Government of Spain, now with Mariano Rajoy as Prime Minister, opposed such a vote, arguing that any referendum on Catalan independence would go against the country's 1978 Constitution, as it made no provision for a vote on self-determination.
On 9 June 2017, Puigdemont announced that the planned independence referendum would be held on 1 October the same year. The Catalan government criticised the attitude of the Spanish government in refusing to negotiate a referendum and accused it of behaving undemocratically.
Start of crisis
Referendum suspended
On 6 September 2017, the ruling Junts pel Sí (JxSí) coalition and its parliamentary partner, the Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), passed the Law on the Referendum on Self-determination of Catalonia in the Parliament of Catalonia that was to provide the legal framework for the intended independence referendum scheduled for 1 October. The way in which the law had been pushed through Parliament and the clear unconstitutionality of the law became an issue of controversy. Catalan opposition parties accused JxSí and CUP of fast-tracking the law through parliament, not allowing them to appeal the law before being put up to vote. In 2018, the Constitutional Court ruled that the rights of the opposition were indeed undermined. Shortly after the parliamentary vote, in which most of the opposition MPs walked out from the chamber without voting on the bill, the Catalan regional government signed the decree calling the referendum. On 7 September and under a similar procedure as the previous day, pro-independence lawmakers in the Parliament of Catalonia passed the Law of transitional jurisprudence and foundation of the Republic, aimed at superseding the Spanish Constitution and the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia with a new legal framework should a simple majority vote 'Yes' to the independence choice with no minimum participation required. Besides its unconstitutional character, the law was criticized for being approved with a simple majority, in contrast with the two thirds needed to reform the Statute of Autonomy or the Spanish Constitution, the generous control it afforded the executive power over the new judicial branch and the extensive degree of immunity offered to the president of the new republic.
The People's Party-led Spanish government under Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced that it would appeal the bill to the Constitutional Court, which agreed to hear all four of its unconstitutionality appeals and subsequently suspended the law and the referendum until it could rule upon the matter. Despite the referendum suspension, the Catalan government announced it would proceed with the vote anyway. This prompted Attorney GeneralJosé Manuel Maza to ask security forces to investigate possible preparations from the Catalan government to hold the vote, as well as announcing he would present criminal charges against members of both the regional parliament and government for voting and signing off the referendum. The national government proceeded to deploy a series of legal measures intended to nullify the referendum, while also warning local councils in Catalonia to either impede or paralyse efforts to carry out the vote. Previously, local mayors had been given 48 hours by the regional government to confirm the availability of polling stations for 1 October.
Within the next two days, nearly 74% of Catalan municipalities—comprising about 43% of the Catalan population—had agreed to provide the necessary polling stations for the referendum, whereas many of the most-populated urban areas—representing 24% of Catalan inhabitants—had voiced their opposition to the vote. The largest city and capital of Catalonia, Barcelona—accounting for about 20% of the region's population—was caught in the middle, with its local mayor, Ada Colau, refusing to make a statement whether the municipality would provide logistic support to the referendum or not while rejecting putting public servants at risk; she, however, voiced her support for the people's right to vote in a fair and legal referendum. Concurrently, President of CataloniaCarles Puigdemont, Vice-president Oriol Junqueras, the entire Catalan government as well as parliamentary officials allowing the referendum law to be put to vote in Parliament—including Parliament Speaker Carme Forcadell—faced charges of disobedience, misusing public funds and making deliberately unlawful decisions as elected officials as the High Court of Justice of Catalonia agreed to hear the criminal complaints filled by state prosecutors.
Judicial and police action
On 8 September the Attorney General of Catalonia, José María Romero de Tejada, presented two complaints to the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) against the Government and the Bureau of Parliament for crimes of disobedience, prevarication and misappropriation of public funds, as announced the day before by the Attorney GeneralJosé Manuel Maza. These complaints included the guarantee request for the members of the Government as well as a request for a notification to all mayors of Catalonia to prevent any "personal or material resource, including local" resources being provided for the celebration of referendum. The court was also asked to notify the Catalan media managers of the prohibition of inserting institutional advertising or propaganda of the referendum.
These complaints were admitted by the TSJC on 14 September without accepting the request for a deposit for the members of the Government.
A decision on 13 September from Spain's public prosecutors to order a criminal probe of all local mayors who had publicly announced they would help stage the independence referendum—totalling over 700—came the day after the Constitutional Court had accepted the Spanish government's request to suspend the second of the two laws that had been approved by the secessionist majority in the Catalan parliament the previous week. The probe meant that prosecutors could choose to present criminal charges—or even arrest, if failing to answer the summons—local mayors who disobeyed the Constitutional Court's ruling. As part of a series of moves to block the Catalan referendum, prosecutors had also instructed police officials to seize ballot boxes, election flyers and other items that could be of use in the illegal vote, whereas the Constitutional Court had instructed regional government officials to show how they were preventing the vote from going ahead within a 48-hour deadline. In response, the Catalan government sent a letter to Treasury MinisterCristóbal Montoro announcing that it would stop sending weekly financial accounts to Spain's central government, a previously established obligation that was meant to verify whether the region was using public money for the promotion of its independence drive as well as a requirement for the region's access to a funding programme to autonomous communities established in 2012. The Spanish government then proceeded to take direct control of most of Catalonia's invoice payments.
In a search on 19 September, Spanish police seized significant election material which had been in store by referendum organizers at the offices of a private delivery company in Terrassa. These included voting cards contained in envelopes with the Catalan government's logo. The next day, the Civil Guard raided Generalitat offices and arrested fourteen senior officials from the Catalan government—most notably, these included Josep Maria Jové, deputy to regional Vice-president Oriol Junqueras. This came after mayors from towns supporting the referendum were questioned in court by state prosecutors. Regional premier Carles Puigdemont condemned the actions as "anti-democratic and totalitarian", accusing the Spanish government of 'de facto' imposing a state of emergency and of suspending Catalonia's autonomy after it took effective control over Catalan finances. Public protests occurred in Barcelona after news of the arrests emerged, with left-wing political party Podemos and Barcelona mayor Ada Colau joining the growing criticism of Mariano Rajoy's government crackdown on public servants, dubbing it as an "authoritarian regression". The previous day, the Congress of Deputies had voted down a motion from Ciudadanos to support the Spanish government's response to the referendum, which was rejected by 166 votes to 158. Rajoy defended his government's actions in that "What we're seeing in Catalonia is an attempt to eliminate the constitution and the autonomous statute of Catalonia... Logically, the state has to react. There is no democratic state in the world that would accept what these people are trying to do. They've been warned and they know the referendum can't take place". Rajoy also called for the Catalonia government to give up its "escalation of radicalism and disobedience", calling for them to "Go back to the law and democracy" and dubbing the referendum a "chimera", as tens of thousands gathered in the streets of Barcelona and other Catalan cities to protest police actions. The Spanish government did not rule out invoking Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, which would allow the central government to adopt "the necessary measures to compel regional authorities to obey the law"—in practice, allowing for the autonomy's effective suspension and direct rule of the region.