Return of Spanish right risks reigniting Catalan separatist flame

MADRID — Spain’s election this month risks pushing the explosive issue of Catalan independence right back up the political agenda.

Nearly a decade after a separatist drive in Catalonia plunged Spain into a constitutional crisis in 2017–2018, the topic now lies dormant, barely making the headlines.

But that could change quickly if the conservative People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox take power in the vote on Nov. 29, as polls predict. Their staunch brand of unionism could well inflame feelings across the region of 8 million people.

“We know that they are certain to cut back our self-governing powers and intervene in Catalan society in a very heavy way,” Francesc-Marc Álvaro, a candidate for the Senate in the upcoming election for the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), said. “This would amount to throwing gasoline on Catalan society.”

Lawmaker Míriam Nogueras from the pro-independence Junts party said Catalonia had “never been respected by any Spanish regime or government,” and the next would be no exception. “Whatever its political color, the next Spanish government will be exactly the same as the previous one on one fundamental issue: Catalonia,” she said, adding that “the independence movement will regain momentum, and it will do so with renewed strength, because Catalonia’s dependence on Spain makes everyone poorer.”

For Madrid, the stakes are economic as well as political. Catalonia is Spain’s second-biggest autonomous region after Andalusia, representing about 19% of the national economy and 16.5% of the population.

End of Sánchez era

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez took office shortly after a failed independence drive in 2017 saw several nationalist politicians flee abroad and nine others jailed.

In contrast to the PP’s uncompromising approach to Catalonia, Sánchez negotiated with pro-independence parties, making concessions in exchange for their parliamentary support.

An amnesty benefiting Catalans involved in the secession attempt angered the Spanish right but helped calm the political atmosphere in the region, eliminating a major nationalist grievance.

Meanwhile, the cross-party unity between separatists that was so instrumental in driving the independence movement a decade ago has dissolved.

Although 43% of Catalans remain in favor of independence, according to the regional government’s statistics institute, the topic has fallen off their list of priorities, behind housing, immigration and crime.

People march in support of jailed Catalan pro-independence leaders, in Barcelona on April 15, 2026. | Lluís Gené/AFP via Getty Images

Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan president who led the 2017 secession bid, recently admitted that “nine years on, the independence movement is fragmented and weakened.”

Speaking to Catalan news outlet El Punt Avui from Waterloo, Belgium, the separatist said: “What I want is to stop being Spanish. I don’t say this as an act of rejection or contempt. I often compare it to someone who feels like a woman trapped in a man’s body,” adding that he should be able to “cancel” Spanish nationality like any other subscription.

Reviving old traumas

The big question now is to what degree hostility from the PP and Vox could rebuild the movement.

PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, citing Sánchez’s willingness to engage with Catalan nationalists, accused him of leading a government that “has begun a process of separation with and deconstruction of the constitutional system of 1978.”

Vox rose to prominence on the back of its fierce opposition to Catalan separatism. It has called for pro-independence parties to be made illegal and advocates the dismantling of Spain’s decentralized political structure, which it claims is wasteful and encourages regional nationalism.

“We want to make [separatist parties’] life as difficult as possible, because they’ve been making life impossible for Spaniards in general,” said Vox spokesperson José Antonio Fúster. “We are going to work, without a doubt, to make sure that pro-independence parties accept that the unity of Spain cannot be meddled with, is not questioned — otherwise it is clear that they must not form part of the Spanish political landscape.”

For now, however, both the PP and Vox are not taking a directly confrontational approach on Catalonia.

In an interview with Barcelona-based newspaper La Vanguardia, Feijóo insisted that the region had nothing to fear from him.

“I’m not here to centralize; I’m here to make self-government work and for the Spanish state to have a presence in Catalonia,” he said. He also complained, on the region’s behalf, that budgeted public works were not being carried out there, echoing a longstanding grievance among Catalan nationalists.

The PP leader said he planned to repeal the amnesty law benefiting Catalan nationalists, a move that would not have any practical effect. However, he also pointed to his own Galician background to underline that he understood the “issue of language, the identity- and cultural-based sentiment” associated with coming from one of Spain’s regions.

So far during the election campaign, Vox has also toned down its rhetoric on Catalonia. Party leader Santiago Abascal has instead prioritized clamping down on immigration, saying that Catalan identity needs to be protected from “Islamism.”

Vox’s relatively muted approach to Catalonia appears influenced by a desire not to antagonize voters of Catalan Alliance (AC), a far-right pro-independence party that will not run against it in the general election.

Wolves in sheep’s clothing

The Socialist Catalan president, Salvador Illa, is one of many who remain unconvinced by the emollient approach from the right during the campaign.

“These wolves are now presenting themselves as little lambs when it comes to regional government,” he said. “We’ve spent 47 years building our regional self-government. And in just one legislature of Feijóo and Abascal, it could all go down the toilet.”

Salvador Illa is seen during a plenary session of the parliament in Madrid on March 25, 2020. | Pool photo by Mariscal via EFE Agency/Getty Images

The policies of a new right-wing government would likely depend on the balance of power between the PP and Vox. Dismantling the system of regional government may be a step too far, as might the outlawing of pro-independence parties, both of which the PP has resisted in the past.

A less dramatic but nonetheless significant move might revolve around the use of the Catalan language, which has previously been a political flashpoint.

Eliminating the use of regional languages — such as Catalan, Basque, Valencian and Galician — during debates in the Spanish Congress might be an easy policy to implement for a PP-Vox administration. It would also, according to Oriol Bartomeus, director of Barcelona’s Institute for Political and Social Sciences, be “a declaration of war” for separatists.

Álvaro, of the pro-independence ERC, sees a prototype for what PP and Vox would be likely to do once in government in Valencia and the Balearic Islands, where the two parties govern together and have introduced measures aimed at reducing the use of those regions’ local languages, which are variants of Catalan.

“A PP-Vox government will definitely be militantly opposed to the language immersion model” in place in Catalan schools, Álvaro said. He also foresees a right-wing administration cutting back the Catalan government’s financing and powers in areas such as policing.

Feijóo’s willingness to exploit unionist feeling — and rile Catalan nationalists — could depend on his ability to resist the pressure of his likely coalition partner. It could also depend on how his government fares elsewhere.

“The Catalan issue is always there, liable to be used to serve political interests,” said Bartomeus, who sees the PP taking a harder line on the territorial issue if it underperforms in the election. “If you can’t implement, for example, a successful economic policy, you can always wage a culture war.”

If the next Spanish government takes a hardline approach to unionism, that would be more likely to re-energize Catalan separatism.

Puigdemont’s Junts per Catalunya party, which has been struggling in polls and helped trigger the snap election by voting in Congress against housing measures presented by Sánchez, has been awaiting a change of administration in Madrid, according to Bartomeus.

“Junts thinks that a PP-Vox government will favor a revival of the independence movement,” he said. “They are banking on the idea of a Spanish nationalist government in Madrid which is dedicated to screwing Catalonia. The objective is to reproduce the blueprint that led to [the events of 2017].”

Junts’ leader, Puigdemont, recently pointed to the “extreme division” in Spanish politics. Identifying an opportunity for his cause, he said that “even in the most difficult times for the independence movement, Spain generates crises of which we should be prepared to take advantage.”

Puigdemont has been living in Belgium since leading the 2017 independence bid. After a lengthy legal wrangle, the Spanish judiciary has finally declared that the Catalan amnesty can be applied to him.

His return home, expected after the election, could provide a morale boost to pro-independence Catalans just as a Spanish right that abhors separatism enters government.

As he himself puts it: “Even in the most difficult moments for the movement, Spain generates crises that we should be prepared to exploit.”