With all the nuances you want to add, Catalonia is about to enter the fourth phase of what has come to be known as the transition from autonomy within the Spanish state to total Catalan sovereignty. The passing - this time, yes - of the amnesty law by the Congress of Deputies - after the vote in the justice committee - will bring to end the third phase that Catalonia has passed through since it was found that the autonomous community model was insufficient and the seams of Spain's 1978 regime could hold no more. Broadly speaking, the first of these periods began with the Arenys de Munt consultation in 2009, which was the first ever municipal vote on independence from Spain held in Catalonia. It was obviously a local consultation, non-binding, without any legal value. But it was the beginning of a consciousness-raising process in other municipalities, which included the city of Barcelona and which lasted until 2012.
The second step began with the demonstration on Catalan National Day, 11th September, 2012, with one and a half million people marching behind the slogan "Catalonia, a new state in Europe" and it marked the beginning of a series of massive mobilizations, the most multitudinous in modern Europe. This stage lasted until the referendum of 1st October 2017, the proclamation of independence in the Catalan Parliament, and the dissolution of the government of Catalonia and the application of Article 155 of the Constitution, imposing direct rule from Madrid. The third phase is that of exile and prison from November 2017 onwards. An unprecedented situation in a democracy, which resulted from the enraged reaction from Spanish politicians, the judiciary and the media, unable to correctly delimit something that was, at the most, an act of disobedience. Nothing more. The amnesty law is a recognition of the Spanish error, no matter how great the effort to present it as a law of reconciliation.
The amnesty law is a recognition of the Spanish error, no matter how great the effort to present it as a law of reconciliation
The fourth phase does not have its script fully detailed and even less a shared plot outline. In fact, it could be said positions are not even concordant within the two blocs in the conflict. There is no consensus on the pro-independence side, where Together for Catalonia (Junts) and the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) have such antagonistic positions that they are unable to govern together. Not in the main town halls, nor in the provincial councils, and not in the Catalan government, the Generalitat. There is no political thread that allows them to come together again, even though the leaders of both parties, far from acknowledging it, tend to downplay the differences. It seems that everyone goes to war for their own motives, but there's nothing to be gained in saying so. The only place where they find themselves voting together is, such are the paradoxes of life, the Spanish Congress. The People's Party (PP) and the Catalan Socialists (PSC) do not go hand in hand either, with the latter playing roles on both right and left in order to secure the most institutional power it can.
We will see if this fourth phase - which will inevitably include the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia, theoretically due in February 2025 - opens the door to new alliances in the Catalan government and in the development of the Spanish legislature, which today is shrouded in mist for Pedro Sánchez, under siege due to growing corruption cases. Probably, the amnesty marks the beginning of the PM's ordeal to maintain his Spanish political pacts and not the end of one, as the Socialists would like to read it. The government budget is the next issue, and it is clear that if Pedro Sánchez does not get it passed, the Spanish government will sink like a stone. Today he knows that the numbers don't work for him, no matter how much he tries to underline the achievement of an amnesty that, by the way, he neither wanted nor expected before the electoral results of July 23rd last year and the balance of political forces it created in Madrid.
The political side of Catalan independentism comes out favoured by the amnesty law's outcome. One should not be optimistic about the respect that judges end up according it. Since it is significant and, thus, decisive for the people affected, those courts will have to go even further with fictional narratives to establish a new line of opposition. But what is clear is that it will enter a new future.