Two out of three Catalans rate the results of the so-called dialogue table on the political conflict between Catalonia and Spain as negative or very negative - eight months after the only meeting it has had so far, held in Barcelona on September 15th, 2021 with the presence of Catalan president Pere Aragonès and Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez. This is the perception of 66.7% of respondents in the Feedback poll for El Nacional.cat on the political situation in Catalonia coinciding with the first anniversary of the arrival of Aragonès in the presidency of the Generalitat and the formation of his new Catalan government. The next meeting of the table has been repeatedly postponed by the Spanish government and the emergence of massive espionage against pro-independence activists in the scandal known as Catalangate has helped to generate further mistrust between the two executives, although Aragonès's ERC party continues to speak of the need for dialogue with the state. As well, the disagreement with Junts, ERC's partner in the coalition government, at the start of the table - in which it did not participate after ERC and the Spanish Socialists vetoed its representatives - has fed the generalized sensation that the dialogue forum is not a useful one.
"Opinion of the dialogue table between the Catalan and Spanish government: How do you rate the results of this table?"
Green = positive or very positive; Yellow = mediocre; Red = negative or very negative; Grey = don't know
The poll is based on 1,000 telephone surveys conducted between May 1st and 19th. The results obtained show a clear conclusion among Catalans. 66.7% give a negative or very negative assessment of the results of the dialogue table, while 23.2% see it as mediocre and a meagre 8%, on the other hand, value it positively or very positively. The other 2.2% of respondents do not know. Based on how respondents voted in the 2021 Catalan parliamentary elections, the most negative assessment among the pro-independence bloc occurs among the voters of Junts (56.3%, very negative and 27.3%, negative) and the CUP (54.6%, very negative and 28.2%, negative). But ERC voters do not have a view that is much more upbeat: 35.2% give it a negative rating and 32.5% a very negative rating. 27.1% see it as mediocre, only 4% as positive and 1.2% as "very positive".
What Socialist voters think
As for the Socialist voters, they are not very convinced either by the results of the dialogue table: the majority assessment is mediocre, the description which 37.4% opted for, with only 15% evaluating it positively. As for the voters of the left-wing Comuns, a party also implicated in the dialogue as a partner with the PSOE in the Spanish government, there is not much satisfaction either: a majority of 44.4% take a mediocre view and only 5.9%, a positive one. Looking at voters from right-wing or far-right Spanish parties, the assessment is also very negative. 100% of voters of the far-right Vox party disapprove of the dialogue: 52.3% evaluate the results of the dialogue table very negatively and the remaining 47.7% negatively. In Ciudadanos, 64.4% rate it very negatively and 19.7%, say the performance has been mediocre. Of those who voted for the People's Party in 2021, 59.3% rate the table negatively, 21.2% very negatively and 19.4% say it is mediocre.
Technical details:
- Area: Catalonia..
- Population: People aged 18 years and over with the right to vote in the elections to the Catalan Parliament.
- Method: Telephone survey with combination of landlines (75%) and cellphones (25%).
- Sample: 1,000 interviews.
- Quotas: Proportional on 3 variables: (1) age group,(2) sex and (3) type of city based on memory of vote.
- Statistical conditions: Total possible margin of error +3,16%, for an infinite population (electoral role of 5,624,067 people), with a confidence level of 95.5% (K=2), and the assumption of maximum indeterminacy where p=q=50/50.
- Field work: Survey interviews conducted between Tuesday 10th and Thursday 19th May 2022.
- Survey company: Feedback