Yes, I’d support Catalans if they want to gain nationhood. Because they have a language on their own. And because it is spoken by roughly 4-5 Million people in a region with 7,5 Million people, a community large enough to form a nation. So if Norway can be a nation with 4 Million speaking Bokmål, a Language both Danes and Swedes claim to understand, why not Catalonia? If even Montenegro and Austria may be nations, even though they share language and religion with a larger neighbour, why not Catalonia? So from a moral viewpoint, there is no reason to treat Catalonia different. And from a legal viewpoint: Catalans accepted the Spanish constitution with a vast majority in 1978, but does that really justify not to allow secession without a majority consent of the whole country? The decision was taken two generations ago by different people, after a dictatorship that denied Catalans any self-determination which should come to an end with this constitution. We all agree, that the suffragettes struggle was legitimate – wasn’t their struggle illegal though, because their fathers accepted a constitution that didn’t give them the right to vote?
Accepting both presumptions, the question is still – do the Catalans really want nationhood? The referendum on 2017-10-01 had a 42.58% turnout, with 97,10% valid votes showing a support of 91,96%. So today you still don’t know more than that at least 38,02% support your case. No contradiction to recent polls, that repeatedly couldn’t find a majority of Catalans wishing independence. Sure, you may assume that turnout would have been higher if the participation in referendum wasn’t violently suppressed by the Spanish police. But you may also assume that the vote against nationhood would have been higher if the referendum wasn’t declared as irrelevant and illegal. My conclusion is: nobody can assume that the 57,48% who didn’t vote and the 2,9% who voted blank or invalid do not bother. So we don’t yet have a case for independence.
So even those who support nationhood (I avoid the term “independence” as this doesn’t exist in this world and “self-determination” as Catalonia wants to stay in the EU and thus intends to accept some form of co-determination anyway) must accept that they are in some form of deadlock. Just like the Spanish PM Rajoy, who massively supported the case for independence with his inflexibility in dealing with the referendum aspirations and with his governments ruthlessness in exploiting Catalonias financial well-being for the sake of saving the Spanish banking system.
My suggestion for my friends in Spain would be to let Catalonia have a referendum, asking whether Catalans would prefer a new autonomy statute with substantially less financial transfers (as the current financial transfers exceeds the German Länderfinanzausgleich by factor 10) that encompasses the ability to have a non-binding referendum every ten years in the future or if they rather prefer nationhood. If nationhood reaches a majority the Spanish government could commit itself to support the case and pave the way for a legally binding referendum (asking all of Spain) in order to act within the framework of the Spanish constitution. I am sure with these options the majority of Catalans would prefer to stay with Spain – at least before 2017-10-01.
I doubt that any outcome will soothe the Catalan nationalists, as with just 55% of the population in Catalonia speaking Catalan the language is just about to loose its status as a living every-day language. I guess this is what mainly drives their ambition. And being more prosperous than other regions of Spain will drag even more people into the country – people who will not bother to learn Catalan if they don’t have to. The catalan nationalists will continue their aspiration that being a nation will solve this problem, which might have been the case in the past. It won’t help any more: Catalonia has the same demographic problems as all highly developed societies and needs permanent immigration. If 45% of the population already prefers Spanish, this will be the future lingua franca of Catalonia, (together with English – in the long run), unless its usage is prohibited – unthinkable in a democracy. If we all are committed to preserve smaller languages – as language diversity is part of our European identity – we will need better ideas than nationhood.