BARCELONA
— A tide of emotion has washed over Catalonia in the past few days,
over those who demand separation from Spain and those who oppose it.
Graffiti has appeared overnight, proclaiming, “We are not Spanish.”
Crowds have marched past gawking tourists, singing, “I am, I am, I am
Spanish.”
One
thing that unites them is that they have very little idea what an
independent Catalonia would look like. Would it be readmitted to the
European Union? Would it use a new currency? Would trade plummet? Would
they be separated from their family members in Spain?
In the turbulence over Sunday’s referendum,
there had been surprisingly little public debate about the practical
effect of declaring independence. Spain’s heavy-handed response made the
referendum into a battle over the right to vote, an issue over which
there is far greater consensus in Catalonia.
With the referendum behind them, Catalans have begun to ask: What just happened? And what happens now?
In
interviews across Barcelona this week, many expressed confidence that
the fuzzy details of statehood could be worked out. But an equal number
were apprehensive, even alarmed, at the plunge toward independence the
referendum set in motion.
“Explain
it to me: If I stay here, would there be advantages or disadvantages?”
asked Loli Risco, 59. “They are not explaining anything, they are just
saying, ‘This is what I want.’ I want to keep the euro, and I want to
keep being European. What will I do? I will sell my apartment and I will
leave.”
Ms.
Risco and her daughter had stayed home on Sunday, and they said that
their voices had been excluded from the drama of the referendum.
Catalan
leaders declared that 90 percent of voters supported separation, a
result that made it clear that almost the only people motivated to vote
were the ones who wanted independence.
Yet,
like Ms. Risco and her daughter, more than half of Catalonia’s eligible
voters did not vote or brave the police who used truncheons and rubber
bullets to enforce the central government’s order to stop a referendum
it considered illegal.
The result has left not only Spain, but Catalonia itself divided.
A
few doors away from Ms. Risco, at a shop that sold preserved hocks of
pork, Noemi Aguro, 38, was unsympathetic to those people who did not
vote, saying they had no choice now but to accept the results.
“They didn’t vote, they had the chance, they shouldn’t complain now,” Ms. Aguro said.
Economists
generally agree that Catalonia would be economically viable as an
independent country, but they differ on the impact on jobs, barriers to
trade and the spending needs of the new state.
The
separatist government would have to negotiate thorny issues with Spain,
such as how to apportion Spain’s debt, now equivalent to just over 100
percent of its gross domestic product.
Xavier
Sala-i-Martín, an economist and professor at Columbia University who
has spearheaded the separatist drive, contends that a unilateral
departure of Catalonia could leave Spain solely responsible for its
debt.
Catalonia’s
separatist government, which published a “white book” outlining plans
for an independent state in 2014, said Catalonia would assume a portion
of the debt if Spain agreed to transfer state-owned infrastructure and
other assets to the separatist government.
The
separatist government proposes replacing Spain’s army with its own, but
its calculations, like almost every other, have been challenged by
economists as too optimistic. The authors Josep Borrell and Joan
Llorach, who have written about Catalonia, note that the separatists
also never take into account what would be Catalonia’s annual NATO
membership fee of 3 billion euros, or roughly $3.5 billion.
Sevi Rodríguez Mora,
a professor at the University of Edinburgh, calculates that added
barriers to trade between Catalonia and the rest of Spain would cause a
10 percent drop in the region’s gross domestic product. But Mr.
Rodríguez Mora he added that economic arguments had been pushed to the
margins of the debate.
“Economics
is a sideshow, used by one side or the other as propaganda,” he said.
“Everything is about identity politics. It’s a definition of ‘us.’ ”
Many
young activists — the core of the movement’s public support — expressed
serene confidence that added tax revenue would more than make up for
the drop in trade, even if Catalonia was forced to remain outside the
European Union.
Gala
Cabré, 16, was sitting outside Barcelona’s Museum of Contemporary Art,
where skateboarders clattered across the plaza, and said Catalonia would
thrive as a small, wealthy enclave. Her point of comparison was
Andorra.
“Andorra
is an independent country that has its own currency,” Ms. Cabré said,
as her friends nodded encouragement. (Actually, it uses the euro.)
“Everything is cheaper there. Andorra has a lot of police. It’s a very
safe country.”
She
and her friends, who planned to spend Tuesday “screaming and saying
what we want,” during a regionwide general strike, also felt sure that
the European Union would ultimately welcome Catalonia, even if Spain
opposed it.
Dona
Barragán, 17, said various European powers, like Germany and Britain,
had quietly signaled their support. “Maybe they have not told us
officially, but they support us,” she said. “Inside, they support us.”
European Union leaders have in fact been reluctant to embrace Catalonia’s cause for fear of fueling broader separatist forces in the bloc and its member states.
The
depth of support for independence even in Catalonia is hotly disputed.
Opinion polls, although of uncertain reliability, have shown a split in
opinion that hovers around 50 percent.
In
2012, for the first time, 51.1 percent of respondents favored
independence, according to the Centre d’Estudis d’Opinió, the official
Catalan polling agency. In the most recent regional parliamentary
elections, in 2015, 48 percent of voters cast their vote for
pro-independence parties.
Mr.
Rodríguez Mora, the economist, said the split in opinion correlated
with income, with villagers and affluent urbanites generally in favor of
independence, while working-class urbanites, many of whom have roots in
other parts of Spain, opposed it.
Alberto
Vallespín, 44, who owns a locksmith’s shop in central Barcelona, is
from an old Catalan family but worries about the effect on his business,
which has suppliers and customers in other parts of Spain.
Separation
could mean additional taxes on those transactions, Mr. Vallespín said,
especially if the process is rancorous. And he dismissed the idea that
the European Union would accept Catalonia anytime soon.
“Things won’t be better” if Catalonia wins independence, he said. “And they may be worse.”
But
Mr. Vallespín had not taken part in the referendum, or gone out to
demonstrate or closed his shop for the general strike on Tuesday. He had
customers lined up at the counter.
He was part of a vast city that carried on as usual all week, while the chanting crowds marched past.
“In
the end, the people fighting are the ones who support independence,”
said Gemma Martín, 33, a cashier at a crystal shop in the old city. “The
rest of us are just watching.”
