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2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
Part of the 2008–present Spanish crisis and the 2012–present Catalan independence movement
Location of Catalonia within Spain.
Date	6 September 2017 – present (7 years, 3 months, 3 weeks and 2 days)
Location	Spain, primarily Catalonia
Caused by	Government of Catalonia's refusal to abide to Constitutional Court's suspension of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum. Government of Spain's refusal to negotiate a legal referendum.
Methods	Demonstrations, civil disobedience, civil resistance, occupations, general strikes
Status	Ongoing Referendum held despite suspension; hundreds injured during police crackdown on polling day. Legal actions initiated against members of Catalan government and Parliament by Spanish judiciary; financial and police intervention of Catalonia by the Spanish government. Street protests throughout Catalonia; regionwide general strike on 3 October. Catalan government announcing moves towards unilateral independence declaration. Demonstrations throughout Spain in support and against the Spanish government's actions.
Parties
Government of Spain Ministry of the Interior of Spain National Police Corps Civil Guard Generalitat of Catalonia Ministry of the Interior of Catalonia Mossos d'Esquadra
Lead figures
King Felipe VI Mariano Rajoy Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría Juan Ignacio Zoido Carles Puigdemont Oriol Junqueras
Number
Police detachment in Catalonia: 12,000 Catalan police force: 17,000
Casualties and losses
Injured: 431 policemen (2nd October) 10or 13 (end of 1st October) Injured: 893 (in Catalonia) 3 (in Madrid) Arrested: 18 (in Catalonia) 1 (in Madrid)

The 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis is an ongoing political conflict between the Government of Spain and the Generalitat of Catalonia over the issue of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, starting after the law intending to allow such a referendum was denounced by the Spanish government under Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and subsequently suspended by the Constitutional Court until it ruled on the issue. The Catalan government under President Carles Puigdemont announced that neither central Spanish authorities nor the courts would halt their plans and that it intended to hold the vote anyway, sparking a legal backlash that quickly spread from the Spanish and Catalan governments to Catalan municipalities—as local mayors were urged by the Generalitat to provide logistical support and help for the electoral process to be carried out—as well as to the Constitutional Court, the High Court of Justice of Catalonia and state prosecutors.

By 15 September, as pro–Catalan independence parties began their referendum campaigns, the Spanish government had launched an all-out legal offensive to thwart the upcoming vote, including threats of a financial takeover of much of the Catalan budget, police seizing pro-referendum posters, pamphlets and leaflets which had been regarded as illegal and criminal investigations ordered on the over 700 local mayors who had publicly agreed to help stage the referendum. Tensions between the two sides reached a critical point after Spanish police raided the Catalan government headquarters in Barcelona on 20 September, at the start of Operation Anubis, and arrested 13 senior Catalan officials, with some international media describing the events as "one of the worst political crises in modern Spanish history".

Background

Recent increase in support for Catalan independence has its roots in a Constitutional Court ruling in 2010, which struck down parts of the regional 2006 Statute of Autonomy that granted new powers of self-rule to the region. The ruling came after four years of deliberation concerning a constitutional appeal filed by the conservative People's Party (PP) under Mariano Rajoy—then the country's second-largest party, in opposition to the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's Spanish Socialist Workers' Party—and was met with anger and street protests in Catalonia. Shortly afterward the PP took power in Spain, and after a massive independence demonstration took place in Barcelona on 11 September 2012—Catalonia's National Day—the Catalan government under President Artur Mas called a snap regional election and set out to initiate Catalonia's process towards independence.

After a pro-independence coalition formed by the Junts pel Sí alliance and the Popular Unity Candidacy won a slim majority in the Parliament in the 2015 regional election, new President Carles Puigdemont promised to organise a binding independence referendum based on results from an non-binding vote in 2014, when about 80% of those who voted were believed to have backed independence for the region—albeit on an estimated turnout around or below 40%. The Catalan government invoked right of people to self-determination and Catalonia's political, economical and cultural background to back up his proposal of a referendum on Catalan independence. The Government of Spain, now with Mariano Rajoy as Prime Minister, opposed such a vote, arguing that any referendum on Catalan independence would go against the country's 1978 Constitution, as it made no provision for a vote on self-determination.

On 9 June 2017, Puigdemont announced that the planned independence referendum would be held on 1 October. The Catalan government criticised the attitude of the Spanish government in refusing to negotiate a referendum and accused it of behaving undemocratically.

Crisis

Referendum suspended

On 6 September 2017, the ruling Junts pel Sí (JxSí) coalition and its parliamentary partner, the Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), passed a controversial law—the Law on a Self-determination Referendum on the Independence of Catalonia—in the Parliament of Catalonia that was to provide the legal framework for the intended independence referendum scheduled for 1 October. The way in which the law had been pushed through Parliament also became an issue of controversy. Catalan opposition parties accused JxSí and CUP of fast-tracking the law through parliament by altering the day's agenda to introduce the issue, violating their parliamentary rights by skipping legally-required steps for bills to go through before being put up to vote. Members from JxSí acknowledged it was not their preferred method, but justified it in that it was the only way to get the bill on the floor without being blocked and that it was not "any ordinary law". Shortly after the parliamentary vote, in which most of the opposition MPs walked out from the chamber without voting the bill, the Catalan regional government signed the decree calling for the referendum.

The People's Party-led Spanish government under Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced that it would appeal the bill to the Constitutional Court, which agreed to hear all four of its unconstitutionality appeals and subsequently suspended the law and the referendum until it was to rule upon the matter. Despite the referendum suspension, the Catalan government announced it would proceed with the vote anyway. This prompted Attorney General José Manuel Maza to ask security forces to investigate on possible preparations from the Catalan government to hold the vote, as well as announcing he would present criminal charges against members of both the regional parliament and government for voting and signing off the referendum. The national government proceeded to deploy a series of legal measures intended to nullify the referendum, while also warning local councils in Catalonia to either impede or paralyse efforts to carry out the vote. Previously, local mayors had been given 48 hours by the regional government to confirm the availability of polling stations for 1 October. On 7 September and under a similar procedure as the day previously, pro-independence lawmakers in the Parliament of Catalonia passed the legal framework that was to prevail the Spanish one should a majority vote for the 'Yes' to independence choice.

Within the next two days, nearly 74% of Catalan municipalities—comprising about 43% of the Catalan population—had agreed to provide the needed polling stations for the referendum, whereas many of the most-populated urban areas—representing 24% of Catalan inhabitants—had voiced their opposition to the vote. The largest city and capital of Catalonia, Barcelona—accounting for about 20% of the region's population—was caught in the middle, with its local mayor, Ada Colau, refusing to make a statement whether the municipality would provide logistic support to the referendum or not while rejecting putting public servants at risk; she, however, voiced her support for the people's right to vote in a fair and legal referendum. Concurrently, President of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont, Vice-President Oriol Junqueras, the entire Catalan government as well as parliamentary officials allowing the referendum law to be put to vote in Parliament—including Parliament Speaker Carme Forcadell—faced charges of disobedience, misusing public funds and making deliberately unlawful decisions as elected officials as the High Court of Justice of Catalonia agreed to hear the criminal complaints filled by state prosecutors.

Judicial and police action

A decision on 13 September from Spain's public prosecutors to order a criminal probe of all local mayors who had publicly announced they would help stage the independence referendum—totalling over 700—came the day after the Constitutional Court had accepted the Spanish government's request to suspend the second of the two laws that had been approved by the seccessionist majority in the Catalan parliament the previous week. The probe meant that prosecutors could choose to present criminal charges—or even arrest, if failing to answer the summons—local mayors who disobeyed the Constitutional Court's ruling. As part of a series of moves to block the Catalan referendum, prosecutors had also instructed police officials to seize ballot boxes, election flyers and other items that could be of use in the illegal vote, whereas the Constitutional Court had instructed regional government officials to show how they were preventing the vote from going ahead within a 48-hour deadline. In response, the Catalan government sent a letter to Treasury Minister Cristóbal Montoro announcing that it would stop sending weekly financial accounts to Spain's central government, a previously-established obligation that was meant to verify whether the region was using public money for the promotion of its independence drive as well as a requirement for the region's access to a funding programme to autonomous communities established in 2012. The Spanish government then proceeded to take direct control of most of Catalonia's invoice payments.

In a search on 19 September, Spanish police seized significant election material which had been in store by referendum organizers at the offices of a private delivery company in Terrassa. These included voting cards contained in envelopes with the Catalan government's logo. The next day, the Civil Guard raided Generalitat offices and arrested fourteen senior officials from the Catalan government—most notably, these included Josep Maria Jové [ca], deputy to regional Vice-President Oriol Junqueras. This came after mayors from towns supporting the referendum were questioned in court by state prosecutors. Regional premier Carles Puigdemont condemned the actions as "anti-democratic and totalitarian", accusing the Spanish government of 'de facto' imposing a state of emergency and of suspending Catalonia's autonomy after it took effective control over Catalan finances. Public protests sparked in Barcelona after news of the arrests emerged, with left-wing political party Podemos and Barcelona mayor Ada Colau joining the growing criticism on Mariano Rajoy's government crackdown on public servants, dubbing it as an "authoritarian regression". The previous day, the Congress of Deputies had voted down a motion from Ciudadanos to support the Spanish government's heavy-handed response to the referendum, which was rejected by 166 votes to 158. Rajoy defended his government's actions in that "What we're seeing in Catalonia is an attempt to eliminate the constitution and the autonomous statute of Catalonia... Logically, the state has to react. There is no democratic state in the world that would accept what these people are trying to do. They've been warned and they know the referendum can't take place". Rajoy also called for the Catalonia government to give up its "escalation of radicalism and disobedience", calling for them to "Go back to the law and democracy" and dubbing the referendum a "chimera", as tens of thousands gathered in the streets of Barcelona and other Catalan cities to protest police actions. The Spanish government did not rule out invoking Section 155 of the Spanish Constitution, which would allow the central government to adopt "the necessary measures to compel regional authorities to obey the law"—in practice, allowing for the autonomy's effective suspension and direct rule of the region.

On 21 September, the Catalan government acknowledged that the raid and arrests in the previous day severely hampered the referendum's logistics by preventing any alternative election data centre to be established in time for the vote to take place. Nonetheless, Catalan Vice-President Junqueras called for people to turn out and mobilise on 1 October, turning the social response into a "censure motion to Rajoy", stating that "If there is any possibility of change in Spain, democracy must triumph in Catalonia". As street protests continued throughout Catalonia, additional police reinforcements were sent by the Spanish government to block any moves to hold the referendum on 1 October. Spanish prosecutors formally accused some protesters in Barcelona of sedition, after several Civil Guard patrol cars had been vandalised on Wednesday night. By 23 September, the Spanish government announced that the Mossos d'Esquadra—the regional police force—were to be subordinated to a single command dependent of the Spanish government and that the Interior Ministry would assume co-ordination over all security forces in Catalonia. The previous day, several hundred students had announced a permanent occupation of the historic building of the University of Barcelona, protesting the state's actions.

Referendum and subsequent events

Despite the suspension, the Catalan referendum was held on 1 October as scheduled by the Generalitat. Over 12,000 officers from the National Police Corps and the Civil Guard were deployed throughout Catalonia in an effort to close off polling stations and seize all election material to prevent the vote from taking place. The Spanish government was forced to call off police raids after clashes with protesters resulted in over 800 injured and a negligible effect on the electoral process. Reports from the violence spread internationally, receiving a mostly negative response from the media and several national governments, with Spanish police forces criticised for their heavy-handed crackdown on the referendum. The events of 1 October sparked a public outcry in Catalonia, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets to protest Spanish police violence.

On 3 October, as huge protest rallies and a general strike took place in Catalonia, King Felipe VI delivered an unusually strongly worded televised address in which he condemned the referendum organizers for acting "outside the law", accusing them of "unacceptable disloyalty" and of "eroding the harmony and co-existence within Catalan society itself". He also warned the referendum could put the economy of the entire north-east region of Spain at risk. Reactions to the King's speech were mixed. Party officials from the PP and Ciudadanos praised the King's "commitment to legality", whereas leaders from Unidos Podemos and Catalunya en Comú criticised it as "unworthy and irresponsible", paving the way for a harsh intervention in Catalan autonomy. PSOE's leaders expressed support for the King's words in public, but were reported to be privately dissatisfied that the King had not made any call to encourage understanding or dialogue between the Spanish and Catalan governments. On October 5th, the Constitutional Court of Spain suspended a future parliamentary session (scheduled for October 9th) that was planned in order to push for a Declaration of Independence.

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v t e Catalan nationalism and independence movement
Events	¡Cu-Cut! incident 1918-1919 autonomy campaign Plot of Prats de Molló Catalan Republic (1931) Events of 6 October Operation Garzón Fresno Case 2009–2011 independence referendums support 2010 autonomy protest 2012 independence demonstration 2013 Catalan Way 2014 Catalan Way 2014 self-determination referendum 2015 Free Way 2016 We are ready 2017–2018 Spanish constitutional crisis 2017 National Day for Yes 2017 Yes Campaign 2017 Operation Anubis 2017 independence referendum reactions 2017 Catalan general strike 2017 Wake Up Europe! 2017 Catalan regional election 2019 trial of independence leaders 2019–2020 protests 2019 Catalan general strike
Concepts	Catalan Countries Principality of Catalonia Republican Generalitat Anti-Catalan sentiment Federalism
Documents	Bases de Manresa (1892) Draft Constitution of the Catalan Republic (1928) Declaration of Sovereignty (23 Jan 2013) White Paper on the National Transition of Catalonia (Sep 2014) Initiation of the Process of Independence (9 Nov 2015) Let Catalans Vote (May 2017) Law on the Referendum on Self-determination (6 Sep 2017) Law of juridical transition (8 Sep 2017) Catalan declaration of independence (10/27 Oct 2017)
People	Valentí Almirall Enric Prat de la Riba Josep Puig i Cadafalch Francesc Macià Lluís Companys Joan Comorera Josep Irla Josep Tarradellas Jordi Pujol Guillem Agulló Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira Artur Mas Oriol Junqueras Muriel Casals Carme Forcadell Jordi Sànchez Jordi Cuixart Carles Puigdemont Roger Torrent Anna Gabriel Quim Torra Elisenda Paluzie Pere Aragonès Lluís Llach
Organisations	Pro-independence Association of Municipalities for Independence Assemblea Nacional Catalana Òmnium Cultural Committees for the Defense of the Republic Estat Català Socialist Party of National Liberation† Catalan European Democratic Party† Republican Left of Catalonia Sobiranistes Junts per Catalunya DC MES Popular Unity Candidacy Endavant Poble Lliure Més per Mallorca PSM Més per Menorca PSMe Catalan Solidarity for Independence Reagrupament Republican Left of the Valencian Country Democratic Tsunami Catalan Alliance Autonomist and federalist Assembly of Catalonia† Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia† Democratic Convergence of Catalonia† Catalonia in Common Proposta per les Illes Youth Young Republican Left of Catalonia Nationalist Youth of Catalonia Arran La Forja Maulets†
Sign † marks defunct organisations.

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