20 years since Catalonia's Statute reform that ignited the modern pro-independence movement

Twenty years ago, on 30 September 2005, the Catalan parliament approved a draft reform of Catalonia's Statute of Autonomy, an act that would, through its later clashes in the courts, help ignite the modern pro-independence movement.

The Statute of Autonomy is the basic legal framework defining the relationship between Catalonia and Spain, its powers, and the rights and obligations of Catalans.

The first such law in modern Spanish democracy, following Franco’s dictatorship, was passed in 1979.

For years, Catalan parties had demanded a new Statute, and when president Pasqual Maragall of the Socialists came to power in 2003 in coalition with the now openly pro-independence party Esquerra, he committed to reforming the existing Statute.

After a long period of drafting and negotiation among parties, the text was approved in the Catalan parliament on 30 September 2005, with 120 MPs in favor out of 135.

The historic text approved that day included, among many other points, one of its first articles stating that "Catalonia is a nation."

However, the draft still had to pass through the Spanish Congress and Senate, both controlled by the Socialists.

Prospects initially seemed positive, as then-PM José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero had promised during his campaign to respect whatever text emerged from the Catalan Parliament.

In practice, these were just words. Zapatero sought to trim the draft and found support from the Catalan nationalist party Convergence and Union (CiU).

Artur Mas, the party leader at the time and future president of Catalonia, agreed with Zapatero on a revised text that modified around 50% of the original draft, bringing it closer to the previous Statute.

"I do not regret it," Mas told the Catalan News Agency (ACN) on the anniversary of the Catalan parliament’s vote. "We had to choose: either we went for it, knowing we would have to trim it down, or we were left with nothing, because the Socialists would not have supported it otherwise."

Mas explained that Zapatero’s promise to accept whatever text came from the Catalan parliament encouraged them to draft the "most ambitious" statute possible. In the end, however, he said, "the problem was that Zapatero did not keep his word."

Mas unexpectedly became the main negotiator between the Spanish Socialists and his party, then the largest in Catalonia, to secure approval of a trimmed-down version of the statute.

"Some people were angry with us, people who wanted more, like me," he admitted. "But at least we managed to take part of the path. The other half was still pending, but at least we were moving forward."

The revised text was approved by the Spanish Congress and Senate, and later ratified in a Catalan referendum, in which 73.9% voted in favor, 20.8% against, and 5.3% cast blank votes. Turnout, however, was only 49% of eligible voters.

But the most significant challenge to the law was yet to come. The conservative People's Party, along with several regional governments, filed appeals claiming the law was unconstitutional.

In June 2010, after three years of deliberation, the Constitutional Court struck down 14 articles and reinterpreted 27 others.

The ruling sparked a mass protest in Barcelona just weeks later, under the slogan "We are a nation, we decide," with more than 1.5 million demonstrators, the largest protest in Catalonia at the time.

For many, this was the first in a wave of demonstrations that followed. Although the protest was not explicitly pro-independence and even drew support from Socialist figures, it quickly became, for many participants, a rallying cry for independence.

Nevertheless, the decision became a turning point. It laid the groundwork for the pro-independence movement that culminated in the October 1, 2017 referendum, declared illegal by the Spanish government.