But Europe’s favorite secessionist telenovela appears to have come to an end — at least for now.
Last May, nationalist parties failed to secure a majority in Catalonia’s regional parliament for the first time in 30 years. Instead, voters backed 58-year-old Salvador Illa, a pro-unionist socialist politician who campaigned on social issues instead of separatism.
The bespectacled and soft-spoken Illa, who served as Spain’s health minister during the Covid crisis and is close to Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez, is often cast as a boring technocrat.
“What I want is to govern,” Illa said in an interview with POLITICO on his first trip to Brussels since his election.
By “governing,” the socialist leader said he meant shifting the focus in Catalonia away from the independence movement that has monopolized the political scene for decades, and instead focusing on straightforward policies to improve the quality of life in one of Spain’s most prosperous regions.
Illa stressed that he firmly defends “self-government for Catalonia,” but added that this should happen within a “plural and diverse Spain.”
