November 12, 2024

Non-partisan and pluralist communication and debate platform

Home » Content » 60% of Catalans want Catalonia to be part of Spain as a region, autonomy or federated state
Only 19.7% of citizens in Catalonia consider that the Spanish State is alien to them, according to the latest survey by the Center d'Estudis d'Opinió

May 31, 2021

28.1% of Catalans consider that Catalonia should continue to be an autonomous community of Spain, 5.7% that it should be a Spanish region and 25.6% that it should become a state within a federal Spain. In other words, almost 60% (59.3%) believe that Catalonia should be part of Spain as a region, an autonomous community or a federated state. This was explained, between May 11 and 19, to the pollsters of the Center d’Estudis d’Opinión (CEO) who asked them the questions in their latest Poll on the political context in Catalonia. 34.2% were in favor of an independent state, while 3.8% were not clear about it and 2.7% did not want to answer.

The CEO also included in this survey the question: “What does Spain mean to you?” Less than one in five respondents (19.7%) accepted the box that offered the possibility of answering: “A foreign state, of which my country should not be a part”. Nearly three-quarters of those who answered the survey (74.9%) indicated other options: “My country” (24.3%), “the state of which I feel like a citizen (16.6%), “A nation of which I feel like a member” (8.6%) and “a State made up of various nationalities and regions” (25.4%). This question was poorly posed because it mixed options in which sentimental ascriptions were requested with a merely descriptive one. However, 49.5% answered that they consider themselves a citizen of Spain or that it is their country or nation, while only 19.7% see it as a foreign state. It would be necessary to know what other option the 25.4% of respondents would have chosen if the one that limited itself to defining Spain as a state of nationalities and regions had been eliminated. In any case, those who define themselves as citizens of Spain or define it as their country or nation almost quadruple those who see it as a foreign state.

The feeling of belonging raises serious doubts to those surveyed, since it is not always easy for them to place themselves in one of the labels proposed by the CEO. 70.5% of them feel Spanish, to a greater or lesser extent. The most frequent ascription is that of feeling “as Spanish as Catalan” (38.4%). 23.4% feel more Catalan than Spanish, 4.9% more Spanish than Catalan and 3.8% only Spanish. In contrast, only 24.1% do not feel Spanish at all.

One of the most absurd questions included in this survey is the one that asks citizens to answer with which phrase they feel most identified on a scale of options that has no logic: “I am a Catalan living in Catalonia” , «I am a Catalan / who lives in Spain», «I am a Spaniard who lives in Catalonia» and «I am a Spaniard who lives in Spain». It is not surprising, then, that almost 15% do not know which answer to choose. Those who consider themselves Catalans living in Catalonia, which is Spain, what answer do they choose?

The credibility of CEO surveys has been very limited for years. This concludes that 48.7% of Catalans do not want Catalonia to be an independent country and that 44.9% do. Looking at the data set detailed in this article, one would have to think that the independentists are further away from being the majority in Catalonia than the 3.8 points that the CEO gives them at a disadvantage now.

OpenKat

View all posts

Add comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *