The Catalan issue has shattered the essential agreement of our democracy: territorial unity based on decentralization and self-government. It has also created enormous doubts about the quality of our political model.
More than once I have heard the assertion that the wave of anti-establishment sentiment that has affected many countries over the last decade, expressing itself through various forms of populism, nationalism, xenophobia and other radical assaults against the established order, had not affected Spain substantially, or at least not sufficiently to shake the structures of power in any significant way.