The Economy of Catalonia

It should also be recalled that the Bourbon side’s victory in the War of the
Spanish Succession entailed, with the proclamation of the Decree of the
New Plan, the creation of a single Spanish juridical nationality that did not
distinguish between Catalans, Castilians, Aragonese, Valencians, Majorcans
and Sardinians. It likewise entailed the unity of the Peninsular market, something
which, as Pierre Vilar has so well explained, facilitated the growth of
Catalonia and promoted the arts and sciences, culminating, in the times of
Charles III, with the elimination of internal customs and with freedom of
trade with the Americas. This was a favourable economic circumstance for
Catalonia (Albareda, 1995 and 2002) and nothing similar had occurred with
any intensity in the times of the Habsburgs, when the Peninsular parliaments
did not achieve the harmonisation characteristic of the modern States that
arose, as they are conceived today, from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
In the Napoleonic period, Catalonia was a French province, as it had
previously been when Pau Claris pronounced Louis XIII of France to be
Count of Barcelona at the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1641.
It was a Catalan, Laureà Figuerola, who created the peseta as the Spanish
monetary unit with the intention, later foiled, of Spain’s entering the
«European» Latin Monetary Union.
These historical notes show that the territory which now forms Catalonia
has always been the scene –in a more passive than active way– of
significant events in Europe and that it cannot renounce this historic
European past.
Lastly, this historical review cannot be concluded without recalling that
the Catalans have taken an active part in movements which were forerunners
of European integration following World War II and in institutional
developments which have led to European integration as we know
it today (Granell, Pou, Sanchez Ferriz, 2002)
Political reasons
The Catalan politicians of today have striven to progress along the path of
European integration ever since Spain joined what was then the European
Community (EC), just as Catalan groups opposing General Franco struggled
–before Spain entered the EC– to achieve adhesion because they
knew that, on joining the Community, the Franco regime would be
56 The Economy of Catalonia