This month, Carles Puigdemont, the president of Catalonia, articulated his belief that Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government was bringing authoritarianism of the Franco era back to Spain and damaging the country’s democracy. The declaration of unconstitutionality and the demonstration of July 10 have personified the two-sided monologue between the Spanish central government and Catalonia ever since: the invocation of the Law - with a Capital L - by the Spanish government on the one hand, and the appeal to the universal right (according to the Hague tribunal) to self-management and self-determination by an increasingly united and organized region around the cause for independence. It also stated that the Catalan language could not be described as the "own and preferred language" in Catalonia, and ruled that references to "Catalonia as a nation" and "the national reality of Catalonia" lacked "interpretive legal effectiveness."
The President of Catalonia vows to continue on with the vote despite objections from Spain.