Catalan independence movement
Other individuals include:All of the Spanish national political parties in Catalonia reject the idea of independence. Together they represent a majority of votes yet a minority of seats in the Catalan parliament. Of these, only Podemos is prepared to hold a referendum on the issue in Catalonia; others such as Ciutadans, and the People's Party of Catalonia, which had 25.4% and 4.2% of the vote respectively in the 2017 Catalan regional election, have always opposed the notion of Catalan self-determination. The Socialists' Party (13.9% of vote) opposes independence as well. While some of its members supported the idea of a self-determination referendum up until 2012, the official position as of 2015 is that the Spanish Constitution should be reformed in order to better accommodate Catalonia. A majority of voters of left-wing platform Catalonia Yes We Can (8.94%) reject independence although the party favours a referendum in which it would campaign for Catalonia remaining part of Spain. CDC's Catalanist former-partner Unió came out against independence and fared badly in every subsequent election, eventually disbanding due to bankruptcy in 2017.
2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis
On 11 October, after an extraordinary cabinet meeting intended to address the events on the previous day, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced he was formally requiring the Catalan government to confirm whether it had declared independence before 16 October at 10am, with a further 3-day deadline until 19 October to revoke all deemed illegal acts if an affirmative answer—or no answer at all—was obtained. This requirement was a formal requisite needed to trigger article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, a so-called "nuclear option" that would allow the Spanish government to suspend Catalonia's political autonomy and impose direct rule from Madrid. Pressure mounted within the pro-independence coalition as the CUP demanded an unambiguous affirmation of Catalan independence, threatening to withdraw its parliamentary support from Puigdemont's government if he rescinded his independence claim. In his formal response to Rajoy's requirement hurrying the initial five-day deadline, Puigdemont failed to clarify whether independence had been declared and instead called for negotiations over the following two months. The Spanish government replied that this was not a valid response to its requirement and doubted that Puigdemont's offer for dialogue was sincere due to his lack of "clarity". The refusal from the Catalan government to either confirm or deny independence triggered a second deadline for them to backtrack before direct rule was imposed. The Spanish government subsequently offered to abort the incoming move to suspend self-rule if the Catalan government called for a regional election, but this was ruled out by the latter.