From the Crusades to Trump’s wars

When a route breaks, the world trembles. This is not a metaphor: it is the reality of a global economy that still depends on millennia-old pathways. Global trade is not only a matter of supply and demand, but above all a matter of geography. From the caravans of the Silk Road to the large ships crossing the oceans, trade routes have been the true arteries through which the world’s wealth has flowed.

But these arteries are not infallible. When they are blocked or become unsafe, the system tightens and conflicts emerge. History demonstrates this time and again: behind many wars that appear ideological or religious lies, in reality, the need to control the flow of goods, resources, and wealth. When trade is threatened, power reacts.

The Crusades are a paradigmatic example. As historian Steven Runciman explains in his landmark work A “History of the Crusades”, these conflicts cannot be understood solely from a religious perspective, but also as a struggle for control over trade routes between East and West. And today, far from disappearing, this logic has become more sophisticated: wars are no longer fought with swords, but with tariffs, sanctions, and logistical control. The forms evolve. The battle remains the same.

The global economy has always been shaped by geography. It is no coincidence that great empires have emerged at strategic points: trade crossroads, natural ports, or mandatory transit zones. These locations not only facilitated trade but also allowed its control, becoming true centers of economic and political power.

The logic is simple: whoever controls trade flows controls wealth. Trade routes function like a circulatory system that keeps the global economic body alive. When the flow is steady, there is growth and stability; but when it breaks, tensions, shortages, and inflation arise, directly affecting both markets and daily life.

When the Silk Road breaks… the Crusades arrive

The Silk Road was the first great global system: a network connecting Asia and Europe through which goods, technology, and knowledge flowed. But this system had a structural weakness: its dependence on political stability. When balances broke in the Middle East and routes became unsafe, Europe was cut off from Eastern goods. It is in this context that the Crusades emerged, wrapped in religious discourse but with a clear economic objective: to regain control over trade flows.

Faced with this terrestrial instability, Europe chose a strategic solution: to seek alternative routes. Thus were born the great maritime explorations, turning the sea into the new Silk Road. Maritime transport offered greater capacity, lower costs, and less dependence on hostile territories, driving the rise of maritime empires. From that moment on, trade ceased to be merely exchange and became a tool of power: modern geopolitics was born.

Maritime routes: the new arteries of the world

Today, more than 80% of global trade travels by sea. Maritime routes have become the main arteries of the global economy, true invisible highways connecting continents and markets. Through these corridors flow raw materials, energy, and manufactured goods that sustain the daily functioning of the global economic system.

Some points are especially critical—true bottlenecks of global trade: the Strait of Malacca, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Panama Canal. These strategic passages concentrate a large share of global maritime traffic and, when functioning normally, allow the system to be extraordinarily efficient. But this same concentration also makes them points of vulnerability.

When one of these routes fails, the impact is immediate and global. The blockage of the Suez Canal in 2021 demonstrated this within days: supply chain delays, rising logistical costs, product shortages, and inflationary pressure. It is the clearest proof that, despite its efficiency, the system is also extremely fragile.

This fragility is not just recent history. It is present. Right now, attention is focused on the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 20% of the world’s oil passes. Any geopolitical tension in the area—such as threats of blockade or recurring military incidents—has an immediate impact on energy prices and, consequently, on the entire global economy. It is not just a logistical issue: it is a lever of geopolitical power capable of destabilizing entire markets within hours.

Trump’s new trade war

The so-called “Trump wars” are not an anomaly: they are the modern version of a millennia-old logic now fought with tariffs, restrictions, and pressure on supply chains. As in past eras, control over routes and trade remains a direct tool of power between states, as is also the case in modern extractive systems.

The problem is that this model operates in a context of maximum global dependency. We have built an economy based on outsourced production, global logistics, and the “just-in-time” system. It is an extraordinarily efficient model, but also deeply vulnerable: when a route breaks, the entire chain stops. There are no products, no production, and prices rise immediately.

The first impact of this disruption is always inflation. The mechanism is direct: logistical problems generate higher costs, these reduce supply, and ultimately prices increase. This is how geography—seemingly distant—ends up directly affecting everyday life. We have optimized the system for efficiency, but not for resilience, leaving us with extreme dependency and systemic fragility in which any crisis spreads like a chain reaction.

Are we returning to the logic of the Crusades?

In recent years, states have once again acted with a logic that strikingly resembles that of centuries ago. Protecting trade routes, reducing external dependencies, and securing control over strategic resources have become central priorities of economic and geopolitical policies. This is not a new phenomenon, but a return to historical patterns from the 11th century and beyond, now deployed with modern tools such as financial sanctions, technological control, and supply chain reconfiguration.

The underlying lesson is clear and persistent over time. From the Silk Road to today’s global maritime routes, history shows that whoever controls the routes controls the world. It is not ideology. It is geography. It is economy. It is power.

In a way, understanding trade routes means understanding the real functioning of the economic system, which explains why prices rise, why crises occur, and why conflicts erupt. In an increasingly tense and uncertain world, this perspective is not just general knowledge. It is a tool of defense. A way to protect your assets and make informed decisions.

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There are holidays that celebrate an event; and others that celebrate a structure. Easter Monday belongs to the second category. It does not commemorate any specific evangelical episode, nor any martyrdom, nor any political anniversary. And yet, it persists. It survives labor calendars, state decrees, and the accelerated secularization of the continent. Like many other elements of our calendar, it is not just religion: it is the historical geography of Europe.

Easter, as a cycle, is the heir of an ancient world that understood time as return rather than as a line. Christianity Christianized spring —as it had done with the winter solstice— but it did not invent the human need to celebrate rebirth. What Europe did do was institutionalize this celebration and turn it into a shared social structure. And this is where Easter Monday appears: not as dogma, but as sediment.

The Carolingian legacy: calendar and power

When we think about the Europe that today shares similar festive rhythms —from Catalonia to Bavaria, from France to Austria— we must look back to the time of Charlemagne. The Carolingian Empire did not only unify territories under a single political authority; it unified calendars, liturgies, and customs. Time, at that moment, was a tool of governance.

The consolidation of festive octaves —eight days of celebration around major solemnities— responded to a spiritual pedagogy, but also to a need for order. The people learned the faith, yes; but they also learned to live within a common temporal framework. Easter Monday is part of this architecture: an extension of the main feast, a way of inscribing the resurrection into daily life.

In Catalonia, like December 26 with Saint Stephen —another Carolingian legacy linked to the organization of festive time— Easter Monday remains as a reminder of that Europe that was built both with swords and with calendars. It is not local folklore; it is a continental imprint.

From liturgy to popular culture

Over the centuries, liturgical solemnity gradually transformed into cultural practice. The Easter cake, gatherings, countryside outings, decorated eggs in other regions of Europe… all of this speaks of the same impulse: to celebrate shared life after the austerity of Lent.

It is revealing that many European societies —except the Castilian one— maintain Easter Monday as a civil holiday, even in highly secularized contexts. The United Kingdom, Germany, France or the Scandinavian countries preserve “Easter Monday” as an official holiday. Faith may have receded in the public sphere, but the calendar endures. And when the calendar endures, it means there is sedimented identity.

Because holidays are not just rest; they are organized memory. They remind us that time is not only productivity. Europe was also born from this conviction, which marks that there are days that do not belong to the market, but to the community.

Europe as a community of rhythms

At a time when the European Union is torn between technocracy and identity, speaking about Easter Monday may seem minor. But perhaps it is the opposite. Institutions create rules; traditions create belonging. And Europe, before being a market or a currency, was a shared system of values and time.

The Christian calendar —with all its regional variations— acted as a common language. Major feasts marked collective pauses in diverse societies. The same Christianized solstice at Christmas, the same spring Easter, the same octaves extending the celebration. It was not uniformity; it was mutual recognition.

Easter Monday, therefore, is a modest piece of this architecture. But it is precisely in modest pieces where the solidity of a building is revealed. When a society maintains a celebration it no longer fully knows how to explain, it shows that it still lives within a tradition that sustains it.

When the calendar reveals who we are

We could reduce Easter Monday to a simple long weekend, to a leisure day or to a gastronomic excuse. But that would be looking at the calendar without seeing its geography. The structures of time are moral structures, as they indicate what we consider worthy of being stopped, celebrated, or remembered.

Europe is not just a sum of states; it is a shared inheritance of rhythms. And perhaps its contemporary crisis is not only institutional, but also temporal: we have forgotten why we celebrate what we celebrate.

Easter Monday reminds us that there are continuities that do not shout, but persist. That the past is not a postcard, but an invisible structure that organizes the present. And that a civilization is recognized not so much by what it produces, but by the days it decides not to produce.

In this sense, initiatives like the 11Onze community are not only an economic proposal, but also an attempt to rebuild bonds in a world that tends to dissolve them. Because, just as the shared calendar was one of the invisible foundations of Europe, any community that aspires to endure needs something more than exchanges: it needs shared meaning. And that —like the festivals we still celebrate without fully explaining— is not improvised; it is built with time, awareness, and a will for continuity.

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Modern wars are rarely explained solely by territorial or ideological disputes. If we look at the map of current conflicts with perspective —Ukraine, the Middle East, Venezuela, or even the growing interest in the Arctic— a recurring pattern emerges: energy, natural resources, and monetary power. 

In a global economic system dominated by the dollar and hydrocarbon trade, control of oil and gas remains decisive. But in recent years, a new factor has been added: competition for tangible resources, such as gold, strategic minerals, or even food. In this context, geopolitics and economics once again move hand in hand.

After World War II, the Bretton Woods agreements placed the dollar at the center of the international monetary system. Initially, the U.S. currency was linked to gold, but this system broke down in 1971 when the United States suspended the convertibility of the dollar into precious metal. From that moment on, the global monetary system was reorganized around another fundamental element: oil.

With the emergence of the petrodollar system, international hydrocarbon trade began to be predominantly denominated in dollars. This meant that any country wishing to buy oil had to hold reserves in this currency.

This mechanism generated a structural demand for dollars across the planet and consolidated the financial hegemony of the United States. The system allowed Washington to finance large deficits and public debt, while the world continued to use its currency to buy energy. In this sense, energy became one of the invisible pillars of global monetary power.

De-dollarization: an emerging threat

For decades, this system functioned with relative stability, but in recent years movements have emerged that challenge this financial architecture. Countries such as China, Russia, and India have begun to promote bilateral trade agreements that reduce dependence on the dollar. This process, known as de-dollarization, seeks to create a more multipolar economic system.

Economic sanctions driven by the United States have also accelerated this trend. When a country can be expelled from the international financial system or blocked from the SWIFT system, many governments begin to look for alternatives to protect their economic sovereignty.

In this context, control of energy becomes even more relevant. If oil or gas were to be traded massively in other currencies, the dominant role of the dollar could be eroded.

Ukraine: energy and geopolitics in Europe

The war in Ukraine has shown to what extent energy remains a central element of international politics.

Before the conflict, Europe depended heavily on Russian gas to fuel its industry and ensure energy supply. The Russian invasion and Western sanctions broke this balance and triggered a profound reconfiguration of global energy flows.

Europe has attempted to replace Russian gas with liquefied natural gas from the United States, Qatar, and other producers. This shift has had significant economic consequences, with a notable increase in energy costs for European industry.

The war in Ukraine is therefore much more than a territorial conflict: it is also a key episode in the reorganization of the global energy map.

Middle East: the energy center of the planet

The Middle East remains one of the most sensitive regions in the world for an obvious reason: it concentrates a very significant share of global oil and gas reserves, making it a global energy epicenter and a key territory for international economic balances.

Any military escalation in the region —whether between Israel and Palestine, involving Iran, or in Lebanon— has an immediate impact on global energy markets, driving prices up and generating uncertainty in economies dependent on hydrocarbons.

In this context, beyond the media narrative focused on the political and humanitarian conflict in Gaza, a structural factor often overlooked emerges: the significant natural gas deposits discovered off the coast of Gaza. This energy reserve, known for decades, could alter the region’s energy balance and reduce external dependencies. Control over these resources is not only an economic issue but also a key element in the geopolitical struggle for energy dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean. Thus, the conflict acquires a strategic dimension that goes far beyond borders and national identities.

Moreover, strategic chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz or the Suez Canal are essential for transporting oil and gas to Europe and Asia, establishing themselves as true bottlenecks of global energy trade. Control over these trade routes is therefore a central element of international geopolitics and a constant source of tension between powers.

Venezuela: oil, sanctions, and power

Another clear example is Venezuela, the country with the largest oil reserves in the world, with nearly 300 billion certified barrels. This energy abundance, far from guaranteeing stability, has turned the country into a central actor on the global geopolitical stage, often subject to external pressures and highly dependent on its own extractive model.

Over recent decades, the South American country has been subject to economic sanctions and geopolitical tensions that have deeply affected its oil industry, limiting investment, deteriorating infrastructure, and reducing production. Control over Venezuelan energy production and access to its resources remain decisive factors in relations between Caracas, Washington, and other international actors, highlighting the extent to which energy is a tool of global power.

The return of tangible assets

However, current geopolitics no longer revolves exclusively around oil. For decades, the global economy has operated on a financial architecture based on debt, financial markets, and trust in fiat currencies —a system sustained more by expectations than by real value. But in recent years, a gradual shift has begun to question this model.

This shift points toward the recovery of the value of tangible assets —that is, physical resources with intrinsic value that do not depend solely on market confidence. We are talking about energy, precious metals, strategic minerals, or food: essential elements for the functioning of the real economy and increasingly decisive in a context of geopolitical tensions and resource scarcity.

Among these assets, gold stands out. For millennia, it has been a universal store of value and continues to play a key role in the global monetary system. Despite the end of the gold standard, central banks continue to accumulate this metal as a strategic asset to strengthen their reserves, especially in emerging countries seeking to reduce their dependence on the dollar and gain financial sovereignty in an increasingly uncertain world.

But gold is not the only critical resource. The war in Ukraine highlighted the extent to which food and fertilizers are key elements for global stability, becoming a new geopolitical weapon. Russia and Ukraine, major grain exporters, saw how the conflict disrupted supply chains and strained international food markets, causing price increases and putting the food security of many countries dependent on these imports at risk.

Greenland and the Arctic: the future of resources

In this new geopolitical scenario, territories that until recently seemed peripheral have gained increasing importance. Greenland and the Arctic concentrate potential reserves of oil, gas, and strategic minerals, including rare earth elements essential for the technological industry and the energy transition, placing them at the center of new global power dynamics.

Moreover, the progressive melting of the Arctic is opening new trade routes that could profoundly transform global maritime trade, shortening distances between continents and altering traditional logistical flows. It is no coincidence that powers such as the United States, Russia, and China have intensified their interest in this region, aware that control over resources and new routes will be key in the economy of the future.

A world returning to real resources

The geopolitics of the 21st century seems to be moving toward a model in which physical resources once again take center stage. Energy, metals, strategic minerals, and food are becoming fundamental pillars of the economic security of states, in a context marked by uncertainty and growing global competition. Increasingly, power is no longer measured solely in terms of financial capital or currencies, but in the ability to control the resources that sustain the real economy.

In this scenario, many analysts point to a paradigm shift: the transition from an economy dominated by financial capital to one more closely linked to tangible assets. Modern wars rarely have a single cause, but if we overlay the map of current conflicts with that of the planet’s energy and mineral resources, the coincidences are too evident to be accidental. Energy, the dollar, and natural resources are part of the same equation of power that defines international relations.

Understanding this relationship is key to interpreting current geopolitics and anticipating the movements of states in an increasingly tense world. In a context of geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and transformation of the international monetary system, understanding the role of strategic resources is more important than ever.

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The 20th century educated us in an obstinate faith: the future would be better than the past. It was not only optimism; it was institutional architecture. After the Second World War, a new international economic order materialized which, with nuances and tensions, has endured to this day.

The victors of the conflict understood that, for this new order to function, it was necessary to establish a political-economic system capable of stabilizing currencies, rebuilding devastated economies and ensuring stable markets for large-scale commercial expansion, all regulated according to their own rules.

For this reason, the creation of institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (1945) was not merely a technical agreement; rather, it represented the insertion, within the broader collective imagination, of a powerful idea: growth could be organized, prosperity could be planned, and the future could be administered. From that conviction emerged two models of society —less antagonistic than often portrayed— which would compete for global hegemony for decades.

For years, that confidence —based on tensioning both models— produced tangible results. Industrial expansion, consolidation of the welfare state, and sustained increases in GDP per capita reinforced the narrative of linear progress. Tomorrow was not a threat, but a structural promise.

Between 1950 and 1973, the world experienced sustained and generalized growth that consolidated three basic pillars: material progress, expansion of social rights, and consolidation of a confident middle class. Western democracies seized the opportunity to project the idea that the future would be an improved continuation of the present.

But that future —which is our present— is no longer perceived in the same way.

Today, the future is a warning. The dominant narrative speaks of climate collapse —supported by reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change— of structural indebtedness, and of systemic risks associated with artificial intelligence, debated in forums such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Parliament.

The future is no longer a promise of emancipation, but a scenario of supervision. The question, however, is not whether risks exist —history reminds us that they always have— but why all projections of the future seem to converge toward the same implicit conclusion: more centralization.

When we imagine a financial crisis, we imagine central banks with expanded powers; when we imagine informational chaos, we imagine massive regulation; when we imagine climate emergency, we imagine macro-infrastructures directed from above. Thus dystopia, almost always, ends in concentration.

Fear as the architecture of the center

The history of economic thought —from Karl Marx to Karl Polanyi— has pointed to an uncomfortable pattern: crises of capitalism are not simple interruptions, but accelerators of processes of concentration and institutional reordering. It is not an accident; it is a recurring dynamic. After 1929, the State expanded its competences to stabilize convulsed societies. After 2008, central banks expanded their balance sheets to unprecedented levels. And after 2020, global public debt recorded the largest increase since the Second World War. Crises do not dissolve power; they redistribute it.

In parallel, capital tends to regroup. In environments of uncertainty, it does not disappear: it seeks refuge. And refuge is usually large, concentrated, and institutionally protected. Crises do not only redistribute wealth; they redefine hierarchies.

Fear, in this context, becomes an architecture of power. When risk is perceived as systemic, society accepts —and often demands— more vertical structures. In this climate of insecurity, the rise of political forces offering order and identity as responses to global uncertainty is also understandable. Centralization does not appear as an imposition, but as a guarantee of order. Thus, security justifies concentration.

A more subtle mechanism operates here. Narrative conditions capital flows. John Maynard Keynes already warned of this with his “animal spirits”: expectations shape investment. If the future is imagined as energy scarcity, we will invest in macro-infrastructures; if conceived as technological war, we will reinforce surveillance and defense; if financial instability is feared, we will accept stricter control mechanisms. Imagining centralization ultimately produces centralization.

Yet this inertia forgets another historical tradition: mutualism and forms of organization based on cooperation and risk distribution. Throughout the 19th century and much of the 20th, cooperatives, savings banks and mutual aid societies demonstrated that it was possible to articulate financial systems without extreme concentration of power. Decentralization was not theory; it was institutional practice.

Today this logic reappears in new forms. Embedded finance —the integration of financial services within digital platforms— can dissociate banking from traditional infrastructure, reducing intermediaries and redistributing operational capacity. Just as electricity once separated production and consumption, or the internet was born as a distributed network, current technologies can reinforce large platforms or facilitate more open ecosystems. Technology does not concentrate or distribute power by itself; its institutional architecture does.

The dystopian narrative tends to present concentration as inevitable. But inevitability is often cultural before it is technical. When we assume only the center can protect us, we reinforce it. When we build networks, we multiply centers. And in that choice —more than in technology— the shape of the future is decided.

The community as center

Decentralizing does not mean abolishing the State nor glorifying chaos. It means reducing critical dependencies, diversifying risks and distributing decision-making. It means preventing a single actor —public or private— from concentrating vulnerabilities that, when they fail, drag down the entire system. Resilient societies are not those that accumulate more power in a center, but those that better distribute responsibility.

The real debate, therefore, is not technological; it is moral and cultural. If we assume the world is too complex for informed communities to manage, we will accept increasing verticality as the only possible solution. But if we assume technology can empower distributed networks, we will begin designing institutions that reflect that confidence —because before transforming infrastructures, we must transform imaginaries.

The 21st century is not yet written. The tools to decentralize energy, information and finance already exist. What is lacking is not technical capacity, but collective will. Every savings decision, every investment model, every financial architecture reinforces a particular type of system. The future depends not only on the risks we face, but on the mental framework through which we interpret them.

If we imagine an inevitably dystopian future, we will invest in walls, intermediaries and opaque structures. If we imagine a decentralized future, we will invest in networks, transparency and community. In economics, narrative is anticipatory capital: it directs flows, conditions expectations and consolidates hegemonies. Whoever defines the narrative of the future shapes the structure of the market.

In this context, financial sovereignty is not an ideological proclamation, but a strategy of resilience. Bringing resource management closer to the community, fostering financial education and reducing structural dependencies does not fragment the system; it strengthens it. Decentralization does not divide: it diversifies.

This is where 11Onze finds meaning as a fintech community. Not as a rhetorical alternative to the system, but as a different architecture within the system. A proposal committed to transparency, participation and financial awareness in an uncertain environment. Perhaps the future is neither apocalypse nor utopia. Perhaps it is simply architecture. And every architecture begins with a decision: to concentrate or to distribute.

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The internet was born with a powerful promise: to democratise knowledge, reduce intermediaries and empower the individual. A horizontal technology for a freer economy. Twenty years later, the balance is more uncomfortable. Never have we been so connected, and never so dependent. Never have we had so many tools, and never so little control over them.

It is not only a matter of privacy. Not even of consumption. What is at stake is the very nature of economic power. More and more, our everyday life—working, communicating, buying, saving—passes through digital infrastructures we do not control, because we do not access them as owners, but as conditioned users. We enter чуж territory.

For decades, we have explained this reality with the same narrative, which spoke of digital capitalism, the platform economy or technological innovation. But these words no longer describe what is happening to us. The market, as we have understood it until now, is dissolving, because, in some way, competition has given way to dependence. Price, to rent. Ownership, to temporary access.

Something has broken in the implicit contract between economy and freedom. And perhaps the problem is not that capitalism has become more aggressive, but that it has mutated into something else. A system where we no longer buy products, but inhabit platforms; where we are no longer sovereign customers, but tolerated users; where power is no longer exercised from the market, but from the infrastructure.

The question, then, is not whether technology makes life easier. The question is another, much more uncomfortable one: when everything works thanks to private platforms, who really rules? And, above all, what are we within this system?

It is not capitalism, it is a mutation

For far too long, we have tried to understand the present with the words of the past. We talk about digital capitalism, technological neoliberalism, hyperconnected global markets. But these concepts no longer explain how the system truly works. Classical capitalism—with all its inequalities—was based on a fundamental idea: the market. Supply, demand, competition, prices. Imperfect, yes, but recognisable.

Today that framework is fading. Big tech companies do not compete in open markets; they control infrastructures. They do not sell one-off products, but continuous access. Therefore, they no longer depend so much on consumption as on a new dependence. Because profit no longer comes mainly from producing better, but from charging for the simple fact of being inside.

Economist Yanis Varoufakis sums it up with an uncomfortable idea: capitalism has given way to a system based on private rents. Whoever controls the infrastructure—the cloud, the platform, the digital ecosystem—does not need to compete, because they only need to ensure that you cannot leave. Therefore, we are facing a natural evolution of the market. Or better still, a mutation in which a new business logic resembles the factory less and the toll more, free exchange less and recurring charges more. In short, less the sovereign customer and more the captive user.

From the fief to the platform

Within the feudal system, land—mostly—was not the peasant’s property, but only the place where he lived and worked. Above all, he depended on it, in addition to being forced to pay rents and having to obey the lord’s whims. And for his part, the feudal lord produced nothing; he only controlled access to the land. Therefore, the system was organised such that anyone who wanted to survive had to pass through the lord’s hands. That is why talking about freedom—far from the reality projected by Hollywood—is completely unreal, since the possibility of staying outside the system was almost impossible.

Today the land is no longer agricultural, but digital, functioning in a surprisingly similar way. Digital platforms are not neutral spaces, but private territories. We enter them to work, to communicate, to sell, to get informed or simply to exist socially. We are not owners, but guests, because access is conditioned by rules that can change unilaterally, without negotiation or any real alternative.

If the feudal lord offered protection, platforms now offer us visibility. If the vassal paid part of the harvest, the user now pays with data, time, commissions, or subscriptions. If the peasant could not leave the land without losing everything, the user likewise cannot leave the system without being excluded. Therefore, the only difference is the technology, but not the power relationship.

Even while living in a highly advanced free-market economy, we live in an economy of conditioned access. In some ways, it resembles a feudalism without castles or swords, but with algorithms, adhesion contracts and structural dependence. A system where formal freedom coexists with an increasingly deep practical submission.

From effort to trace: how value is extracted today

In industrial capitalism, the mechanism was relatively transparent. Value was extracted from labour through time, effort, and production. We could argue about unfair wages or abusive conditions, but the source of profit was clear. Today, by contrast, value is no longer extracted mainly from what we do, but from what we leave behind.

Every click. Every search. Every movement. Every digital interaction generates a trace. A trace that does not fade, but accumulates, is analysed and monetised. The great resource of the 21st century is not oil or skilled labour. It is data. And that data is not produced in a factory, but in everyday life.

What is most revealing is that this process does not require active consent. There is no need to sign any labour contract. It is enough to exist within the platform. The user works without knowing it, consumes while producing, and participates while being analysed. Free time becomes raw material.

This explains an unsettling paradox: the more we use these services, the more value we generate… but the less power we have. Profit is not redistributed; it concentrates. And it does so without visible conflict, because it does not look like classic exploitation. There are no shifts, no factories, no strikes—only dependence.

The result is a new kind of extractivism, not territorial but rather digital. It is not based on natural resources, but on human behaviours. A system that does not wear out the land, but does wear out individual autonomy, turning the user into an unsettling combination: customer, product and invisible labour force.

When the market disappears

This model does not only change how value is created. Above all, it changes how the economy is organised. Because when value comes from controlling infrastructure, the market ceases to be necessary.

In theory, the market works thanks to competition. Several actors offer similar products and the consumer decides. In digital practice, this no longer happens. Major platforms do not compete on equal terms, since they can buy rivals, copy features or expel them through internal rules. In this way, they do not play the market; they replace it.

Prices stop being the result of supply and demand, becoming opaque variables defined by algorithms. Conditions change without notice. Commissions rise when dependence is already total. And the user cannot negotiate, because there are no real alternatives. Leaving the system is not a free decision, but rather a leap into the void: losing visibility, contacts, customers, accumulated data. As in feudalism, existence outside the dominant territory is formally possible, but materially unviable.

Thus, market capitalism gives way to a rent system. Whoever controls the platform charges simply for allowing access. There is no need to innovate constantly. It is enough to maintain dependence. Progress stops being a requirement; the stability of dominance becomes the goal. Economic power, then, is no longer contested in the realm of production, but in that of control: control of channels, of data, of rules. And when control consolidates, economic freedom becomes a functional illusion.

The State inside the system: from counterweight to manager

For a long time we trusted that the State would act as a natural counterweight to the excesses of economic power, with the concrete tasks of regulating, arbitrating and guaranteeing rights and duties. But in the digital ecosystem, this function has been diluted. Not because the State has disappeared, but because it has changed roles.

Governments no longer control the key infrastructures of the digital economy; rather, they use them or subcontract them, and even imitate them. Thus, we find public administrations that depend on private clouds or essential services that run on external technologies, or citizens’ data hosted in systems that do not answer to direct democratic sovereignty.

Instead of questioning the power of platforms, the State often adapts to them. It legislates late, regulates reactively and, in some cases, consolidates the model. Institutional digitalisation—necessary in many respects—runs the risk of reinforcing the very logic it claims it wants to control: centralisation, total traceability, technological dependence.

The problem is not that the State uses technology. The issue is who controls the architecture. Because when infrastructure is not public or neutral, political power ceases to be sovereign and becomes the manager of a system it did not design.

Money as a tool of control

No system of power is complete without controlling money. And in the new digital order, that control no longer passes only through traditional banks, but through technological channels that allow—or prevent—access to the economy.

Digital payments, financial platforms, electronic identities, programmable money. All of this can bring efficiency, but it can also introduce an unprecedented layer of conditionality: not only what you can buy, but when, how and under what rules. In the feudal system, the lord had power because he controlled land; by contrast, in the current system, real power is controlling flows: of information, of money or of access. And when those flows are digital, control can be total, instant, and invisible.

In this way, economic freedom does not disappear all at once; it is gradually restricted, under the excuse of security, efficiency or common progress. Until one day we discover that leaving the system is no longer a viable option.

Citizens or users?

All of this has a direct impact on citizens—not only as consumers, but as political and economic subjects. In an environment dominated by platforms, the figure of the free citizen tends to dissolve, and the figure of the user emerges: without political rights and with terms of use. The user no longer negotiates; they only accept, because they no longer participate in defining the rules—they suffer them or assume them. And when something fails, there is no space for democratic conflict, only an automated customer-service form.

This transformation is subtle, but profound. Because a society of users is easier to manage than a society of citizens: less critical and more dependent. The new digital vassal no longer needs to be repressed; they only need connection. Without sovereignty, there is no freedom

Technology is not the enemy, but it is not neutral either, because everything depends on who controls the rules, the infrastructures, and the benefits. The problem with technofeudalism is not digitising the economy, but doing so without sovereignty.

When we do not control the platforms where we live digitally, we are not free. When we do not control the channels through which money circulates, we are not independent. When the value we generate is extracted without return or decision, we are not economic actors; we are only resources. And regaining sovereignty is not going backwards: it is understanding the system, reducing dependencies and becoming aware that economic freedom is not abstract, because it is built, it is protected, but it can also be lost. The new digital vassals do not wear visible chains. They wear passwords. And perhaps the first step to stop being one is to stop believing that all of this is inevitable.

Regaining control: a conscious decision

Technofeudalism is not imposed with violence; it is installed through convenience, through free services, friendly interfaces, and the promise that everything will be easier if we give up part of our control. The problem is that this renunciation is not symbolic, but structural, because when we delegate access to information, work, consumption, and money to infrastructures we do not control, we cede real power. And without economic power there is no effective freedom, only managed dependence.

The good news is that this process is not inevitable, but it is not automatic either. Regaining sovereignty—digital, economic and personal—requires awareness, judgement and informed decisions. Understanding how the system works is the first step to avoid being trapped in it.

At 11Onze, this risk has been warned about for some time. Not from fear, but from knowledge. Because protecting savings, diversifying with purpose, reducing unnecessary intermediaries and choosing more transparent models is not an ideological matter: it is a matter of autonomy.

In a world that tends to turn citizens into users and savers into digital vassals, regaining control over one’s own value is an act of responsibility, but also of freedom. The future does not belong to those who adapt best to the system, but to those who understand how it works and decide not to live forever on someone else’s land.

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If today we speak of the Three Kings as one speaks of distant relatives, it is because for almost two thousand years Europe has needed to believe in visitors coming from beyond the map. From a brief and scarcely detailed account—four lines in the Gospel of Matthew—tradition has constructed one of the most enduring fictions of our culture: three exotic, crowned figures crossing deserts to pay homage to an anonymous child in a marginal corner of Judea.

What is surprising is not that this story endured, but what its endurance reveals. Each generation has rewritten the Magi of the East to respond to its own fears and desires. In Late Antiquity, they were Persian astrologers; in the Middle Ages, feudal kings; in Modernity, benevolent saviors bearing gifts. Always the same pattern: projecting outward what we do not understand inwardly.

What we rarely remember is that, in the time of Jesus, “the East” was not a cardinal direction but a moral imaginary. The Roman Empire had inherited from the Greeks the conviction that the most ancient secrets—science, magic, wisdom—came from those lands where the sun rises. The East thus served as a mental stage on which to place forms of knowledge that Europe did not yet dare to claim as its own. It was a safe place to locate wisdom without having to confront local ignorance.

Hence the account of the magi functioned as a kind of symbolic frontier between what Europe wished to be and what it was not yet able to assume. Whether they came from Persia, Arabia, or India, they brought an external authority that made it possible to validate a birth that, in Roman eyes, had no relevance whatsoever. It is significant that Matthew scarcely describes the landscape or the route: he does not need to. The East is not an itinerary; it is a justification. A conceptual framework that allows an unknown child to be immediately inscribed within the geopolitics of transcendence.

Umberto Eco—in Baudolino—had intuited this with the kind of humor that dissects myths without breaking them: societies do not only invent narratives; they invent geographies that make those narratives plausible. And perhaps that is why the Three Kings continue to walk: because we still seek an East that explains what we lack in the West.

An improbable story with a precise function

The traditional account tells us that the Three Kings are three, that they are kings, and that they come from the East. History, however, moves across far rougher ground. Matthew’s original source is revealingly austere: it speaks of no kings, fixes no number, and identifies no specific geographical origin.

It was later tradition that projected an iconographic exuberance that says far more about the political and cultural needs of each period than about the facts themselves. Early Christianity had more to gain from a flexible narrative than from a precise chronicle. Imprecision was an opportunity: it allowed the myth to be adapted to audiences and, above all, to power.

The earliest Christian testimonies oscillate between two, four, or twelve magi, depending on the community and the liturgical calendar. The number “three” emerges in the third century as an elegant narrative solution: three gifts, three figures, three continents. The number does not explain the past; it orders the imaginary. Even the theological symbolism—gold for kingship, incense for divinity, myrrh for future death—is added later, when the liturgy requires a stable script. The story, therefore, is not memory: it is architecture.

When Matthew says “magoi”, he refers to wise-priests of Iranian tradition, figures who combined astrology, ritual, and natural knowledge. But medieval culture—especially from the Carolingian period onward—elevates them to the status of kings. What a coincidence that this occurs precisely when monarchies need to legitimize their power through biblical precedents. Turning magi into kings allowed the Carolingians to establish a useful parallel: if even monarchs from distant lands bow before Christ, any Christian king could present himself as the natural continuation of that foundational gesture. Faith became a blank check for political order.

They did not come from the East; they came from an idea of the East. Geography here is secondary: Persia, Arabia, Ethiopia, India—each century has chosen its own map. In the Middle Ages, the three known continents—Europe, Asia, Africa—had to be reflected in three figures, thus transformed into symbols of universality. A brilliant invention that turns history into an argument: “all humanity recognizes the truth of Christ.” But this imagined universality reveals an even deeper mechanism: Europe has always projected what it needs to confirm onto that moral East, so distant that no one can dispute its details.

What is truly original—if we read the tradition as a palimpsest—is that the story of the magi does not function as a scene of devotion, but as a disguised critique of the blindness of power. Herod, a few kilometers from the birth, knows nothing of what is happening; foreigners, by contrast, have discovered it by reading the stars. It is an ancient political sarcasm: local power, obsessed with preserving itself, is incapable of recognizing what is being born beside it. The magi seek a king and find a child; Herod seeks a child and recognizes only a threat. This is more than theology: it is diagnosis.

This ironic displacement—the powerful who do not know, the foreigners who understand—gives the story an unexpected depth. The magi do not arrive to confirm a miracle, but to correct a mistaken perception of the world. And it is perhaps this critical function—more than their exotic appearance—that has kept the story alive: the idea that truth often comes from outside because inside we are too dependent on our own fears.

What we seek and what we would not know how to see

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the Three Kings is not their arrival, but the contemporary inability to understand what they were really seeking. The story insists on a star, as if truth always required an external light to become visible. Yet the paradox is that, when the magi finally reach Bethlehem, what they find is not a radiant epiphany, but a vulnerable child and a family trying to survive within a hostile political order. Foreigners see the promise; locals see only precarity. It is a universal mechanism: hope often needs outside eyes, because those within are too contaminated by the need for security.

Read with a long view, this story is unsettling because it shatters the myth of the power’s clairvoyance. Herod consults his sages and gains only fear; the magi consult the stars and find meaning. It is a clash of cosmologies: power reads the world in order to defend itself, while the wise read it in order to understand it. And here the story becomes contemporary without forcing it: in a time that confuses information with judgment, societies once again distrust any truth that does not confirm their inertias. The star today is not a religious symbol, but an uncomfortable reminder: light does not say what we want to hear; it says what we do not know how to interpret.

The miracle of the magi is not their arrival, but their ability to ignore the noise of the world and follow an intuition. While Herod turns every rumor into a threat, they transform a fleeting light into vital orientation. Perhaps that is why tradition has turned them into benevolent figures: we need to believe that there are still humans capable of reading the sky without turning it into an instrument of power. But the subtext is sharper: the magi do not act out of faith, but out of conscience. And this moral distinction—so fragile and so current—keeps the story in tension.

Ultimately, the story of the Kings teaches us that what we seek is often not what we would find if we knew how to look. That truth is never spectacular: it is discreet and uncomfortable. That power prefers to interpret rather than to understand. And that wisdom does not consist in following a star, but in knowing what to do when the light is gone.

Because if the magi remind us of anything, it is that the path to truth is short when there is light, but endless when we are afraid.

11Onze is the community fintech of Catalonia. Open an account by downloading the app El Canut for Android or iOS and join the revolution!

They say that the 1978 Constitution is the pillar of Spanish democracy. Perhaps it is, but it is also its chastity belt. Everything that tries to breathe outside the centre is repressed in the name of unity. What was drafted to guarantee autonomy has ended up becoming a mechanism of submission: a text that confuses loyalty with obedience, and coexistence with silence.

When the current president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, declared that “all the money of the Catalans is ours”, he was not making an electoral jest, but expressing, without filters, the deepest truth of a system designed to turn solidarity into appropriation. From the Bourbon centralisation of the 18th century to the constitutional regime of 1978, Spain has built a model that confuses unity with submission and finds in Madrid its gravitational centre. What was historically an administrative necessity has today become a form of economic and symbolic domination.

While the capital proclaims itself the engine of progress, the reality is far more prosaic: Madrid does not generate wealth; it absorbs it. Its so-called “Madrid miracle” is the result of a fiscal and legal architecture designed to concentrate power and income, suffocating the productive territories that sustain the country.

The Direct Link with the “Emptied Spain”

According to the Spanish Tax Agency, Madrid contributed 19.5% of the national GDP in 2023, but declared 24% of the country’s highest incomes. The difference is not productivity but absorption: wealth is born in the periphery —Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands— and declared in the centre. The State has built a radial model in which everything —companies, institutions, media and sport— orbits around a single nucleus while the rest of the territory empties out.

With a 100% exemption on wealth and inheritance taxes and a tax policy tailored to large fortunes, Madrid has created an internal tax haven within the State itself. More than 25,000 high-net-worth individuals have established residence there in the last decade. Capital takes refuge, the periphery is exhausted, and the State looks on contentedly, because this imbalance serves its interests.

This concentration of wealth in the centre not only impoverishes productive territories but also accelerates the depopulation of large parts of the country. Rural and industrial areas, deprived of investment and economic activity, suffer a constant exodus of young people and an increasing dependence on subsidies. The so-called “Emptied Spain” is not a natural or demographic phenomenon, but the direct consequence of a State that drains resources, talent, and opportunities toward Madrid.

This unfair competition is not corrected — it is encouraged. The supposed constitutional solidarity is, in fact, a mechanism of legalised plunder across the entire territory. And when any region denounces this abuse, it is immediately branded as selfish. The paradox is striking: those who sustain the State are accused of wanting to break it.

Density as a Strategy of Domination

Demography was its first visible consequence. From 1950 onwards, the Meseta began to empty gradually, pushed by the need to feed Madrid with large doses of human capital.

That internal population flow was not spontaneous: it responded to a state strategy aimed at reinforcing the political and administrative centre. Madrid did not grow to be the economic engine of the country, but to become its seat of power.

That massive concentration transformed the city into an ecosystem of civil servants, administrators, public employees and middlemen, rather than a space for producers or innovators. It was not a geographical accident but the result of a political project of population density — because where population accumulates, representation accumulates; and where there is representation, there is legitimacy.

The parliamentary majority that sustains this status quo is not a coincidence. Forty-five percent of the seats in Congress are distributed between Madrid and the two Mesetas, a configuration that turns demographic concentration into permanent political hegemony. The Electoral Law, designed to over-represent the province as the voting unit, guarantees that the centre governs even without a social majority.

Thus, the two-party system —PSOE and PP— acts as the two faces of the same regime, alternating in power without ever altering its foundations. Madrid has fortified itself not only with laws and votes but also with the morality of power, under the conviction that everything central is rational and everything peripheral is suspect.

Over time, this induced demography and over-representation became the material and symbolic basis of central power. When democracy arrived, Madrid already concentrated enough electoral weight to condition any majority. Territorial balance ceased to be an objective and became a statistical anomaly. Since then, concentration has been interpreted as “efficiency,” and the emptying of the periphery as a natural consequence of the market.

But even here, the logic remains the same: dependence as a method of cohesion. The centre grows at the expense of the periphery, and the periphery remains loyal because it depends on transfers, contracts or institutional presence. As in every historical structure of domination, corruption functions as a mechanism of social peace — compensating grievances, buying loyalties and preventing reforms that could dismantle the system.

Thus, demographic policy, radial economics and structural corruption form a single mechanism. Power is not only exercised from the centre but fabricated by it — with population, resources and narratives all serving the same purpose: to preserve unity through dependence.

Corruption as the Binding Agent

No structure can stand without cement — and in Spain, that cement is corruption. It is not a modern vice, but an organic inheritance. As early as the 11th-century León Courts, favour was the currency of power: bureaucracy existed to grant, not to administer. Under both the Habsburgs and the Bourbons, that courtly system was amplified and perfected until it became a method embedded in the State’s very core. When Spain was not yet Spain — merely a mosaic of kingdoms governed from the centre through the failed project of the Hispanic Monarchy — grace replaced law, and political loyalty was bought through economic obedience.

This pattern was never broken, only modernised. Where once there were royal favours, today there are public contracts; where there were viceroys, now there are government delegations; and where there were clienteles, now there are political parties. Corruption acts as the historical continuity of personalist power, the invisible glue binding the elites of the centre with the obedient peripheries.

And when obedience fails, the mechanism is debt. Creating debt is the modern way of subjugating territory. The autonomous communities, lacking fiscal sovereignty and forced to finance essential services with insufficient resources, are compelled to resort to the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA) — an instrument created by the Ministry of Finance to provide liquidity… in exchange for structural dependence.

Through the FLA, what was once denied as financing —by imposing conditions and controls— is returned as conditional debt. Thus, need is transformed into political submission, and dependence into forced loyalty. Plunder and indebtedness are two sides of the same coin — one that always lands heads-up for the centre and tails for the periphery.

Law as a Shield

The foundation of this architecture is not economic but legal. The 1978 Constitution, presented as a pact of coexistence, consecrated the unity of Spain as a dogmatic principle.

Article 2 defines it as “indissoluble”; Article 138 promises economic balance between territories, but without establishing effective mechanisms; and Article 156 recognises the financial autonomy of the regions… as long as it does not question unity. The result is a constitutional right to centralism, where every real decentralisation is perceived as a concession rather than a right.

The very legal structure reinforces this asymmetry. The State retains “basic” competences in almost every sphere —health, education, energy, taxation— under what the Constitutional Court calls “the basic equality of Spaniards.” This apparently neutral principle allows the central government to recentralise competences whenever it considers it necessary to “guarantee national cohesion” or “avoid territorial inequalities.” It is the legal mechanism that enables the State to decide on taxes, infrastructure or natural resources that, in other federal systems, would belong to the territories themselves.

The system of regional financing is a paradigmatic example: the regions collect only a limited portion of taxes but depend on annual transfers that the Ministry of Finance can adjust at its discretion. This generates a structural dependence that turns the principle of autonomy into an administrative fiction.

Within this legal and financial machinery, the banks play an essential role. Institutions such as La Caixa or Banco Sabadell —originally founded to channel Catalonia’s productive savings and credit— have ended up acting as structural pawns of the centralist system. Not out of ideology, but out of a need to survive within a regulatory, fiscal and political framework that rewards submission and punishes dissent.

The relocation of corporate headquarters after the 2017 referendum is the clearest proof: a legal operation presented as a “business decision,” but in reality the result of explicit political pressure from the State and the Bank of Spain, determined to use financial fear as an instrument of territorial control.

Thus, the very institutions that were created to support Catalonia’s productive economy have become guarantors of the status quo, ensuring that the flows of credit and investment continue to pass through the centre and that the structure of dependence remains intact.

In this way, Madrid can act as a fiscal paradise, applying bonuses and tax cuts that attract capital, while Catalonia or Valencia cannot fully manage their own resources without being accused of breaking Spain’s unity. The message is clear: the economic freedom of the centre is “efficiency”; that of others, “selfishness”.

Law thus becomes the shield of privilege, transforming inequality into a norm and dissent into a moral crime. In this way, centralism defends itself not with the army, but through legal codes, compliant banks and disciplined economic institutions that make power a matter of law, and law a tool of control.

When the Territory Questions the System

The Catalan independence movement was not —as it was portrayed— an identity delusion, but a political reaction to an unsustainable economic and institutional system. For decades, Catalonia had believed that self-government could coexist with constitutional loyalty, but the 2010 Constitutional Court ruling against the Statute of Autonomy shattered that illusion.

When the State declared unconstitutional several articles approved by referendum and ratified by Parliament, it made clear that autonomy had cardboard limits: self-government existed only as long as it did not question the centre. The demand for fair financing was not merely a budgetary issue; it was, in fact, a denunciation of the extractive model that feeds the heart of the State with resources from the entire eastern seaboard.

At the core of the economic debate appeared the fiscal balances, the investment deficit, and the radial infrastructures —all of which led to a political question of sovereignty, as they revealed that financial dependence is the true mechanism of submission.

In 2017, “el Procés” exposed that centralism is not a dysfunction of the system but its foundational essence. When part of the territory dared to question it, the State responded not with dialogue but with institutional reprisal and judicial mobilisation. In that response, the Bourbon monarchy played an especially active role, becoming the symbolic guarantor of the old order.

The application of Article 155, the intervention of the Catalan Government and the criminal prosecution of political and civil leaders revealed the stark reality: the Constitution is not a framework for coexistence, but a contract of submission that activates whenever someone tests its limits.

For this reason, the so-called “New Singular Financing” that the PSOE and its satellite parties now loudly offer to Catalonia is a complete contradiction in terms. Because if it were truly singular, it would break the fiscal uniformity that guarantees central power and would cause the constitutional edifice upon which the 1978 regime rests to implode.

The system cannot reform itself without destroying itself, because its strength lies in its rigidity. It was created to live off centralisation, and centralisation is incompatible with the economic freedom of the territories.

Behind the Mirage of ’78

As Montesquieu once warned, “when power is concentrated, freedom fades”. Spain has turned this maxim into a state doctrine. Madrid acts as an internal metropolis that governs through attraction and dependence — fiscal, media, political and sporting. Corruption fattens the machinery, law sanctifies its legitimacy, and demography guarantees its continuity.

That is why speaking today of “singular financing” is an oxymoron: no singularity is possible within a system designed to erase it. Madrid’s centralism is not a pathology — it is the very heart of the regime.

And as long as wealth continues to flow from the eastern seaboard to the centre, Spain will remain a state of dependencies with the appearance of a democracy. The true miracle is not Madrid: it is that the country still endures. Because —as always— power does not reside where work is done, but where the distribution of merit is decided. Perhaps the real question is not whether Spain can change, but whether it truly wants to.

11Onze is the community fintech of Catalonia. Open an account by downloading the app El Canut for Android or iOS and join the revolution!

Des de fa temps, la història ens retorna a un vell debat encara no resolt: què és ben bé Espanya? Una pregunta difícil que han hagut d’afrontar un grapat de generacions. Pel camí hi ha hagut tota meva de debats, promeses, triomfs i derrotes. I, malgrat tot, encara estem lluny de trobar una resposta. 

Després de la llarga nit franquista, a Espanya se li van plantejar nous reptes a partir de 1975. L’Estat havia de trobar l’equilibri entre la reforma que proposava el govern franquista i la ruptura que demanava part de l’oposició. La solució pactada va ser la de transitar plegats cap a un nou règim fonamentat en una nova Carta Magna. La Constitució espanyola de 1978 es va dividir en deu títols i 169 articles. Al text, el terme “nació” apareix tan sols en dues ocasions, mentre que el terme “Estat” conté 90 entrades.

La primera i més important menció a la “nació” és la que obre el Preàmbul. “La nació espanyola, desitjant establir la justícia, la llibertat i la seguretat i promoure el bé de tots els que la integren, fent ús de la seva sobirania…”, comença el text fundacional, tal com si la mateixa nació redactés el que s’hi llegirà. Més endavant, aquesta “nació” autoproclamada expressa la voluntat de “constituir-se en un Estat social i democràtic de dret”, el qual desplegarà tots els seus òrgans i funcions. 

La “nació”, objecte de litigi

Segons sembla, l’al·lusió a “els que la integren” es refereix als individus. En efecte, l’article 2 fonamenta la Constitució en “la indissoluble unitat de la nació espanyola, pàtria comuna i indivisible de tots els espanyols”, la qual “reconeix i garanteix el dret a l’autonomia de les nacionalitats i les regions que la integren i la solidaritat entre totes elles”. Justament aquest article és objecte de continu litigi. 

Aquest famós article 2, en realitat, sembla que ens està dient que no són els individus els qui decideixen o desitgen una cosa, sinó que és la nació. Perquè la nació és qui ostenta la sobirania, no el poble. I qui anuncia aquesta proclamació de la sobirania tampoc és el poble, sinó que està personificada en la figura del Rei d’Espanya. Per tant, tot allò que integra la nació resulta confús.

El regne de les “nacionalitats”

Certament, l’al·lusió a les nacionalitats i a les regions apunta a la vella idea de la divisió territorial del regne. Aquesta paraula —“regne”— no s’esmenta enlloc a la Constitució. Cosa estranya, atès que Espanya es configura, en la seva forma, com a regne. Regne d’Espanya, en singular. Però aleshores, què són les nacionalitats? Què amaga el terme per referir-se a aquestes entitats orgàniques etnoculturals?

Sembla evident que es tracta d’un expedient púdic per al·ludir, sense anomenar-los, als antics regnes d’Hispània, a part de Castella, formats per: Catalunya, València, Mallorca, Aragó, Navarra, Galícia, el País Basc, Andalusia (i Portugal). Per tant, quin és el sentit i quina és la funció de les nacionalitats i de les regions? Impossible saber-ho, ja que aquests conceptes no tornen a aparèixer en tot el redactat de la Constitució.

Tot gira entorn de la “reconquesta”

Contra el discurs repetit com un mantra dins del sistema escolar franquista, l’aprenentatge d’Espanya es va articular en funció del concepte de “reconquesta”. Es tracta d’un terme historiogràfic —emprat encara en els currículums de secundària de Castella— que descriu el procés de recuperació del món feudal per sobre del món musulmà i jueu, perquè s’entén que els musulmans no eren els legítims propietaris de la geografia hispànica…

Aquest procés va arrencar poc després de l’arribada dels àrabs a la península Ibèrica al segle VIII i va finalitzar amb els Reis Catòlics al segle XV, els quals acabarien unificant “Espanya” com un Estat integral. Aquesta Reconquesta acabaria forjant “l’esperit espanyol”. O sigui, arguments històrics per justificar el nacionalcatolicisme imposat després de la Guerra Civil.

Tanmateix, no sembla que hagi existit mai ‘de facto’ una “nació espanyola”, és a dir, integradora de nacionalitats i regions, com ens vol fer creure la Constitució actual. Ni tan sols és segur que s’hagi consolidat mai com a Estat-nació, en el sentit modern. Ho veiem a continuació!

De la confederació a l’absolutisme

L’Estat dinàstic, iniciat pels Reis Catòlics, com hem dit, va acabar esdevenint un Estat absolutista. Abans de ser-ho, havia hagut de restringir el poder de la noblesa, forçar l’adscripció a la religió catòlica i cohesionar tot el poder en una devoció lleial al Rei. En contra del que pensen alguns, la llengua va restar al marge d’aquest esquema de poder. Per tant, no va ser mai un element unificador fins a principis del XVIII, encara que el franquisme intentés falsejar la història una vegada més.

El poder es va anar organitzant al voltant de cinc Consells d’Estat: Castella, Aragó, Itàlia, els Països Baixos, Portugal (1580-1640) i les Índies Occidentals. Per tant, els diferents territoris que configuraven la geografia de la Corona d’Hispaniae —plural d’Hispània— mantenien l’administració, la moneda i les lleis pròpies. En aquest sentit, es tractaria d’una mena confederació de nacionalitats, les quals conservaven les seves peculiaritats, furs i tradicions.

El predomini de Castella (que aglutinava Galícia, Astúries i Lleó) sobre els altres regnes existents de la península Ibèrica cada vegada va ser més evident, per extensió i població i, sobretot, després d’incorporar les Índies Occidentals al regne castellà, que ho va fer a títol de “descobriment”, amb tot el que va significar. D’aquesta manera, la progressiva translació de l’economia del mediterrani cap a l’atlàntic va comportar un canvi de paradigma en les relacions entre els diferents territoris que configuraven la Corona Hispànica.

Aquesta pluralitat, no sense sobresalts, va anar derivant cap a una major centralització del poder. Però el salt definitiu va ser després de la guerra de Successió i la subsegüent entronització de la dinastia borbònica al tron castellà. Entre 1707 i 1716, el nou rei Felip V va anar promulgant els coneguts Decrets de Nova Planta pels diferents territoris de la corona d’Aragó com a càstig per la seva rebel·lió i com a dret de conquesta. En canvi, aquesta pèrdua d’autonomia no va afectar mai ni Navarra ni les Províncies Basques, atès que aquests territoris havien estat fidels a la causa borbònica.

Va ser llavors quan Castella es va transformar en l’Espanya borbònica: una monarquia absoluta i fortament centralitzada. Prova d’aquest procés, Felip V escrivia el 1717: “He jutjat per convenient […] reduir tots els meus Regnes d’Espanya a la uniformitat d’unes mateixes lleis, usos, costums i tribunals, governant-se tots igualment per les lleis de Castella”. Així, com a resultat d’una repressió i per dret de conquesta, una Espanya castellanitzada per força es comença a configurar com un modern Estat (d’importació francesa) nacional (d’exportació castellana). Naturalment, la il·lusió va durar ben poc.

La il·lusió fallida de la “república federativa”

L’il·lustrat i escriptor José Marchena (1769-1821), exiliat a Baiona per escapar de la Inquisició, va escriure el 1792 un revelador informe per Jacques Pierre Brissot, un girondí i ministre d’assumptes exteriors de la República Francesa, sobre les dificultats d’implantar a Espanya una constitució semblant a la francesa del 1791. Les seves paraules són força reveladores: “França ha adoptat ara una constitució que fa d’aquesta vasta nació una república unida i indivisible. Però a Espanya, les diverses províncies de les quals tenen costums i usos molt diferents i a la qual s’hi ha d’unir Portugal, només hauria de poder-se formar una república federativa”.

En un sentit similar, el 1808, a Cadis, el cèlebre polític gironí, Antoni de Campmany va escriure, tot just començada la Guerra del Francès, en la famosa publicació ‘El Sentinella’: “… A França, doncs, no hi ha províncies ni nacions; no hi ha Provença ni provençals; ni Normandia ni normands. Tots s’esborraren del mapa dels seus territoris i fins i tot els seus noms […]. Tots es diuen francesos”. I més endavant detalla: “Llavors, què seria ja dels espanyols si no hi hagués hagut Aragonesos, Valencians, Murcians, Andalusos, Asturians, Gallecs, Extremenys, Catalans, Castellans? Cadascun d’aquests noms inflama l’orgull d’aquestes petites nacions, les quals configuren la gran nació”.

Dècada rere dècada, de les nou constitucions espanyoles redactades durant l’edat contemporània (1812-1978), totes tenen en comú —amb petits matisos—, una mateixa afirmació: són una constitució de la monarquia i de confessió catòlica, la religió del Rei i de la nació. Per tant, la unitat de la nació és la unitat de la monarquia.

Existeix, doncs, una nació de nacions?

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When Europe emerged from the chaos of the Thirty Years’ War in the mid-17th century, it decided to reorganize itself. With the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and, shortly afterward, the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), the continent consecrated a new political architecture: each king would rule within his own territory, and that territory would be enclosed by a legal border. From that territorial redesign, a new world was born —that of the nation-states— a legal invention that would turn geography into property and diversity into suspicion.

For centuries, this system functioned with brutal yet solid efficiency, giving rise to regular armies, stable currencies and bureaucracies capable of controlling the territory with the same coldness with which they drew maps. The border ceased to be a zone of exchange and became a line of separation. And with it, Europe believed itself immortal.

But time erodes all geometries. In the 21st century, the lines drawn at Westphalia have begun to melt, as if the borders of Europe’s political map were made of wax. This has allowed capital to circulate without an address, companies to operate without a homeland, and people to move more out of necessity than vocation. In this new landscape, the old nation-state looks increasingly like an empty fortress: perfect in form but hollow in substance. In fact, it feels as if we are once again inside Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain” (1924), in which the author brilliantly portrayed the 1920s as a Europe enclosed, sick and fascinated by its own fever.

The inner fracture

Today’s Europe suffers a crisis that is not moral, but demographic and territorial. Its societies are ageing at a dizzying pace, which causes their interior spaces to fade progressively and the welfare system —built on the premise of an abundant active population— can only be sustained thanks to the massive entry of human capital.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of workers from diverse backgrounds arrive —who, like the barbarians of the 4th century, do not come to destroy but to sustain the system— preventing collapse. This new human capital provides the necessary workforce, contributes net tax revenue and ensures that social contributions continue to feed public services. Without them, the wheel of welfare would stop instantly, accelerating Europe’s decline.

But Europe has not yet understood that, like 5th-century Rome, it will only survive if it is capable of transforming its political structure to organically integrate all this human capital.

This population crisis overlaps with another of a geographical nature. The continent’s night map shows a brightly lit coastline and a vast dark interior. The great metropolises —London, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Madrid, Berlin— concentrate wealth and power, while vast rural areas are emptied to the point of becoming human deserts. This is the new invisible frontier now taking shape, where divisions are no longer between states but between useful territories and abandoned ones.

Nation-states, born to defend their unity, now find themselves divided from within. The fiscal balance, redistribution and territorial cohesion that sustained the social pact have cracked. The south pays for the north’s demography; the west lives off the labour of the east; the centre concentrates what the peripheries produce. The result is an imbalanced system reminiscent of the Late Roman Empire: bureaucratic, indebted and dependent on human flows it can no longer control or understand.

In fact, this is the model of state that 18th-century colonialism —French, English, or Dutch— exported across the world. The same that, with supremacist arrogance, drew lines over empty maps and imposed by force of arms the principle of territorial sovereignty as a universal formula, stripped of any local grounding. In this way, European powers projected onto Africa, Asia, and the Americas their dream of rational order through the creation of straight borders, traced with a set square across deserts, jungles or unknown mountains, even if this meant separating peoples who shared language, culture and economy, or merging them with historical enemies under the same flag.

The result was an artificial geography built upon a state architecture with no social foundation. And when those colonies achieved independence, they did so under a poisoned inheritance: the nation-state had been an imposed model without a society to sustain it. The civil wars, genocides and absurd borders of the 20th century are the bill.

Because Europe, in trying to civilize the world, ended up universalizing its own mistakes. And perhaps now, faced with its own internal crisis, the Old Continent is beginning to understand that that model of rigid border and single identity was not a historical truth but an anomaly of its past.

The future lies in the limes

During the Late Empire, when Rome began to collapse under its own weight, the Germanic peoples crossed the limes not to destroy the Empire but to become part of it. They wanted to be Romans and, contrary to popular belief, their contribution —labour, soldiers, farmers, and taxes— was essential to keep the system alive. From that moment on, this new human capital allowed lands to continue being cultivated and kept the State functioning.

Today, history seems to be retracing the same steps. The Europe that invented the concept of the nation-state sees its model running out while new populations sustain its continuity. In essence, it is the same process the Old Continent experienced in the past, when it needed those “barbarians” to keep being what it was.

Perhaps this will lead us into a new Late Antiquity, a kind of transitional moment in which sovereignty will no longer be measured by control of territory but by the ability to manage the flows that cross it —capital, people, data, or ideas. And any State that fails to understand this and entrenches itself will likely be condemned to dissolve.

The Mediterranean once again —which was once the economic heart of the world— holds the key to the future. It is the place where the two halves of the old system meet: the ageing north and the growing south. If Europe wants to be reborn, it must look again towards its Mare Nostrum and understand that its survival depends on the permeability of what modernity sought to make impermeable.

When a civilization enters decline, history offers two options: raise walls or build bridges. Rome survived as long as it knew how to integrate, and disappeared precisely when it began to exclude. Even so, Europe is still in time to straighten its course. Perhaps the end of the nation-state will not be a collapse but a return: one in which geography acts as truth and history as a warning.

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Throughout history, the concept of a border has been subject to multiple interpretations. For the Romans, borders were conceived as a zone of influence and control rather than fixed lines. In contrast, in medieval times, a border was a dynamic, flexible space, often laden with commercial and political opportunities. However, from the mid-17th century onward, the Pyrenean border became a legal line of separation between territories, acquiring a distinctly administrative character.

This new border conception had profound consequences for the political configuration of Europe. The reorganization of the political map favoured the consolidation of new state sovereignties but also led to the rupture of cultural, social, political, and economic realities that had been cohesive for centuries. Thus, any person, community, or territory that challenged this new principle of sovereignty—in the absolute and indivisible unity of the State—faced harsh military and political reprisals.

Following this evolution, the concept of a border has been widely analysed by various disciplines in the social sciences. Until recently, these studies were influenced by political-historical perspectives that interpreted the border as a fundamental element for defining states. Examples of this can be found in 19th- and 20th-century political theories, which justified the precise delineation of territory and the strategic use of borders as instruments of defence and state sovereignty. Over time, politics allowed the state to associate its identity with the concept of a nation, thus forcing the unification of diverse historical realities under the nation-state model, a process that ultimately generated internal tensions.

However, more recent studies in historical geography have redefined the notion of a border. It has been demonstrated that borders are not simple, immovable physical lines but dynamic contact spaces where constant social, economic, and cultural interactions occur. This perspective dismantles the traditional idea of a border as an impenetrable wall and redefines it as a transition and relationship zone. A paradigmatic example of this new perspective is the doctoral thesis of Oscar Jané Checa, which provides a rigorous and well-documented analysis of the construction of the Pyrenean border in the 17th century and its impact on Catalonia. Studies like this help to understand that the border is not just an imposed division, but also a living space that shapes and transforms the societies that inhabit it.

Geographical elements that shape an identity

The origins of the Països Catalans date back to the Carolingian era when, under the policy of ‘Renovatio Imperii’, the territories south of the Pyrenees—from Pamplona to Barcelona—were organized into defensive territories against the Andalusian world. Until the 13th century, the Counts of Barcelona maintained interests north of the Pyrenees, but after the Battle of Muret, expansion was redirected toward the southern peninsula and the eastern islands, shaping what we know today as Països Catalans. This process was made possible by three fundamental geopolitical elements.

The first key factor was the sea, understood as the main axis of communication and territorial cohesion. This allowed the establishment of a wealth triangle between Valencia, Mallorca, and Barcelona—a model that, despite centralist pressures, persists today as an economic and cultural reference.

The second determining factor was the difference in altitude between the Castilian plateau and the Mediterranean coastline. The physical structure of Països Catalans has favoured, since ancient times, a high population density in coastal areas and low valleys, in contrast to the higher and more isolated inland regions. This geographical reality has led to different population models: a coast open to communications and exchange, while the interior has maintained a more dispersed and self-sufficient population.

This distribution can be observed in a night map of the Iberian Peninsula, where the most illuminated areas correspond to the Ebro Valley -Zaragoza-, the Mediterranean coast -from the Roussillon plain to Murcia-, the Guadalquivir Valley, the mouth of the Tagus River, the small valleys of the Cantabrian coast and the centre of the peninsula, as it is the capital. The rest of the territory remains in the dark, indicating a low demographic density that reflects the reality of empty Spain.

The third key factor is the presence of a vast demographic desert known as the Celtiberian Mountain Range. This area, with an extremely low population density, has historically remained disconnected from other peninsular regions. It is the second least populated area in Europe, after Finnish Lapland. This desert extends from Tortosa to the north with Zaragoza, to the west with Madrid and to the south with Ciudad Real. This population vacuum has acted over the centuries as a natural barrier that has preserved the Països Catalans from direct contact with the peninsular interior, reinforcing its geopolitical uniqueness.

This physical separation has also been reproduced in the north, where the French noon has similar characteristics, although to a lesser extent. This explains why the Catalan territories of the French State (Roussillon) and the Spanish State have historically lived isolated from each other. Only some accesses, such as the Ebro Valley -following the waterway through the Tortosa-Lleida-Zaragoza axis and the Huerta of Alicante, have allowed a certain connection with the interior.

This geopolitical framework, together with the language as a distinctive element, has consolidated the idea of a country with a homogeneous structure and its meaning. Beyond the linguistic unity from Salses to Guardamar, the geographical configuration explains the territorial continuity of the Catalan language, which expanded following a logical path without significant natural obstacles.

Dynastic rivalries and family clashes

After the Castilian Civil War (1475-1479), the two largest territories of the Iberian Peninsula—the Kingdom of Castile and the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation—formed a new political entity known as the Hispanic Monarchy. This dynastic state was structured around two key elements: the army and foreign policy. However, other fundamental aspects of the modern state, such as borders, currency, laws, and institutions, remained completely separate. Initially, the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation maintained its institutions and legal systems, leading to recurring tensions with the Hispanic monarchy in the following centuries.

The discovery of rich metal deposits in Mexico and Peru led to the founding or refounding of American cities that played a strategic territorial role in ensuring a constant flow of wealth to Castile. This transformed Castile into an economically powerful actor but also into a state that spent exorbitant sums to construct its idea of civilization, based on Catholicism. This obsession often led to numerous conflicts of various kinds, such as theological disputes, dynastic struggles, commercial issues, and monumental architectural projects. In addition, at the beginning of the 16th century, the main Communities of Castile were forced to assume a considerable tax to finance the purchase of the imperial title by the Habsburg family, which triggered the famous Revolt of the Commoners.

With the acquisition of the imperial title, France – ruled at that time by the Valois dynasty – perceived the Habsburgs as its main enemy, since with that purchase, the Habsburg family came to control most of the territories surrounding the French kingdom. This situation further aggravated France’s economic challenges in the mid-16th century, as the Habsburgs indirectly conditioned commercial mobility and restricted opportunities for growth.

As a result, key sectors such as agriculture – especially vines, wheat and other cereals – and textile manufacturing, which were the economic engine of the French kingdom, were limited by the difficulties of access to the markets of Italy and the United Provinces. Key cities such as Lyon, Paris and Marseilles experienced the effects of this blockade, and their commercial freedom and capacity for economic expansion were curtailed.

For this reason – despite being an eminently Catholic society – France supported the Dutch and German Protestant factions, to counteract Hispanic expansionism. This strategy was part of the geopolitical principle of the “Grand Dessein”, which sought to surround the Hispanic dominions with hostile allies to wear down the influence of the Habsburgs in Europe. As a consequence, during the following centuries, the Hispanic Monarchy and France would clash fiercely for control of Europe.

Change in European economic dynamics

At the beginning of the 17th century, the American mines began to show signs of depletion, a trend that would become more pronounced as the century progressed. This slowdown in the inflow of precious metals endangered the economy of the Hispanic Monarchy, which -to maintain its high rate of spending – was forced to borrow from German and Genoese banks. This financial dependence led to a generalized increase in taxes and a strong fiscal pressure on the entire Hispanic society. Thus, the monarchy was forced to look for new financing mechanisms, which would lead it to demand greater contributions from the different kingdoms of the Hispanic Monarchy.

In this context, in March 1626, Barcelona received King Philip IV, who had arrived in the city to swear the Catalan constitutions. However, the real purpose of the visit was to unblock the ambitious plan of the king’s minister, the Count-Duke of Olivares. The project, known as the “Union of Arms”, intended that each kingdom of the Hispanic Monarchy, including the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation, would contribute a determined number of money and soldiers, a burden that until then had fallen mainly on Castile since it had the exclusive monopoly of the American precious metals.

However, the Castilian oligarchies did not gauge well the implications of the oath of the Catalan constitutions. While it granted Philip IV the title of Count of Barcelona, it also restricted his ability to freely dispose of Catalonia’s economic resources. This meant that the monarch needed the consent of the Diputació del General and Les Corts to obtain new taxes or request extraordinary resources, which considerably limited the monarchy’s ability to execute Olivares’ project.

During that visit, the Catalan institutions showed the king more interest in the resolution of grievances that they considered essential than in contributing to military conflicts of exclusively monarchical interest. Among these demands were the demand to block the interference of the Council of Castile in the affairs of the Principality -initiated in the time of Philip II- the protection of Catalan trade, the limitation of the privileges of the Castilian Mesta and other monopolies that benefited Castile to the detriment of Catalonia, as well as measures to protect Mediterranean trade against piracy and French and Genoese competition. Catalonia never refused to defend herself from possible threats, but she rejected a fiscal and military imposition that violated her legal system.

With no clear options on the horizon and excessively conditioned by its international policy, the Hispanic Monarchy ended up imposing a forced militarization and an increase in fiscal pressure -without prior negotiation- with the Catalan institutions, which further fuelled the tension between the central government and Catalonia. This situation of unrest was perceived by the French monarchy as an opportunity to weaken the Hispanic power in the Iberian Peninsula. For decades, France had been looking for fissures in the Hispanic Monarchy,and the situation in Catalonia provided the ideal pretext to intervene.

The opportunity presented itself in 1639 when the Catalan social and institutional crisis became fertile ground for insurrection. France acted with a calculated strategy of destabilization, based on three main axes. First, it offered diplomatic and political support to Catalonia by recognizing its sovereignty under French protection. Second, it intervened militarily in Roussillon and other Catalan areas, reinforcing the perception that France could be an ally against Castile. Finally, it fostered internal division in Catalonia, playing on the rivalry between supporters of resistance and those who saw an alliance with Paris as a viable political option. With these moves, France managed to weaken the Hispanic presence and position itself as a key player in the Catalan conflict.

Conflict of identities

Faced with the repression of Philip IV and the centralizing policy of the Habsburgs—led by the Count-Duke of Olivares—Catalonia proclaimed Louis XIII as Count of Barcelona in 1641. This decision implied a reformulation of the Catalan identity discourse, situated between defending its institutions and the necessity of a strategic alliance with France.

However, this connection with France was not homogeneous or without tensions. The French presence in Catalonia did not lead to full integration within the French monarchy, but instead generated discontent among various sectors of society. As French military support transformed into an actual occupation, disenchantment toward France grew, ultimately favouring Catalonia’s return under Castilian sovereignty in 1652.

Oscar Jané Checa’s thesis shows that the redefinition of identities did not only take place in Catalonia, but also in France and Castile. For Castile, Catalonia was becoming – and still is today – a rebellious region that questioned the imperial project of the Habsburgs. For France, northeastern Catalonia was a territory that could become a frontier territory to be administered and assimilated. And Catalonia -as always-was oscillating between the defence of its institutions and the need to fit somehow between one of the two neighbouring monarchies.

At the same time, the financial situation of the Hispanic Monarchy deteriorated. Faced with the inability to meet its debts, the State entered into a cycle of successive bankruptcies (1627, 1647, 1652 and 1662), which undermined its credibility in the eyes of European chancelleries and weakened its international position. On the other hand, France began to apply colbertism, a form of mercantilism that encouraged industry, luxury manufacturing and navigation, making it in a short time the great European economic power of Louis XIV’s time.

A morning on Pheasant Island

On November 7, 1659, Pheasant Island, a small river islet at the mouth of the Bidasoa River between Hendaye and Irún, became the setting for a crucial moment in European history: the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees. This agreement ended the long war between the Hispanic and French monarchies, a conflict that began in 1635 as part of the Thirty Years’ War.

Pheasant Island, due to its strategic location as a neutral territory, was chosen for the negotiations. On one side, Luis de Haro, representing a war-weary Hispanic monarchy in decline, and on the other, Jules Mazarin, the powerful prime minister of Louis XIV, advocated for an ascendant France, consolidated as an emerging power in Europe.

France, moreover, arrived with its homework done. For months, the jurist, historian and ecclesiastic Pierre de Marca, royal commissioner, had been working on the delimitation of the new border between the Kingdom of France and the Hispanic Monarchy, especially concerning the incorporation of Roussillon and Cerdanya. His posthumous work, “Marca Hispánica” (1688), became a fundamental reference in the study of the Pyrenean border and the construction of the French territorial identity. Although he was neither a geographer nor a cartographer, his influence on the political configuration of the territory made him a key figure in 17th-century geopolitics.

When the pens met the paper, the cession of several strongholds and territories that reconfigured the political reality of the Iberian Peninsula was confirmed. Castile ceded to France the counties of Roussillon, Conflent, Vallespir and part of Cerdanya, thus consolidating the division of Catalonia. At the same time, the treaty stipulated the marriage of Maria Teresa of Austria, Infanta of Castile, to Louis XIV of France, a dynastic bond that was intended to seal the peace through family union.

While notaries and witnesses were certifying the agreement, celebrations were being prepared in Madrid and Paris. However, for the inhabitants of the affected regions, especially in Catalonia, the signing of this treaty represented a deep wound. And more than forty years would have to pass before the Hispanic Monarchy officially notified the Generalitat of the cession of those territories. The new Pyrenean border represented a definitive cut in the historical territory and at the same time a breach that would ignite, decades later, the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1715). This conflict, with tragic consequences for the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation, would end up establishing the Bourbon model in the Iberian Peninsula, irreversibly altering the political and national balance of the region.

The economic and institutional fracture of the border

One of the key elements in the integration of Northern Catalonia into the French orbit – apart from the construction of countless forts and fortresses such as Montlluís, Bellegarde, Prats de Molló, Vilafranca del Conflent, Perpinyà, Salsas or Colliure – was taxation, especially through the salt tax, an essential product for preserving food. While in the rest of Catalonia, salt – coming from the mines of Súria and Cardona – continued to be subject to the Hispanic tax system, the new French territories were incorporated into the gabelle regime, a high tax on salt imposed by the French State, which from then on would consume it from the salt mines of Peyriac-de-Mer, Sigean and Gruissan. This change forced the inhabitants of the region to modify their commercial structures and reinforced their economic dependence on the French monarchy.

Consequently, many products that previously circulated freely between the territories north and south of the Pyrenees became subject to taxes and regulations imposed by both monarchies. However, these restrictions generated new commercial dynamics outside state laws. Smuggling became an economic activity of great importance for many border communities, which found in this practice a means of survival and prosperity.

Over the years, this economic fracture was consolidated with a progressive institutional and cultural assimilation. The French administration dismantled the institutions of Roussillon and Cerdanya and progressively imposed the French language in education and official spheres. This process sealed the definitive separation between southern and northern Catalonia, generating a new frontier that transcended geography and became a political and identity fracture that persists today.

A final reflection on the contemporary border

More than three centuries later, the border drawn in the 17th century continues to have significant implications. Northern Catalonia, administratively integrated into the French State, retains cultural and historical traits in common with the rest of the Països Catalans, but its integration into the French Republic has progressively eroded its specificities. The border, which in the past was an administrative and economic barrier, has become today a symbolic separation that marks the distance between two different political and legal realities.

These borders, fixed with the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and reinforced by the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), were conceived as impassable lines in a world dominated by nation states. However, this state model is now in crisis. Globalization, European construction and the claims of national identities question the limits set centuries ago. Alejandre Deulofeu, with his theory of “The Mathematics of History”, stated that empires and nations follow predictable cycles of rise and decline, and that the model built in Westphalia of forced state sovereignties is destined to disappear.

In a European context where borders are constantly being redefined, the European Union has allowed for greater territorial permeability, but identity tensions and struggles for self-determination demonstrate that the border is not only a geographical boundary but also a mutable political and historical construct. Just as the 17th century was decisive for the configuration of the modern nation-state, the 21st century poses new challenges regarding sovereignty, national identities and the role of borders in a changing Europe.

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