Meet the Spanish team

Carlos López-Rómez speaks on behalf of the Spanish research team. He is a lecturer in International Relations at Nebrija University, and a historian specialised in the history of Spanish foreign policy, particularly Spanish European policy in the 20th century. In Pro-Test, his main role is to provide historical background on the political events and social situation in Spain to better understand the meaning of the protests and their social, cultural, and political implications.

What movements is the Spanish team researching?

 We are researching two movements. One is the feminist strike and the feminist protests, particularly in 2018 and 2019. These gained momentum after the case of a collective rape of a young woman in Pamplona during the San Fermín festival and the controversy surrounding the sentences ultimately given to the perpetrators.

 This triggered a social response involving many groups across Spain. People protested what they saw as insufficient protection for victims of cases like this and demanded a different approach from the judiciary. Many felt that the perpetrators had been treated with too much indulgence and that similar cases should be dealt with more severely by the justice system.

 The other case concerns the protests against the Amnesty Law passed by the Spanish Parliament in 2024. The law granted amnesty to people involved, at different levels, in the Catalan pro-independence movement of 2017.

 In 2017, the Catalan government took a series of actions towards declaring independence. This prompted a response from the Spanish government and the judiciary, and many movement participants received prison sentences. Several years later, the Socialist government needed the support of Catalan pro-independence parties in Parliament to form a government. Negotiations resulted in the Amnesty Law, which pardoned some participants in the independence process.

 Part of the population, particularly conservative Spanish nationalists, protested against the law. They organised marches and demonstrations, including gatherings outside the Socialist Party's headquarters in Madrid. These protests brought together a mixture of agendas and ideas, though they were mostly conservative and nationalist in character.

What do you think makes these movements interesting to study?

These were interesting because they represent different sectors of society and different sets of ideas. One is more political, the Amnesty Law case, while the other is more social, though it has legal implications.

Although both began with specific triggering events, they quickly grew beyond those origins. The feminist protests came to encompass broader feminist demands regarding working conditions, patriarchal culture, and gender equality. Similarly, the protests against the Amnesty Law expanded beyond the specific legislation to encompass broader debates about Catalonia, the status of the Spanish language there, and other political issues.

These cases provide information not only about the original events but also about broader political debates in Spain over the last several years. In Spain, unlike in some other countries, there has not been a single issue that has continuously mobilised people and divided society in recent years. Instead, we have seen different issues emerge at different times. Some became prominent and then faded, while others appeared later.

Neither of these cases is really organised as a single, cohesive movement.

In the case of the feminist protests, many organisations and associations are involved. Different groups have organised demonstrations against rape culture, against aspects of the legal framework regarding sexual violence, and for many other causes. There is no single common discourse and no centralised coordination. There is also considerable regional diversity. Demonstrations and marches may be organised independently in a single region or city without coordination with the rest of the country.

As for the protests against the Amnesty Law, the main activity consisted of gatherings outside the Socialist Party's headquarters. These became relatively popular for a period of time, attracting many participants. But when we interviewed people involved, we found that the protests were not centrally coordinated.

Different groups were trying to mobilise participation, and people's motivations varied considerably. Some genuinely believed that the Amnesty Law violated the rule of law and argued that those involved in the pro-independence movement should face the legal consequences of their actions. That's a position that can certainly be part of a democratic debate. But some people opposed any recognition of Catalan identity or culture and were hostile to the use of the Catalan language. Others held even more extreme views and participated primarily because they opposed the government in general. For them, this issue provided an opportunity to express broader dissatisfaction with the government, not just its policies regarding Catalonia.

Has anything surprised you so far?

Yes, the variety of agendas and motivations.

 In the protests against the Amnesty Law, we interviewed people with backgrounds in civil rights advocacy who take the rule of law very seriously. They could provide detailed arguments about why the Amnesty Law should not be accepted within the Spanish constitutional framework. That is a position that can be legitimately debated.

 At the other extreme, we encountered representatives of highly extremist associations that reject democracy itself. Their views go far beyond criticism of the government's policies on Catalonia. Some do not accept Catalonia's right to preserve its own culture, and some reject democracy as a political system altogether. They advocate banning most political parties.

 It is quite surprising to find people with such fundamentally different views participating in the same protest movement. That's one reason why it is difficult to describe it as a movement in the traditional sense. It is not centralised or organised. Rather, it is a gathering of people with different agendas who happen to share one immediate objective, opposition to the Amnesty Law, but for very different reasons.

 I sometimes compare it to a bus or a tram. People are travelling together for part of the journey, but they are heading to very different destinations.

 That is perhaps less true of the feminist movement. There too, organisations have regional bases and their own priorities, but they generally have more in common. The feminist demonstrations and the strike organised on 8 March 2019 centred on issues traditionally associated with women's roles, including care work alongside paid work and education.

 The goals of the feminist movement are not focused on a single issue, unlike opposition to the Amnesty Law. There are multiple concerns, multiple reasons for protest, and broader aspirations for social change. Because of that, and because the objectives are less tied to one specific demand, it is easier for participants to find common ground and share broadly similar goals.