Tabarnia

**Tabarnia** (_Tabàrnia_ in Catalan) is a suggested name and a satirical political project for a portion of the Catalonian territory, Spain. It was created by the organization "Barcelona is not Catalonia" (AKA _Plataforma por la Autonomía de Barcelona_, "Movement for an Autonomous Barcelona") as a satirical response towards the Catalonians separatists. Their main target is to establish up a new region in Spain besides Catalonia with some districts (_Comarcas_ or _Comarques_) from the provinces of Barcelona and Tarragona.

Its nomenclature is a neologism created from the provinces' names: **Ta**rragona and **Bar**celona, and it would span these areas:

- Tarragonès/Tarragonés
- Baix Camp/Bajo Campo
- Baix Penedès/Bajo Penedés
- Alt Penedés/Alto Penedés
- Garraf
- Baix Llobregat/Bajo Llobregat
- Barcelonès/Barcelonés
- Vallès Oriental/Vallés Oriental
- Vallès Occidental/Vallés Occidental
- El Maresme

Proponents believes the area somewhat corresponds to the historic County of Barcelona, although its extension is considerably different.

## Background

On 24th September, 2012; "Barcelona is not Catalonia"'s members approved in a constituent assembly their statutes and a political program in order to get their own autonomy as an Autonomous Community within Spain.

The expression "Tabarnia" was used by the first time in 2015 as a territorial entity that would comprise part of the Catalonian seaside and Barcelona Metropolitan Area as a disagreement towards Catalan Government (_Generalitat Catalana_):

### Process of Independence of Catalonia

Proponents of Tabarnia demands to segregate themselves from the Catalan separatist movement and reclaims the right of a number of territories near the area of Barcelona and Tarragona to constitute themselves as an Autonomous Community within Spain. In the 2015 and 2017 Catalan regional elections, parties opposed to secession (mainly C's, PSC and PP) received a majority of votes and seats in some of these _comarques_ (Tarragonès, Baix Penedès, Garraf and Baix Llobregat) including the city of Tarragona, but excluding the most populated Catalan city: Barcelona.

They allude to a series of fiscal arguments similar to those of Catalan separatism in regards to Spain, although in last Catalan election, Tarragona province showed more support for separatism than unionism.

### Trending Topic

In December, 2017 the satirical movement became trending topic in the social networks. Since then, they had been appear in Spanish and international media. According them, "Tabarnia is a historical region that comprised the ancient County of Barcelona, currently part of Tarragona and Barcelona provinces".

## Reactions

The rise of this movement creates tension among the Catalan separatist movement because of argumental contradiction and geostrategic risk using their same arguments for independence word by word. as a result, the catalan separatists contradicts themselves when they uses the "unionist" counter-arguments in order to discredit the Tabarnia movement. The territorial area that Tabarnia would comprise includes geostrategic assets that are fundamental for a viable independent Catalonia. The Port of Barcelona and Barcelona–El Prat Airport, some of the richest industrial sectors fall in fact inside areas that hold a majority of voters in favor of unionism, though in the city of Barcelona the pro-independence won the election.

The fact that Tabarnians are asking to be separated from the Catalonia that wants to be separated from Spain, has been interpreted by some newspapers as a reductio ad absurdum of the nationalistic logic in a XXI century Europe. Many Tabarnians believe that a sustained international media attention to this movement would defeat the catalan independence project by simply following their own arguments instead of opposing them.

An ongoing petition is taking place at Change.org in order to be sent to the Spanish Congress of Deputies to consider the creation of this new autonomous region.

## Related pages

- Clarity Act

## Other websites

- Web de Barcelona is not Catalonia
- Entrevista a Carla Arrufat en _El Magacín_