BARCELONA — The standoff over Catalonia’s independence drive has now reached a sobering moment for Spain with the central government’s announcement this weekend that it would take the drastic step of removing the region’s secessionist leaders.

The situation probably never had to come to this extreme point, but now that it has, there is plenty of blame to share — and potentially worse pitfalls ahead on what amounts to a precarious and deeply uncertain path for a modern European democracy.

In announcing his emergency measures on Saturday, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy took a backhanded slap at his chief antagonist in the dispute, Carles Puigdemont, the leader of Catalonia, a region where, he said, “things can’t be done worse.”

But analysts say that Mr. Rajoy, too, shares the blame for allowing the conflict to spin dangerously out of control and that the remedy he has chosen is by no means assured to be a cure.