In the mind of Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia is already floating free from the rest of Spain.

The president of the Generalitat regional government came to power in January promising independence in 18 months, but says Catalonia is already "emancipated" from the tortuous political process that has deprived Spain of a government since inconclusive elections in December. On June 26, Spain will hold the first repeat elections in its modern democratic history.

"We don't depend on them any more. The Spanish elections aren't a decisive factor in the Catalan independence process," the 53-year-old Catalan president told POLITICO in an interview.

Whether this process is irreversible, or just a ruse to negotiate more autonomy from Madrid, is an existential question for Spain and of vital strategic importance to the European Union: a cradle of Mediterranean culture, Catalonia's 7.5 million people make up a sixth of the Spanish population and nearly a fifth of Spain's economic output.

"We aren't waiting any more. We are taking decisions" — Carles Puigdemont

Madrid is determined to keep the kingdom united, fearful also that a Catalan split would encourage the Basques, Galicians, Valencians and other independent-minded regions to go it alone.

Encouraged by Mariano Rajoy's outgoing government, the Constitutional Court invalidated a 2014 referendum in which 80 percent of ballots cast favored independence, though turnout was very low as the main pro-unity parties boycotted the vote. In last September's high-turnout Catalan election, 48 percent of votes, but an absolute majority of seats, went to secessionist parties, including Puigdemont's center-right Convergencia.

From the day he took power after three months of coalition wrangling, Puigdemont said he has made it clear to Spain's four biggest parties — now acting prime minister Rajoy's conservative Popular Party, Pedro Sánchez's Socialists, Pablo Iglesias' far-left Podemos and Albert Rivera's centrist Ciudadanos — that Catalonia has already embarked on its own separatist path.

"We aren't waiting any more. We are taking decisions," said the former journalist and ex-mayor of Girona.

Adéu to Europe?

The 18-month countdown that Puigdemont declared in January will culminate in elections for a constitutional assembly "for a future Catalan republic" where Spain's King Felipe will no longer reign, but where the Spanish language and culture, and many residents who originate from elsewhere in the peninsula, will thrive alongside the Catalan speakers, he said.

Not, however, if the majority Spanish political forces opposed to independence can help it, including the Popular Party, the Socialists and Ciudadanos, the business-friendly party founded in Barcelona by Catalan-born Rivera a decade ago.

Inés Arrimadas, Ciudadanos' 34-year-old leader in the Catalan parliament, worries it could lead to the disintegration of Spain if there is "a breakaway referendum every six months regarding a different part of the country."

Born far away in Andalusia's Jerez de la Frontera, she took an interest in Catalonia as a girl, picking up a Catalan dictionary when she was 10 and moving there nearly a decade ago. Identifying herself as "Catalan, Andalusian, Spanish and European," she singles out European Union membership as the biggest flaw in the nationalists' argument.

"We don't want to leave the European Union for even five minutes" — Inés Arrimadas, Ciudadanos

The way Puigdemont sees it, once Catalan breaks with EU member Spain, it will exit the EU by one door and come right back in through another because Brussels will be desperate to hold onto an economically powerful region at the heart of Europe's culture and traditions.

"I see no reason why Europe shouldn't make the same effort it is now making to convince the U.K. to remain in Europe," said the president, contrasting the EU vocation of Catalonia's "7.5 million European citizens" with Britain's lack of enthusiasm. Dismissing the destabilizing impact of a Spanish breakup, he says the bloc is resilient: "The EU has an iron ill-health."

The European Commission appears keen to remain above the fray. Puigdemont spoke to POLITICO during a visit to Belgium last week when he met the premier of the Flanders region — a nationalist who shares Convergencia's separatist vision — but not Jean-Claude Juncker, whose spokesperson said there was no room in the diary of the Commission chief, nor any other commissioner.

Miquel Iceta, leader in Catalonia of Sánchez's Socialists, said Puidgemont's difficulties getting face-time with EU leaders was "a clear sign that nobody in Europe is going to favor a change of frontiers, especially one carried out unilaterally and illegally."

Arrimadas, of Ciudadanos, says Brussels has made it abundantly clear that any region of an EU member country that chooses independence will automatically become a third country and have to re-apply for membership — "and we know that there are countries that take 10 to 15 years to get membership."

"We don't want to leave the European Union for even five minutes," she told POLITICO by phone from Barcelona, citing the damage it would do to the Catalan economy, the frustration it would cause ordinary people, and how unjustified the whole independence push is given the high level of autonomy Catalonia already has in areas such as education, health and security.

Hardliners

Puigdemont advises against pre-empting how European countries will react "once Catalonia has taken a democratic decision," adding that he trusts "in the democratic maturity of the Spanish people, who are today hugely more mature than their own political class."

The coalition wrangling in Madrid wasn't very edifying, but it was complicated by the Catalan question. The PP, Socialists and Ciudadanos all reject the challenge to national unity, which was one of the main factors that prevented Socialist Sánchez — who came second in December — from getting the support he needed from Podemos' Iglesias, who said in February: "It's necessary to have a referendum in Catalonia."

Catalonia has been "the elephant in the room" in the Spanish coalition talks, Raül Romeva, the region’s foreign affairs chief, told POLITICO in an interview last month.

Rajoy's conservatives have traditionally taken the hardest line. Puigdemont blames the PP's influence for a 2010 constitutional court ruling that undermined Catalonia's hard-won statute of autonomy, which the region lost under the dictator Francisco Franco, recovered when democracy was restored, and renewed in a 2006 referendum.

According to Puigdemont, that was the breaking point for moderate forces like Convergencia, which were previously willing to work with Madrid on more autonomy, rather than a divorce. "Thank you, constitutional court, it all started with you," he said.

The Socialists and Ciudadanos promise to win back the Catalans by restoring dialogue if they lead or take part in a new Spanish government after June's elections. Opinion polls currently put the PP in the lead but without their own majority again, meaning more months of coalition negotiations are likely to ensue.

"In the end, it was always the moderates who decided the outcome. I'm not sure about this time" — José Areilza, law professor

This worries Iceta of the Socialists. Every day that passes without clear advances for Puigdemont's agenda, more Catalans will realize the separatist path is "doomed to failure," he says. But at the same time, "the more time passes, the harder it gets" for the nationalists to negotiate anything less than complete independence. One Socialist proposal, for example, is a referendum across Spain on moving to a federal system, which would give Catalonia more autonomy.

José Areilza, a law professor at ESADE, a business and law school in Barcelona, sees tension growing inside the independence camp between pragmatic parties like Convergencia, who have proved willing to negotiate in the past, and hardliners including some nationalist leftists who are seen as a threat by the Catalan business community, and even oppose EU membership.

"Since the end of the 1970s, we have had a long tradition of pro-independence parties in Catalonia who demanded a lot, but in the end were pragmatic and sat down with the Spanish government to negotiate a better deal for the region and reach more autonomy," said Areilza.

"In the end, it was always the moderates who decided the outcome," he said. "I'm not sure about this time."

Diego Torres in Madrid contributed to this article.