Jordi Puigneró, right, who is spearheading the online independence bid, with Catalan regional President Quim Torra | Enric Fontcuberta/EPA Catalonia’s bid for digital independence A Spanish decree blocks separatists from forging a digital republic.

The battleground in Catalonia's independence push is moving from the street to the screen.

The separatist government is supercharging efforts to create what it calls a "digital republic," which would enable it to exert some powers even if Madrid imposes direct rule. But Spain's Socialist government, back in power after a national election, has already tried to pull the plug on this fledgling online shadow state.

Spearheading the online independence bid is Catalonia's digital policy minister Jordi Puigneró, a British-trained computer engineer, who jokingly refers to himself as "just an IT guy."

"The Spanish authorities are scared that we built a different model of society which is based on digital technologies," he told POLITICO in an interview.

Last month, just before the election, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez cracked down on Puigneró's attempt to wrest control of Catalonia's internet policy from Madrid.

"I say to the Catalan independence movement that there will be no independence either offline or online, and that the state will be just as forceful in the digital world as it is in the real world," Sánchez said on national radio.

"The Spanish authorities are scared that we built a different model of society which is based on digital technologies." — Jordi Puigneró, Catalonia's digital policy minister

Sánchez's new emergency laws widen Spain's reasons for shutting down websites to include an "immediate and serious threat to public order."

Violent protests shook Barcelona for days last month after Spain's Supreme Court jailed nine separatist Catalan leaders for up to 13 years for their part in the failed independence referendum of October 2017.

Although the new laws apply to the whole of Spain and do not specifically mention Catalonia, the decree does make reference to "recent and serious events that took place in part of Spain's territory."

Spain's Guardia Civil police has already requested the closure of an anonymous civil society website called Tsunami Democràtic, which has 400,000 followers on the messaging app Telegram and was instrumental in organizing protests against the sentences of the Catalan leaders last month.

"They [the Spanish government] are opening a very dangerous door in a western European state, which is something the European Union should worry about," said Puigneró.

Digital republic

Puigneró, from the pro-independence Together for Catalonia party, wants more digital powers in case Madrid imposes direct rule on the region, as happened for seven months after the Catalan parliament declared independence in 2017.

"If the internet is available, you could have a government taking decisions being voted by the people, a parliament which takes digital decisions, you have a digital identity, you can create a cryptocurrency, you can actually still govern your nation," said Puigneró.

As part of its aim to launch a digital republic, the regional government has drafted a charter of digital rights and will open its own cybersecurity agency next year.

Puigneró's Together for Catalonia colleague Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan leader who now lives in Belgium, is also orchestrating independence efforts online, with a website for the Council for the Catalan Republic.

But Madrid torpedoed Puigneró's plans to create a Catalan identity system, based on blockchain technology, to allow Catalans to own their data. The new decree states there is only one legal identity system in Spain and rules out blockchain-style technologies until they are better regulated by the EU.

"They are scared that this system in a way empowers Catalan citizens," Puigneró said, adding that it was not intended as a replacement for national I.D.

"They are scared that this system in a way empowers Catalan citizens." — Jordi Puigneró

Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo, announcing the new laws, also took aim at the Catalan government over where it stores its data. "There cannot be servers outside the European Union. We have to know where information is coming from, who is handling it, to what end and why," she said.

"We are already complying with this law because we comply with the GDPR law," Puigneró responded. He said the web servers storing citizens' personal data were located on EU soil but indicated the Catalan government had other servers outside the EU. "There's much data which is not personal data," he said.

Puigneró says the Catalan government will appeal the law in the Spanish courts, but at least for now it seems the new decree, which will at some point need parliament's approval, has drained the battery out of this nascent digital republic.

"It will try to stop it," Puigneró said. "But the internet is like water: If you try to grab it with your hands, it just goes away.