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Digital news company Bloomberg, the United States' leading business news source, has published an article to bring readers up to date with what has happened in the Catalan crisis in the two years since it made world news with the referendum on October 1st 2017 and its brutal repression. The newspaper's assessment: that the Catalan crisis remains on the table and could threaten Spanish stability. It explains that pro-independence sentiment is still strong, and that the situation could "flare anew" when the Spanish Supreme Court delivers its verdict in the trial of the 12 pro-independence leaders.

Bloomberg notes that 2017 Catalan president Puigdemont is in exile and that his vice president Junqueras and 8 other leaders are in prison, and could be sentenced to long prison terms. It warns that a guilty verdict could "re-energize" the independence movement and lead to massive protests.

The US business newspaper reports that there is division between the pro-independence parties JxCat and ERC, and that the former, under Quim Torra, takes a "harder line" while ERC has "a more pragmatic approach." But it recalls that the pro-independence parties are a key part of the arithmetic in Pedro Sánchez's efforts to form a new Spanish government .

Charles Penty, head of the Bloomberg Spain office, who wrote the article, asserts that "this mess" has "plagued Spain" for more than three centuries. He claims that Sánchez refuses to consider any breakup of Spanish territory, but wants to explore minor concessions; he also notes that on the Catalan side even the less "die-hard" ERC sees a referendum on self-determination as key to resolving the dispute. Penty suggests that there is no clear majority in favour of independence and concludes that "it's naive to think there are easy solutions".