Catalans once longed for freedom from Spain. Now that doesn’t look so appealing | María Ramírez

With most voters in Catalonia rejecting independence-seeking parties, the pro-separatist chaos of 2017 is a distant memory

For the first time since 1980, parties opposing Catalonia's independence from Spain have the support of a majority of voters in the region. Elections last Sunday saw around 54% of the electorate return candidates from non-separatist parties across the political spectrum. The Socialist party scored a momentous victory for the first time.

The vote appears to draw a line under a tumultuous decade marked by a 2017 rush to independence that led to an illegal referendum, a unilateral declaration of independence, mass protest and the country's worst constitutional crisis since the restoration of democracy in 1975.

Maria Ramirez is a journalist and deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain