During the years of the Catalan independence many Catalans experienced that the distance between Barcelona and Madrid is much greater than the little more than six hundred kilometres that separate the two cities. The unity of Spain is a cement that transcends ideologies of the right or the left, and the progressive logic that is applied to other issues with democratic, liberal criteria and the defence and protection of diversity is not applied if it affects the Catalan question. Or, rather, the transformative criteria are not applied when talking about the unity of Spain, which is considered a superior good. This has been the case historically, and the onslaught first in the Basque Country and then in Catalonia has led to episodes that have eroded the Spanish democratic system both internally and vis-à-vis its European partners. Episodes of the use of force or state terrorism and the political actions of the courts, in the hands of the most conservative right, have been absorbed by the majority of Spanish public opinion without major contradictions.