There is an increasing weariness over having to stand the angry look of those who continue to perceive the Catalan identity (its institutions, economic structure, language and cultural tradition) as a fault which prevents Spain from attaining a dreamed and impossible uniformity.
Catalans pay their taxes
(without historical privileges);
In Spain fueros (I believe this may come from the Latin foedus) was the old name for a Royal Charter, given to newly incorporated towns, or to entire regions. The only surviving fuero is the one for Navarra, which is why the Autonomous Community of Navarra is actually called 'Foral Community of Navarra' and Navarra's 'historical rights' are mentioned in the appendix (transitory provisions) of the Spanish Constitution. As an aside, the only other notable use of fuero is in the Fuero de los Españoles, a sort of Charter of Fundamental Rights enacted by Franco in 1945 - here fuero as Charter is like the Carta in Carta Magna.
Anyway, the Basque Country used to have a fuero but it had been abolished. However, the Basque Autonomy Statute is inspired in the old fuero. As a result of this the Basque Statute has a different fiscal arrangement to all the other Autonomous Communities. This is what the editorial complains about when they say "Catalans pay their taxes without 'foral' privileges".
they contribute with their effort to the transfer of income to the poorest parts of Spain;
they face economic internationalization without the many benefits of hosting the State capital;
they speak a language with more demographic weight than many official languages of the EU
a language which, instead of being loved, is so often subject to obsessive scrutiny by the official Spanish nationalism
In this connection, the Spain's Director General for Film, former MEP Ignasi Guardans, who is a Catalan wpeaker and used to be a member of the Nationalist party CiU, recently said that "people will rather see a film in Farsi than in Catalan" (well, he did say 'in Iranian' but we'll forgive him that). And I have to say I have seen films in both Farsi and in Catalan (with subtitles) and that once, given the choice between watching a Catalan film in the original version or dubbed to Spanish by the actors themselves, I chose the Catalan original, I would have to agree with Guardans - a film in Catalan will be seen by fewer people in Spain than a film in Farsi. He argues it is more important for encouraging the Catalan film industry to get films produced in Catalonia than to worry about whether American films are dubbed to Catalan (which is what Catalan politicians care about - and this is the kind of opinion that led to him being sidelined by CiU as an MEP candidate),
and they uphold the laws, of course, without giving up their peaceful and proven ability to withstand with civility.
These days, Catalans think, above all, of their dignity; this should be known.