"Twelve Catalan politicians go on trial on Tuesday for their role in Catalonia’s failed 2017 independence bid, putting the spotlight back on Spain’s biggest political crisis in decades which could make it flare once again."
See: Catalan leaders go on trial in Madrid over independence bid (Reuters, link):
“…The trial will decide if Catalan nationalist leaders stay in jail. The public prosecutor is seeking prison terms of up to 25 years on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds. At stake are Spain’s stability, the future of Catalonia’s independence movement as well as the region’s and the central government’s image abroad.
“It’s the most important trial we have had in democracy”, Supreme Court president Carlos Lesmes told reporters on Feb. 1, referring to the return to democracy in Spain after dictator Francisco Franco’s death in 1975.”