I don't know.

I mean, this is a question for historians. Actually, had history been moving in a slightly different way, we could have now Portugal as a part of Spain and Catalonia as an independent country. But things just turned in the opposite way...

I am including this question here because the existence of Portugal as a fully independent nation is accepted as a matter of fact by anyone (as it should be) while the Catalan struggle for freedom is regarded by many as a mere curiosity...