Spanish
life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
-
Christopher Howse: A
Pilgrim in Spain.
If
you've arrived here because of an interest in Galicia or Pontevedra,
see my web page here.
Life
in Spain
- Cataluña 1:
A Spanish commentator last week saw Presidents Puigdemont and Rajoy
as two leaders who'd taken themselves to the brink and were now
trying to negotiate from the bottom of the gorge. I tend to see them
as 2 short-sighted, incompetent opportunists who are each playing
to the other's advantage.
- Cataluña 2: The
view of the Basque president, who has a dog in this fight, of course:
I cannot understand or share Madrid’s approach to either
Basque autonomy or the Catalan crisis. I write this as the
democratically elected president of the autonomous Basque region
of Spain, as someone who is both strongly pro-Europe and who
believes firmly in self-determination, whichever institutional form
that takes.
- Cataluña 3:
More immediately . . . El País informs us that: The first
cracks have appeared in the PP-PSOE pact over the use of Article 155;
the PSOE rules out intervening in Cataluña if Puigdemont calls an
election. This is my guess at
what the Catalan government will do next. For what have they got to
lose? Especially as regards burnishing their alleged democratic
credentials on the international stage.
- Cataluña 4:
Medium term, the huge question looms – How exactly is Madrid going
to impose itself on Cataluña? Here's the Bloomberg take on this.
Extracts: Another's view on the Spanish President: Rajoy
is playing with fire . . . . Federalism is a delicate balance. True,
the Catalan government violated the letter and spirit of the Spanish
constitution by toying with a declaration of independence. But if
Rajoy goes too far in retaliation, the very idea of self-governing
communities may evaporate.
. . The lesson from
constitutional history is: tread lightly.
- Spain: Sevilla
has been named – by Lonely Planet – as the best city in the world to visit.
The EU and
Spain/Cataluña: Only political dialogue can bring stability
to Catalonia – and the EU must help, says the president of the
Basque government, cited above. Full Article 1 below. So far,
Brussels has shown itself adamantly opposed to involvement. Probably
got enough problems on its plate. Swimming against the historical
tide being one of these. Very possibly the biggest one. Which reminds me . . .
The EU and Brexit:
The EU may abhor separatism, but its imperial structure encourages
it, says one British political columnist this morning. And who
could gainsay that? Anyway, posted below – as Article 3 - is the full
text of his column. And Article 2 is by an ex Reluctant Remainer
who's now convinced the UK should press on with the Brexit,
despite the negative consequences. Basically because the EU has shown
its nasty, undemocratic hand. And because it might not last anywhere
near as long as the Holy Roman Empire. Or even the Ottoman version.
Here in the UK,
it's good to read that the police are catching up with their Galician
colleagues. It's reported that One in three British motorists is
fined every year, as automation technology has created a cash cow for
councils and police. But there's some way to go before they
manage to fine 3 out of 3 motorists at least once a year. Perhaps
they should adopt the Spanish strategy of endlessly changing speed
signs.
Still in the UK
. . . One has to feel sorry for Costa Coffee. Their €3 cup
of coffee is now considered only 'second wave' and is losing
market share to 'third wave' beverages which are 'more
sophisticated'. Or, as I like to say, even more ludicrously expensive. Soon
everyone in the UK will be ordering like they do in Frasier's
Seattle. Or is that 'tenth wave'?
Finally
. . . Just what we needed – psychiatric
advice from British comedian Russell Brand.
According to him: We're all on the
spectrum. Of madness, I guess. Up to
now I'd thought this only applied to women*. . . And to Brand himself. I guess his comment is serious, which rather fits with the fact that I've never
found him at all funny.
* Joke.
Today's
Cartoon:-
 |
| "One of the really nice things about the spring is being able to turn the central heating down a little." |
THE ARTICLES
1. Only political
dialogue can bring stability to Catalonia – and the EU must help:
Iñigo Urkullu, President of the Basque government
The political crisis
in Catalonia and how it is resolved will have an impact on
the European Union, not just Spain. It highlights the problem of
forced integration of a people who have historically expressed a
desire for self-governance and voluntary association. This is a
political conflict that requires a political solution based on
dialogue and negotiation. Such a solution would reconcile reality and
realism, legality and legitimacy, and the willingness of regions with
different national realities to agree on the terms of their voluntary
union.
The crisis is a
political one, a consequence of the lack of a political willingness
for dialogue, even though honest dialogue is the only peaceful
solution. The Spanish government should, now more than ever, after
threatening to intervene in legitimate Catalan institutions,
open a realistic avenue for dialogue, given that the basic concept of
sovereignty is at stake.
I want to propose
two principles for that dialogue. The first is the responsibility to
avoid any internal political or social clashes between territories.
The second principle is that of reality; in other words, recognising
that there is popular support for different expressions of the
national project in Catalonia, the Basque country and in the
rest of the Spanish state.
On my first day in
office, I informed the Spanish prime minister of the need for a
shared and far-reaching reflection on the relationship that the
Basques and the Spanish agreed at the end of the Franco-era
dictatorship in 1978. This model ratified the “imposed unity”
contained in the 1812 Cadiz constitution and upheld to the present
time. It quashed the “voluntary union” model and the historical
rights of the Basque people, which did not enjoy protection and
respect until the 1978 constitution.
But this reflection
has still not begun. I cannot understand or share Madrid’s approach
to the decade-long crisis regarding the Basque country, which has now
extended to Catalonia. Even less so when, in the Catalan case, the
government refuses to address politically a conflict that is
political by its very nature, and seeks purely legal answers. I
completely reject the extreme measures taken with regard to Catalan
civil society and institutions in the past month. These actions will
make solving the present impasse even harder.
We have recent and
close models that offer us acceptable solutions combining the
principles of legality and democracy. The relationship between Quebec
and Canada, and the Scottish referendum, are precedents for solving
such disputes in a democratic, constructive and civilised way. In
both cases, consultations enabled citizens to express their wishes
and to see that their opinion had been considered.
In the Basque
country, after decades of violence and terrorism, we are promoting a
model of self-government that combines nation-building and social
construction with the participation of all Basque political
traditions.
The premise is
coexistence between different identities, based on mutual recognition
and respect. This ideal could root a plurinational Spanish state
closer to its reality. It would mean the cultural, social and
political-legal recognition of the Basque and Catalan nations, along
with the Spanish. It proposes an agreed and constructive view of
distributing sovereignty. The goal of coexistence between different
identities can be achieved by assuming the European concept of
co-sovereignty, or shared sovereignty. I therefore advocate setting
up legal channels to allow political communities who wish to consult
their citizens on their future to be able to do so.
The Catalan crisis
is an international legal issue, the outcome of which has a bearing
on the future of Europe. This is a future that has been our concern
since 1916, when a Basque delegation took part in the Conference of
Lausanne. What happens next can and must be resolved between the
directly involved parties (as happened in Scotland’s case). But in
the absence of this dialogue, there should be an appeal to the EU,
which should provide the means for it. As a matter of principle,
sure, but also because Europe is not sustainable with such
an open conflict. The situation directly affects the future of the
European project, and the identification and coexistence of citizens
within the union that the project represents.
2. The Harder
Brexit Gets, the More Necessary It Seems: Clive Crook
The
costs of the split in 2019 will be high -- but it might be now or
never.
Waiting will only make it more painful.
Nobody
was surprised that the European Union's leaders refused to move the
Brexit talks forward at last week's summit. German Chancellor Angela
Merkel and European Council President Donald Tusk talked of progress
and suggested there'd be more at the next gathering in December, but
this speck of encouragement shouldn't obscure the bigger picture. The
process is moving too slowly, and with each passing week, the chances
of a chaotic U.K. departure from the EU grow.
The closer this
calamity comes into view, the more certain it seems that Britain has
miscalculated -- and the more I’m coming round to the view that the
U.K. was right to want a divorce.
In the debate about Britain
and Europe, I've been a reluctant Remainer. The U.K. has been an
ill-fitting member of the EU all along. As the union integrates
further over the coming years -- which it probably must, if it's to
succeed -- Britain's discomfort was bound to grow. The U.K. did need
a fundamentally new relationship with the rest of the EU.
But
the government should have worked to create this new status -- a kind
of associate membership -- from a position of strength inside the
union. Its approach to the creation of the euro could have been the
model: Be a nuisance, refuse to go along, and win special
dispensation. Instead, by giving notice to quit the union altogether,
on an EU-determined timetable, the U.K. surrendered most of its
bargaining power. That huge tactical error is going to
cost.
The stalemate in the exit negotiations is proof. At the
same time, though, it draws attention to those very aspects of the
European project that most concern so many Brits -- not just the 52
percent who voted to quit (despite endless dire warnings) but also an
unknown number of reluctant Remainers like myself.
The
difficulty of disentangling EU law from U.K. law, and putting the
U.K.'s international commitments back on a sovereign-country basis,
is becoming all too clear. The threat of enormous disruption is real.
Yet the scale and complexity of this task also show how deeply and
broadly the EU has penetrated British governance. Few would
argue that Europe's system of democratic accountability has developed
to a commensurate degree. So the harder it is to exit, the more
glaring the union's "democratic deficit" seems.
For
many British commentators, in fact, the coming disruption means this
was never a matter of weighing long-term pros and cons of EU
membership: There was no real choice, in their view, except to
remain. But that draws attention to another problem. The
irrevocability of EU membership was not previously advertised. Until
recently, Article 50 in the European treaties was supposed to affirm
that participation in the project was voluntary, contingent and
subject to popular consent. Now it's portrayed by Remainers as a kind
of suicide clause.
Remember that the European Union is
a work in progress. "Ever closer union" remains a guiding
principle, and, with the creation of the euro, deeper integration has
become a practical necessity as well. It's happening -- haltingly,
messily, and leading in the end who knows where. But if quitting
the EU now is hard, how much harder will it be in ten years, or 20?
And by then, what kind of union will the EU be?
Thus, on the
one hand, the costs of Brexit in 2019 will be high; on the other, it
might be now or never.
The current stalemate, in addition, has
arisen partly by EU design -- which undercuts Remainers in another
way. Europe's chief negotiator has a mandate to achieve "sufficient
progress" on the exit payment, the status of EU citizens in the
U.K., and the Northern Irish border before moving to discuss the
future relationship. This makes a deal much harder to strike. Complex
talks succeed through bargains made in parallel across the full range
of issues in contention -- not in rigid sequence, with the hardest
questions up front.
Presumably this staging was deliberate:
It's taken for granted that the EU wants to punish the U.K. for
deciding to quit, partly to teach other restless members to behave,
and partly because Britain just has it coming. I see the reason in
such thinking -- but it doesn't advance the EU's larger purpose
of a closer union based on popular consent[
Ha ha ha].
You can strengthen
obedience by making examples and threatening reprisals, but you
don't build loyalty that way, and loyalty is what the EU most sorely
lacks.
The EU should be more confident about its prospects
with or without the U.K. If it believes in the strength of its union,
and in the power of the four freedoms that the U.K. is reluctant to
accept in full, then it should expect Britain to regret departing
even if granted terms that cause the minimum disruption to trade and
commerce. The EU should believe that the U.K. will see the error of
its ways in time, even if the exit goes well. Until then, the EU
would surely be better off having a prosperous friend, trading
partner and military ally just off its coast, rather than a beaten
and resentful enemy.
Britain's tactical choices have been
terrible and it faces severe consequences. But, judging by this
process so far, the EU isn't much better at seeing where its
interests really lie.
Article
3: The EU may abhor separatism, but its imperial structure encourages
it: Philip Johnston
The crisis in Spain
over Catalonia’s bid for independence is about to come to a head,
with a stand-off between Barcelona and Madrid threatening to tear the
country apart. The imposition of direct rule by the central
government of Mariano Rajoy could precipitate a declaration of
independence by Catalonia as early as Thursday.
Three weeks ago, a
referendum deemed illegal by Madrid showed 90 per cent in favour of
secession on a turnout of 43 per cent. Were the Catalans to declare
independence, it would be the first time an EU state has lost part of
its territory and Spain would be the first Eurozone member to crack
apart. The financial consequences of losing its richest province
are impossible to calculate, which is why Madrid is determined to
stop it.
There is a school of
thought that the potential fragmentation of Europe spells doom for
the EU and the Catalans are being egged on by those who would like to
see it collapse. Yet the opposite may be true. For potential
statelets such as Catalonia, the EU offers an over-arching form of
governance able to accommodate their distinct cultural and linguistic
characteristics outside of an artificially constructed nation state.
Herein lies the
secessionists’ paradox. They want to break away from what they
regard as an alien form of governance yet stay in the EU.
Brussels, in turn,
seeks to obstruct these separatist movements under a doctrine set out
by Romano Prodi, former President of the European Commission. This
asserts, though without any legal basis, that a region breaking away
from an EU member will automatically be ejected from the club and
have to reapply for membership, a protracted process that could take
years.
In the meantime, the
pariah state would be cut off from the rest of the EU, unable to
trade easily and forced to use a different currency. This is why
Madrid is calling Catalonia’s bluff: it holds all the cards and the
impact on the new country’s economy of leaving the EU without
agreement would be huge, even if it does generate much of Spain’s
wealth.
For those who
believe in the efficacy of the nation state these are difficult
issues.
When we look at what
is going on from a British position, and especially from an English
one, we are anxious to preserve the integrity of the nation. We would
not countenance, say, the independence of Yorkshire, or of London for
that matter.
Yet we recognise
that Scotland was until 1603 a separate kingdom and until 1707 had a
separate parliament that pooled its sovereignty with England to form
a union. It has the right to break that arrangement should it choose
to, and in 2014 it chose not to.
But most European
countries do not have a thousand years of nationhood to keep them
glued together. Germany was not a nation until unification under
Bismarck in 1871 and then again under Kohl in 1990, nor
Italy until Risorgimento led by Garibaldi in 1861. Modern
Germany encompasses previously powerful states in their own right
such as Bavaria and Prussia, though its federal structure and high
degree of autonomy keep separatist pressures at bay.
But in Italy
the centrifugal forces continue to be felt. Last weekend, two
former independent states, Lombardy and the Veneto, held referendums
to press for greater autonomy from Rome. Both are run by the Northern
League, which objects to subsidising the poorer south.
Will Italy still be
in one piece 30 years from now?
Arguably, the
existence of the EU as a default form of supra-national governance
encourages secession movements. The Prodi doctrine is aimed at
countering them, but history is against it.
For centuries much
of continental Europe functioned under imperial suzerainty, either
through the Holy Roman Empire centred on Germany, Austro-Hungary,
Russia or the Ottomans. Living in a country such as ours, whose
borders have been pretty well set for 800 years, it is often hard to
appreciate the fluidity of European statehood, though recent events
should remind us.
Thirty years ago,
the old EEC comprised just 12 member states – Spain and Portugal,
both had just joined. Today it numbers 28 (soon to be 27), a direct
result of the implosion of the old communist empire centred on the
Soviet Union.
Its unravelling
freed the eastern bloc nations, formerly satellites of Moscow, to go
their own way. It also triggered the dismantling of Yugoslavia and
the recreation through conflict of the old territories that had once
been under the Ottomans or Austro-Hungary.
Few outside Serbia
and Russia opposed the right of the Kosovans to break away from
the rule of Belgrade and were, indeed, prepared to wage war to
allow it. Its secession was judged legal under the concept of
self-determination of peoples enshrined in Article One of the UN
Charter.
Countries that
suppress the legitimate desires of their citizens to be separate
political entities are in breach of that provision. So why is
Catalonia any different? And yet, if the Spanish army takes to the
streets of Barcelona to impose rule from Madrid, the rest of Europe
will back the central government against the separatists.
Here lies another
paradox. The more starry-eyed Europhiles have always wanted the Union
to supplant nations. That was one purpose of Maastricht – to create
a European identity and citizenship that would transcend statehood
and accommodate every ethnicity and expression of cultural
exceptionalism. That is what would-be breakaway nations such as
Catalonia want. They don’t seek its destruction.
Perhaps the EU’s
destiny is to become an expanded version of the Holy Roman Empire,
ruling over scores of nations, autonomous statelets and ethnic
groupings. The old empire collapsed after its defeat by Napoleon at
Austerlitz in 1805 and was often derided as unwieldy, feudal and
inefficient. Voltaire sniffily dismissed it as not holy, not Roman
and not an empire, though it did last 800 years.
Unlike the EU, the
nation states that rose from the imperial ashes provide a direct
connection between the people and the expression of their democratic
will. But what happens when that bond is broken and loyalty to the
nation breaks down among a large part of its population? Spain is
about to find out.
