The European Union called the Spanish austerity measures too rash and pointed that they were not addressing the real problem of the Spanish economy: Huge fiscal fraud from the whole Ibex35 companies.
Of course most of these companies HQ are in Madrid and the two main parties’ politics (PP-PSOE) end their careers working for them.
That´s right. But again, the ruling party is not willing to change the constitution or EVEN willing to ask the people IF the want to change it.
They treat the constitution as a god-given artefact of mystic powers that should not be touched or questioned, just interpreted… by them (of course).
I don’t believe the Catalans are upset about the degree and scale of the austerity, so much as the fact that the EU let the events that necessitated austerity in the first place happen.
Just because the EU makes a statement against the scope of Spain’s impositions on Catalonia doesn’t mean they were in any way against austerity itself. Nor does it mean that the EU even believes their own statement, and isn’t just spouting placatory nonsense to shift public opinion to benefit their interests - turning the screws on various Spanish figures, as it were, to get them to toe the line and behave.
And while it is quite clear many Spanish banks and businesses are certainly corrupt, the economic crisis which made austerity necessary to begin with is the direct product of the EU’s economic and banking policies.
This is why there was all that turmoil in Greece not that long ago, with the Greek people outraged at being made to suffer for the misdeeds of bankers from other countries like France, Germany, et cetera, with the EU overriding local Greek lesislators and forcing them to go along with externally dictated measures and policies.
The EU doesn’t care about Catalonian nationalism, except to consider how it can affect their bottom line and cement their political power. If it turns out that an independent Catalonia is beneficial to their interests, they’ll throw Spain under the bus and support the Catalans. If things don’t look like they’re going that way, of course, they’ll favor the status quo and Catalonia be damned.
Any Catalans courting the EU as some sort of imagined savior and protector of their people and culture are deluding themselves.
While, as far as it goes, what goes on inside the borders of a country is considered ‘municipal’ (and thus of no concern to outsiders), the Catalan nation can unilaterally declare itself to be a state under some specific conditions: 1) a shared/common history; 2) a clearly expressed desire to secede; 3) a lack of representation in the central/existing government; 4) (for the lack of a better word) active oppression; 5) effective control of the territory that is to be the new state.
[Nota: not all of these are required for the UN to recognize a unilateral declaration of independence.]
Quoting from “Sovereign Injustice: Forcible Inclusion of the James Bay Crees and Cree Territory into a Sovereign Québec” - commissioned by the Grand Council of the Crees just prior to the 1995 Québec referendum: According to the terms of the [United Nations’] 1970 Declaration, it is said that independent states can only invoke national unity and territorial integrity to prevail over external self-determination, if these states are acting in accordance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples. Moreover, such states must be “possessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to a territory” without discrimination. {146} In this regard, C. Tomuschat provides that secession from a state with an unrepresentative government should still be a last resort: “It is a matter of common knowledge that, in its elaboration on self-determination, the Friendly Relations Declaration of the General Assembly would appear to go further when stating that the principle of national unity and territorial integrity may have to yield if the State concerned is not possessed of a government ‘representing the whole people belonging to the territory without distinction as to race, creed or colour’. This formulation seems to be somewhat too loose if it is intended to sanction a right of secession. In fact,…secession can be only a step of last resort and should not be granted lightly as a remedy.” {147} [Emphasis added.]
If you can manage to snag a copy and make it through the whole thing, you might find it as illuminating as I did. While a lot of the, um, territory Sovereign Injustice covers doesn’t quite apply to the case of the Catalan vs. the rest of Spain, studying the problems/case of the Cree nation in an independent, newly-separated Québec could provide a ton a background information (and argument) that the media isn’t providing.
If and when you slog through Sovereign Injustice, you can reconsider/reexamine the Scottish Independence referendum - and whether London could really have prevented a unilateral declaration by Scotland.
Er, the United States Constitution was written in a specific manner that has little to do with how other countries conduct their legal affairs.In particular, don’t assume federalism.
As some people have observed, Madrid’s attitude towards Catalan culture and independence don’t help. The right-wing Partido Popular which is currently in government likes to take a very arrogant view of all local aspirations, including such small things as officially-recognized languages. I remember years back, when Jose María Aznar’s election victory was celebrated with cries of
Pujol! Enano! Habla castellano!
Meaning: “Pujol [Catalan nationalist leader of the Catalan government] you dwarf, speak Spanish [like the rest of us]!”
The disputal of the legality of the referendum has a similar effect, that of hurting unionist/pan-Spanish sentiment in Catalonia and strengthening the independence movement. So is there a majority for leaving Spain? Well, who knows - there might be. Many people don’t care because they honestly don’t think it will make any difference.
Also note that Spanish politics is a very corrupt business. There are major inquiries against especially, but not solely, the governing Partido Popular. A Catalan family member told me this summer:
“If Spain was an honest country, I’d be perfectly happy to be part of Spain. But seeing it’s nothing but thieves [meaning the government, not the people] I’d rather leave.”’
Me: “But are Catalan politicians any better?”
Him: “No, but at least I don’t have to pay the others any more.”
So people are disllusioned, have zero faith in any politicians, don’t like to see their language and culture ridiculed by people from the central government AND honestly think that Catalonia might work just as well alone … Those who have it most right might be the ones that argue that for most people, independence won’t make much of a difference anyway. it’s not like poeople would be banned from speaking Spanish or you had to show your passport to go to Spain …
It’s obviously true that Spanish law is different from US law, but that wasn’t my point. My issue was with the general proposition that a federal/central government has to approve other elections in order for that election to be legal, and that “[i]f people hold an unofficial election for president, it doesn’t hold any weight and is technically ‘illegal.’” Obviously this comment wasn’t limited to Spain since Spain doesn’t have a president (“president” typically indicating a republic, while the English name of the Spanish head of government is “prime minister”). Of course, pretty much all popular elections for US presidents are unofficial in the sense that it’s the Electoral College which actually elects the President and they can vote any way they want, yet we don’t think of these popular elections as illegal.
Unfortunately, the people of Catalunya are going to have to have faith in themselves amidst a tsunami of threats, promises and imaginative scare stories if the referendum goes ahead. I expect they will be told that everything short of the sky falling in will happen if they vote for independence.
Uh, a prime minister is a member of a parliament, whom the other members have selected as the top dog - usually by the PM’s party ahead of the election. A president, on the other hand, is separately elected and typically doesn’t sit in parliament as a member.
Witness the fact that many countries have both a prime minister and a president.
Agreed. There was no international law/convention/whatever that might force the Government of Canada to accept any result of a referendum on secession. But, much to the Chrétien government’s credit, they said that they would accept a clear result of a clear question. The smart and democratic, albeit very difficult, decision in a decisive vote to secede, would be to allow secession.
It’s a practical and a political matter, really. If a nation/people really don’t want to be a part of an obdurate or unaccommodating state, the situation can quickly become very difficult for everyone, even deadly. We’ve seen enough of hot- and slow-burning civil wars.
Incidentally, I’m reminded of local politics here in the Atlanta area, with specific areas looking to become either new cities, or the case of Fulton Co., with the (whiter, richer) north of the county sometimes looking to break away from the (poorer, blacker) southern part of the county… hm.
Spain’s leader is called the Prime Minister in English. Prime ministers do not have to sit in parliament, even if they typically do, and Spain’s Prime Minister is usually the leader of the parliamentary majority.
Don’t know how any of this is really relevant to what I said, though: Spain’s leader is, in English, its prime minister, and presidents usually reflect a republican state.
Look for terrorist threats springing from the woodwork and financial collapse heaped upon cultural annihilation.
The problem was, in Scotland, that there was a large enough group of people who would never have considered voting for independence under any circumstances. Scaring a few of us into going along with what appeared to be the majority was as easy as manipulating the press and calling the rich to heel.
Cory, can you provide some context around the image displayed? It looks like Times Square to me, confirmed by an image search. Were the Catalanians protesting in New York?
Funny thing, the guy on the right corner of the picture is Xavier Sala-i-Martin, one of the main reference economists for the ruling catalan party, a staunch neoliberal who teaches at Columbia.
The cultural and linguistic differences are enormously greater than between England and Scotland, and the oppression and attempts to wipe out their language and culture by the Spanish government are well within living memory even for fairly young people.
Just on the “illegal referendum”-topic: Illegal tends to mean “specifically outlawed”, as in “forbidden”. Murder is illegal. Holding my own presidential elections is merely legally powerless - unless I break laws about falsely pretending to represent the government or somesuch.
In this case, the referendum seems like it would be powerless, since it’s not sanctioned by those that would have to act on it - but they’d have to come up with some much more specific arguments to make it actually illegal. Which they plausibly could do, ofc.
