There was a graphic the other day which showed the sphere of military influence that a "hypothetical" independent Catalonia would require. It featured a couple of fighter planes over the sea between the mainland and the Balearics. They were within this theoretical Catalonian military force field, as also were - pointedly - the military installation on the summit of the Puig Major and indeed the whole of the Balearics.
Hypotheses are edging closer to be realities, yet these realities are unreal. These are truly odd times. Catalonia's parliament, having determined that Spain's Constitutional Court no longer has any legitimacy over Catalonia's affairs, is racing, within the next 30 days, towards the drafting of laws for a separate social security system, a separate treasury and, most significantly, a separate constitution. The appearance is given of independence having already been declared. What next? A separate law for the military and a Catalan invasion of the Balearics reminiscent of 1229? Maybe they'll name the lead fighter plane Jaume I.
The bizarre nature of what is going on can be summed up both by the parliament's pre-independence rejection of Spain's constitution and by Spain's chief prosecutor at the Audiencia Nacional (High Court) having ordered the state's security forces to report on possible offences of sedition and rebellion against the state. The two offences carry, respectively, sentences of up to 15 and 30 years. The High Court doesn't, so it would seem, have powers to prosecute the likes of presidents of regional governments, but it can order investigations, which it has done.
One of the forces which has been given the order is the Catalonian police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra. The fact that it, along with the National Police, the Guardia Civil and the secretary-of-state for security have all been sent a similar instruction by the court should be enough to give Catalonia's leaders the heebie-jeebies. But it is an order which raises rather more concern. Where do the Mossos stand in all this? It's a Catalonian police force, and it was approved as such under Spain's constitution. A Catalonian "constitution" would presumably reiterate and reinforce this, but would this be accepted, while if Catalonia rejects the Spanish constitution, does this not invalidate the provisions of the constitution and the Catalonian statute of autonomy which enabled the Mossos to be transferred to Catalonian jurisdiction in the first place? Moreover, once police forces become embroiled, the whole saga of independence takes on a rather different complexion, as it also does when there is reference - as with the graphic - to military matters.
With reasonable certainty, one can say that the Balearics are not about to become involved and to throw the door open to a Catalonian air force (if it had one, which it doesn't) and allow it to use Palma's Son Sant Joan. Though there are elements within the regional government and the Council of Mallorca who are sympathetic to the notion of the Catalan Lands, their numbers are small, while the populace is not sympathetic. Nor are most politicians, such as from PSOE and even Podemos. Cast as left-wing, on the independence issue Podemos has little truck with it, and that's because it rejects notions of nationalism full stop, be they Spanish, Catalonian or anyone else's.
Balearic politicians have spoken in favour of Catalonia being able to determine its own future, but they, as with many observers from overseas, I suspect, miss the point about how Catalonia arrived at the mad situation in which it finds itself. This is is not just about self-government, self-determination and independence. It has as much if not more to do with Artur Mas.
By the time this article appears, Mas may have been sworn in once more as president of Catalonia. His investiture was on hold because the left-wing CUP voted against it, despite being in favour of independence. The reason it had voted against Mas was that it is concerned that the whole issue, and indeed the whole of Catalonia politics, is focused on one person, i.e. Mas. The CUP wants someone else. It may be right to wish this, but how could Mas walk away or be pushed away from a process which is largely of his own making?
Mas, at one time cast as a somewhat dull technocratic politician, has dug a hole from which he cannot exit. He has successively become more fanatical about independence when this wasn't once the case. He was pushed towards this by Rajoy's flat refusal to renegotiate Catalonia's financing, but he has also used independence to divert attention from corruption allegations and to seek to bolster his own power. Both he and Rajoy are at fault, but observers from overseas should be under no illusion that the Catalonia affair is all a romantic drive towards independence. It isn't, as it became - for different reasons - Mas's crusade and Mas's war.
Showing posts with label Artur Mas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Artur Mas. Show all posts
Friday, November 13, 2015
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Sorry Seems To Be The Easiest Word
Reluctant though I am to use clichéd metaphor, for once I shall. You wait forever for a politician to apologise for something and, blow me, two apologies come along at once. First we had Mariano saying sorry for the albeit few and small instances of corruption committed by members of his otherwise whiter-than-white party, and now we have José Ramón requesting forgiveness from a Balearics public that has been collapsing outside health centres of a collapsing health service because there's no doctor or nurse in the house. Apology or no apology, there was no "chaos" in the health service, said the president, accusing the opposition of having said there was, to which the opposition - in the form of battling Més socialist, Biel Barceló - replied that it wasn't the opposition which had used the c-word but the media; not that it really matters who used it. Let's just say that the health service has endured a period during which it has functioned with less than full efficiency, which may be a way of saying that there has been chaos but isn't quite as headline-grabbing.
Joserra's apology amounted to apportioning blame to the health service's new computer system. Neither he nor the health minister, the boy Martí who first came up with the computer excuse, has said if any heads are rolling for the computer system having taken it upon itself to block temporary appointments. But then, what more should the public expect? It has its apology, so now all is fine. Not that this is how Barceló sees things. The College of Nursing, he informed the president, says that its members are overhwhelmed at work each day and that closure of centres was indeed due to a lack of funding. And joining the fray, we now have the CCOO union reckoning that the whole of the social services on the island are set to go totally belly-up some time in the next few months. If they do, then this will presumably also be due to a computer error.
With all attention having been concentrated on the no-staff-available notices sellotaped to the doors of the island's health centres, everyone has quite forgotten about the schools and which languages the government has said the kids should be taught in this week. Everyone, that is, except for someone with whom you may be less than familiar - Soledad Becerril, the Ombudsman, or rather the Ombudswoman, the Defensora del Pueblo de España.
The fact that Sra. Becerril has held high political office because of her membership of the Partido Popular has not prevented her from demanding information from the PP regional education ministry regarding the implementation of the TIL trilingual teaching system. Indeed, she has been asking for information since February and been getting absolutely nowhere. The ministry, as with any other public authority, is in fact obliged by law to meet requests for information by the Ombudsperson, especially when they are of an urgent nature and have been influenced by court judgements, which is the case with TIL. As the information has not been forthcoming, Sra. Becerril is threatening to denounce the ministry and thus the Balearic Government to the attorney-general on the grounds that it has been "disobedient".
So, maybe education minister, Nuria Riera, will apologise to the Ombudsperson and blame it all on a problem with the computer system. Her ministry's disobedience comes in the same week as another act of disobedience, that of Catalonia's Artur Mas; you see, like apologies, disobediences all come along at the same time. The attorney-general is looking into Artur's disobedience over the rather pointless independence consultation thing which occurred in Catalonia. And what do we do, Artur, when we are in the naughty chair? We say sorry, don't we. Or probably not.
Joserra's apology amounted to apportioning blame to the health service's new computer system. Neither he nor the health minister, the boy Martí who first came up with the computer excuse, has said if any heads are rolling for the computer system having taken it upon itself to block temporary appointments. But then, what more should the public expect? It has its apology, so now all is fine. Not that this is how Barceló sees things. The College of Nursing, he informed the president, says that its members are overhwhelmed at work each day and that closure of centres was indeed due to a lack of funding. And joining the fray, we now have the CCOO union reckoning that the whole of the social services on the island are set to go totally belly-up some time in the next few months. If they do, then this will presumably also be due to a computer error.
With all attention having been concentrated on the no-staff-available notices sellotaped to the doors of the island's health centres, everyone has quite forgotten about the schools and which languages the government has said the kids should be taught in this week. Everyone, that is, except for someone with whom you may be less than familiar - Soledad Becerril, the Ombudsman, or rather the Ombudswoman, the Defensora del Pueblo de España.
The fact that Sra. Becerril has held high political office because of her membership of the Partido Popular has not prevented her from demanding information from the PP regional education ministry regarding the implementation of the TIL trilingual teaching system. Indeed, she has been asking for information since February and been getting absolutely nowhere. The ministry, as with any other public authority, is in fact obliged by law to meet requests for information by the Ombudsperson, especially when they are of an urgent nature and have been influenced by court judgements, which is the case with TIL. As the information has not been forthcoming, Sra. Becerril is threatening to denounce the ministry and thus the Balearic Government to the attorney-general on the grounds that it has been "disobedient".
So, maybe education minister, Nuria Riera, will apologise to the Ombudsperson and blame it all on a problem with the computer system. Her ministry's disobedience comes in the same week as another act of disobedience, that of Catalonia's Artur Mas; you see, like apologies, disobediences all come along at the same time. The attorney-general is looking into Artur's disobedience over the rather pointless independence consultation thing which occurred in Catalonia. And what do we do, Artur, when we are in the naughty chair? We say sorry, don't we. Or probably not.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Catalonia: One big mess
As an example of an exercise in mass opinion polling, the Catalonia not-the-referendum has signalled huge support for the "sí" camp. Yes, we want independence. Now, Sr. Rajoy, let us have it. Or at least let us have a real referendum and not a pretend one.
Rajoy isn't about to agree to this, though were he to and to therefore have gained sufficient support to have changed the Constitution, the result might well be quite different. The 80% in favour of independence were culled from 2.2 million voters, approximately therefore one third of all those who were eligible. In terms of participation the not-the-referendum can only be described as a form of opinion poll and one, moreover, that had an in-built bias thanks to the almost total absence of a "no" campaign and to a Catalan media which, for the most part, came down firmly on the side of Artur Mas and his referendum co-conspirator, Oriol Junqueras.
The result proves nothing other than that 80% of 2.2 million people said yes. It is a percentage greatly in excess of that which regular opinion polls indicate to be the actual level of support for independence. In a real referendum the dynamic would be different and the turnout would also be different. Mas would be quite wrong to believe that independence is genuinely what the majority of Catalonians want.
So, why did he go ahead with the not-the-referendum? He had to in order to save face, having conceded that a genuine referendum was not legal (something which he knew all along). But he also had to as a way of highlighting the sheer lack of any movement in attitude on behalf of the Rajoy government. Its response to the very act of the poll on Sunday was to invoke the courts and to have the police look into who had authorised the use of schools etc. to be polling stations.
Mas argues that he has Catalonian law on his side and this allowed for the not-the-referendum to take place, but regardless of the law, be it that of Catalonia or that of the Constitution, why would the Rajoy government now seek to have the courts decide whether an illegal act has taken place which could lead to prosecution of Mas and others? It is petty, because the poll is not legally binding, cannot be legally binding and only serves as an expression of sentiment of a minority of Catalonians.
What really agitates Rajoy is that the 80% vote boxes him into a corner. To even now negotiate with Mas would appear to be a climbdown and a loss of his face. To agree to a referendum would mean a complete loss of any credibility he retains, while to arrive at agreement would require support at the Cortes for constitutional change that would be almost unimaginable. He would know that a legitimate referendum might well turn out differently, but he can't put that to the test. He has nowhere to go except to the courts. And what good will that do him? It will only reinforce sentiment against him.
Though Rajoy now finds himself in a corner, it was Mas who got there first. It was his foolhardiness in calling an election that he didn't need to which got him to where he now is. That election cost his CiU party seats at the expense of Junqueras's radical independentist ERC who were thus brought into an uneasy coalition in which Mas had little option but to adopt a more aggressive attitude towards independence than he might otherwise have done. It can't be stressed too often that what Mas had really sought was a re-negotiation of Catalonia's finances with the state, and it was a refusal by Rajoy which triggered off the process which resulted in Sunday's not-the-referendum.
Where, therefore, might this now lead, other than to the courts? The leader of PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, might hold the key. His party has been as against independence as the Partido Popular. A solution, perhaps the only solution, is a reform of the whole relationship between the state, Catalonia and the other regions, i.e. a fully federal Spain. It is one that PSOE has recently come to accept, but neither Rajoy nor Mas, for different reasons, has.
Federalism might, for the more radically independentist-minded, now seem like a fudge, but a way has to be sought to combat what is clearly a deeply divided Catalonian society and the ambitions of any other region to seek independence (in truth only maybe the Basques). Both Rajoy and Mas have to share the blame for what has come to pass but both could find a way out of the mess, and a reform on federalist lines with thus greater self-governing powers might well be the only way out.
Rajoy isn't about to agree to this, though were he to and to therefore have gained sufficient support to have changed the Constitution, the result might well be quite different. The 80% in favour of independence were culled from 2.2 million voters, approximately therefore one third of all those who were eligible. In terms of participation the not-the-referendum can only be described as a form of opinion poll and one, moreover, that had an in-built bias thanks to the almost total absence of a "no" campaign and to a Catalan media which, for the most part, came down firmly on the side of Artur Mas and his referendum co-conspirator, Oriol Junqueras.
The result proves nothing other than that 80% of 2.2 million people said yes. It is a percentage greatly in excess of that which regular opinion polls indicate to be the actual level of support for independence. In a real referendum the dynamic would be different and the turnout would also be different. Mas would be quite wrong to believe that independence is genuinely what the majority of Catalonians want.
So, why did he go ahead with the not-the-referendum? He had to in order to save face, having conceded that a genuine referendum was not legal (something which he knew all along). But he also had to as a way of highlighting the sheer lack of any movement in attitude on behalf of the Rajoy government. Its response to the very act of the poll on Sunday was to invoke the courts and to have the police look into who had authorised the use of schools etc. to be polling stations.
Mas argues that he has Catalonian law on his side and this allowed for the not-the-referendum to take place, but regardless of the law, be it that of Catalonia or that of the Constitution, why would the Rajoy government now seek to have the courts decide whether an illegal act has taken place which could lead to prosecution of Mas and others? It is petty, because the poll is not legally binding, cannot be legally binding and only serves as an expression of sentiment of a minority of Catalonians.
What really agitates Rajoy is that the 80% vote boxes him into a corner. To even now negotiate with Mas would appear to be a climbdown and a loss of his face. To agree to a referendum would mean a complete loss of any credibility he retains, while to arrive at agreement would require support at the Cortes for constitutional change that would be almost unimaginable. He would know that a legitimate referendum might well turn out differently, but he can't put that to the test. He has nowhere to go except to the courts. And what good will that do him? It will only reinforce sentiment against him.
Though Rajoy now finds himself in a corner, it was Mas who got there first. It was his foolhardiness in calling an election that he didn't need to which got him to where he now is. That election cost his CiU party seats at the expense of Junqueras's radical independentist ERC who were thus brought into an uneasy coalition in which Mas had little option but to adopt a more aggressive attitude towards independence than he might otherwise have done. It can't be stressed too often that what Mas had really sought was a re-negotiation of Catalonia's finances with the state, and it was a refusal by Rajoy which triggered off the process which resulted in Sunday's not-the-referendum.
Where, therefore, might this now lead, other than to the courts? The leader of PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, might hold the key. His party has been as against independence as the Partido Popular. A solution, perhaps the only solution, is a reform of the whole relationship between the state, Catalonia and the other regions, i.e. a fully federal Spain. It is one that PSOE has recently come to accept, but neither Rajoy nor Mas, for different reasons, has.
Federalism might, for the more radically independentist-minded, now seem like a fudge, but a way has to be sought to combat what is clearly a deeply divided Catalonian society and the ambitions of any other region to seek independence (in truth only maybe the Basques). Both Rajoy and Mas have to share the blame for what has come to pass but both could find a way out of the mess, and a reform on federalist lines with thus greater self-governing powers might well be the only way out.
Monday, September 22, 2014
The Accidental Independentists
At the same time as Scotland was raising cheers or weeping tears and as Alex Salmond was falling on his dirk of honour, the Catalonian parliament overwhelmingly approved its law to permit a referendum which isn't a referendum on independence; they've given it a different title. The national government will refer the consultation to the Constitutional Court in anticipation of the Catalonian law being deemed illegal.
Comparisons between Scotland and Catalonia are both relevant and irrelevant. An act of secession (or not) is the simple comparison, but the sets of baggage are too dissimilar to validate a direct comparison. Just one item in this baggage is the historical notion of nationhood. Scotland was once a country in its own right. Catalonia never has been, despite what some nationalists would contest to the contrary. The competing legalities of asking the people to decide are indicative of these two sets of baggage. One, Scotland, was predicated on the principle that union is not inviolate. Where the Rajoy administration is concerned, union is inviolate.
Comparisons are more meaningful in that both Scotland and Catalonia have involved miscalculations and misjudgments and that both have subscribed to an adaptation of Denis Healey's first law of holes. "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." This is a well-enough understood principle - the deeper you find yourself, the more difficult it is to get out.
Did Salmond ever really want an independence vote? Or did he only really want greater autonomy? When the suggestion of an arrangement akin to that which the Basque Country enjoys in Spain was rejected, he found his options to be limited. His independence gambit might now be deemed to have been a miscalculation, but David Cameron's gambit certainly was. Cameron appeared to believe that the referendum would resoundingly and once and for all kick the notion of independence into grass longer than that to be found in the rough on a Scottish links golf course. He very nearly paid for this miscalculation.
Though Salmond's desire for independence may all along have been equivocal, his head and his heart came to rule. It was independence or nothing, albeit that he may have been placed deeper in the hole through Cameron's bluff.
Artur Mas, unlike Salmond, has faced no such bluff. He has plunged into a hole entirely of his own making and has discovered that a force over which he has no control has rewired a calculating head not untypical of a technocrat and has defrosted a heart of independentist frigidity. Salmond outed himself as an independentist because his public political image demanded nothing less and because he had several years ago placed a train on the tracks that was impossible to derail. Mas, a closet independentist at most, has arrived at the point of sanctioning an act of illegality - the consultation - because of a miscalculation which outed his reluctance and because of his inability to get out of the hole that he has dug.
Almost two years ago, Mas called an election in Catalonia. At that time he was experiencing a decline in popularity because of austerity measures that his government had introduced. In September 2012, there had been a massive pro-independence rally on Catalonia Day. Mas took this as a signal to attempt to boost his flagging popularity with an implication of playing an independence card that he didn't believe in. This was his miscalculation. He hadn't expected the result of the election. His party, the CiU, lost seats and lost its overall majority. Mas had been rumbled by the electorate. It was impossible for him to renege on independence, because he was forced to make a pact with the pro-independence left-wing in order to form a government. Ever since, he has been cast in a role of populist that does not fit him in the way that it fitted Salmond very well.
What Mas really wanted was a better financial deal for Catalonia. Like Salmond, he eyed up the arrangement that the Basques have. Through the peculiarities of history, the Basques have tax-raising powers that nowhere else in Spain does, with the exception of Navarre. Rajoy wouldn't agree to such an arrangement, just as Cameron wouldn't. The roads to independence referenda were thus paved in a similar fashion - with the gold of prospective tax revenues.
Rajoy will continue to do all that he can to prevent a Catalonian independence vote, but though he will cite the law and the Constitution, he has to be aware of a dynamic which Cameron is only now appreciating. Centralised government - and Rajoy is a centraliser both by act and by instinct - is increasingly being rejected and not just in the UK or in Spain. Catalonia will not get its independence, but, and like Scotland, it has to be given greater control of its own affairs. And that, ultimately, is what both Mas and Salmond have wanted.
Comparisons between Scotland and Catalonia are both relevant and irrelevant. An act of secession (or not) is the simple comparison, but the sets of baggage are too dissimilar to validate a direct comparison. Just one item in this baggage is the historical notion of nationhood. Scotland was once a country in its own right. Catalonia never has been, despite what some nationalists would contest to the contrary. The competing legalities of asking the people to decide are indicative of these two sets of baggage. One, Scotland, was predicated on the principle that union is not inviolate. Where the Rajoy administration is concerned, union is inviolate.
Comparisons are more meaningful in that both Scotland and Catalonia have involved miscalculations and misjudgments and that both have subscribed to an adaptation of Denis Healey's first law of holes. "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." This is a well-enough understood principle - the deeper you find yourself, the more difficult it is to get out.
Did Salmond ever really want an independence vote? Or did he only really want greater autonomy? When the suggestion of an arrangement akin to that which the Basque Country enjoys in Spain was rejected, he found his options to be limited. His independence gambit might now be deemed to have been a miscalculation, but David Cameron's gambit certainly was. Cameron appeared to believe that the referendum would resoundingly and once and for all kick the notion of independence into grass longer than that to be found in the rough on a Scottish links golf course. He very nearly paid for this miscalculation.
Though Salmond's desire for independence may all along have been equivocal, his head and his heart came to rule. It was independence or nothing, albeit that he may have been placed deeper in the hole through Cameron's bluff.
Artur Mas, unlike Salmond, has faced no such bluff. He has plunged into a hole entirely of his own making and has discovered that a force over which he has no control has rewired a calculating head not untypical of a technocrat and has defrosted a heart of independentist frigidity. Salmond outed himself as an independentist because his public political image demanded nothing less and because he had several years ago placed a train on the tracks that was impossible to derail. Mas, a closet independentist at most, has arrived at the point of sanctioning an act of illegality - the consultation - because of a miscalculation which outed his reluctance and because of his inability to get out of the hole that he has dug.
Almost two years ago, Mas called an election in Catalonia. At that time he was experiencing a decline in popularity because of austerity measures that his government had introduced. In September 2012, there had been a massive pro-independence rally on Catalonia Day. Mas took this as a signal to attempt to boost his flagging popularity with an implication of playing an independence card that he didn't believe in. This was his miscalculation. He hadn't expected the result of the election. His party, the CiU, lost seats and lost its overall majority. Mas had been rumbled by the electorate. It was impossible for him to renege on independence, because he was forced to make a pact with the pro-independence left-wing in order to form a government. Ever since, he has been cast in a role of populist that does not fit him in the way that it fitted Salmond very well.
What Mas really wanted was a better financial deal for Catalonia. Like Salmond, he eyed up the arrangement that the Basques have. Through the peculiarities of history, the Basques have tax-raising powers that nowhere else in Spain does, with the exception of Navarre. Rajoy wouldn't agree to such an arrangement, just as Cameron wouldn't. The roads to independence referenda were thus paved in a similar fashion - with the gold of prospective tax revenues.
Rajoy will continue to do all that he can to prevent a Catalonian independence vote, but though he will cite the law and the Constitution, he has to be aware of a dynamic which Cameron is only now appreciating. Centralised government - and Rajoy is a centraliser both by act and by instinct - is increasingly being rejected and not just in the UK or in Spain. Catalonia will not get its independence, but, and like Scotland, it has to be given greater control of its own affairs. And that, ultimately, is what both Mas and Salmond have wanted.
Friday, December 13, 2013
9/11 In A Catalonian Style
9/11 is about to take on a new relevance. The Spanish love of reducing dates to numbers and/or letters will mean that 9 November is suitably abbreviated. It may be 9-N but 9/11 might, for its potentially seismic consequences, be more appropriate. The president of Catalonia, Artur Mas, has announced that on 9 November next year, there will be a referendum on independence. There will be two questions posed. Do you want Catalonia to become a state? Do you want this state to be independent? Yes or no?
Mas, whose party is the CiU, has been supported in the referendum call by a rag-bag of other parties which represent varying shades of the left and Catalonian nationalism. One of these, the ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia), became a significant force in Catalonia following elections last year. Mas, who thought he was going to enjoy an increased majority for the CiU, misinterpreted a massive demonstration in Barcelona in favour of independence. This wasn't, as things turned out at the polls, necessarily an expression in favour of the CiU leading the march to independence. The CiU lost twelve seats and had to cast around for a partner. It found one in the ERC. In so doing, any possibility that there might have been of Mas, whose party isn't radical, adopting a more softly-softly approach on independence was blown out of the water. The ERC is a fervently pro-independence party. Mas was left with little option but to go full steam ahead on independence, even if there are plenty of commentators who would argue that he has never really been in favour of it and still isn't.
There is by no means total political support for the referendum among Catalonia's numerous political parties. The third strongest party, PSC, the Catalonian branch of the PSOE socialists, is against it. As are the fourth strongest PPC and the sixth strongest C's. Yes, there really are a lot of political parties in Catalonia. Pere Navarro, who is the leader of the PSC, has urged that there be dialogue and negotiations with Madrid and that there is also a dispensing with constantly looking to the past.
But it is this past which forever catches up with politics of a Catalan nature, be the location Mallorca or Catalonia. Navarro has avoided attending a symposium called "Spain against Catalonia: an historical look (1714-2014)". The implication of the symposium's purpose is clear. 1714 marked the start of Catalan repression under King Philip V after the fall of Barcelona in that year which brought to a close the War of the Spanish Succession. Catalonia was never the same again.
Navarro has made a plea for history to be something for historians, but it is a forlorn hope to believe that the past will be consigned to history. 1714 and subsequent repressions make this impossible and so colour the present day and present-day politics.
It has to be remembered, though, how the latest move towards independence came about. It was because Mas failed to secure any change to Catalonia's financing, a change which would have meant it keeping more of the revenues it raised which are then handed over to Madrid. As Mariano Rajoy was not interested in perhaps granting Catalonia a similar status to that of the Basque Country and Navarre (the regions which keep tax revenues but hand over instead what is almost like a management fee to national government), Mas opted to play the independence card. And this has brought us therefore to the 9/11 announcement.
There is of course one major problem with the referendum. It wouldn't be legal, and Spain's Justice Minister has said that it will not be held. But what if it were to be or were to be going to be? What would happen? Rajoy has made some dark mutterings about doing anything to prevent the referendum occurring. Anything?
If Mas had hoped that pressing for independence would extract some changes from Madrid, he has thus far been disappointed. And now that the date has been set, even were Madrid to offer discussions on financing (with a genuine aim to changing it), it is hard to see how the date could be un-set. Mas is in too deep.
The timing of the referendum may well have in mind the independence referendum in Scotland shortly before. If there were a rejection of independence by the Scots, this might influence how the Catalonia referendum would go (polls tend to suggest there is a pretty even split between those for or against independence). Inevitably, there will be, as there already have been, comparisons between the Catalonian and Scottish votes, but there is one very big difference. One is sanctioned, the other isn't. If Catalonia were to vote in favour of independence, assuming it is able to, then things could get rather difficult.
Mas, whose party is the CiU, has been supported in the referendum call by a rag-bag of other parties which represent varying shades of the left and Catalonian nationalism. One of these, the ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia), became a significant force in Catalonia following elections last year. Mas, who thought he was going to enjoy an increased majority for the CiU, misinterpreted a massive demonstration in Barcelona in favour of independence. This wasn't, as things turned out at the polls, necessarily an expression in favour of the CiU leading the march to independence. The CiU lost twelve seats and had to cast around for a partner. It found one in the ERC. In so doing, any possibility that there might have been of Mas, whose party isn't radical, adopting a more softly-softly approach on independence was blown out of the water. The ERC is a fervently pro-independence party. Mas was left with little option but to go full steam ahead on independence, even if there are plenty of commentators who would argue that he has never really been in favour of it and still isn't.
There is by no means total political support for the referendum among Catalonia's numerous political parties. The third strongest party, PSC, the Catalonian branch of the PSOE socialists, is against it. As are the fourth strongest PPC and the sixth strongest C's. Yes, there really are a lot of political parties in Catalonia. Pere Navarro, who is the leader of the PSC, has urged that there be dialogue and negotiations with Madrid and that there is also a dispensing with constantly looking to the past.
But it is this past which forever catches up with politics of a Catalan nature, be the location Mallorca or Catalonia. Navarro has avoided attending a symposium called "Spain against Catalonia: an historical look (1714-2014)". The implication of the symposium's purpose is clear. 1714 marked the start of Catalan repression under King Philip V after the fall of Barcelona in that year which brought to a close the War of the Spanish Succession. Catalonia was never the same again.
Navarro has made a plea for history to be something for historians, but it is a forlorn hope to believe that the past will be consigned to history. 1714 and subsequent repressions make this impossible and so colour the present day and present-day politics.
It has to be remembered, though, how the latest move towards independence came about. It was because Mas failed to secure any change to Catalonia's financing, a change which would have meant it keeping more of the revenues it raised which are then handed over to Madrid. As Mariano Rajoy was not interested in perhaps granting Catalonia a similar status to that of the Basque Country and Navarre (the regions which keep tax revenues but hand over instead what is almost like a management fee to national government), Mas opted to play the independence card. And this has brought us therefore to the 9/11 announcement.
There is of course one major problem with the referendum. It wouldn't be legal, and Spain's Justice Minister has said that it will not be held. But what if it were to be or were to be going to be? What would happen? Rajoy has made some dark mutterings about doing anything to prevent the referendum occurring. Anything?
If Mas had hoped that pressing for independence would extract some changes from Madrid, he has thus far been disappointed. And now that the date has been set, even were Madrid to offer discussions on financing (with a genuine aim to changing it), it is hard to see how the date could be un-set. Mas is in too deep.
The timing of the referendum may well have in mind the independence referendum in Scotland shortly before. If there were a rejection of independence by the Scots, this might influence how the Catalonia referendum would go (polls tend to suggest there is a pretty even split between those for or against independence). Inevitably, there will be, as there already have been, comparisons between the Catalonian and Scottish votes, but there is one very big difference. One is sanctioned, the other isn't. If Catalonia were to vote in favour of independence, assuming it is able to, then things could get rather difficult.
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
Tip Top Diplo Cat: Catalonian independence
"Diplo Cat, the most separational Diplo Cat, whose independentist close friends get to goad on D.C., providing it's without Hispanicity. Diplo Cat, the independentist leader of the gang, he's the boss, he's the dip, he has the presidentship, he's the most tip top Diplo Cat!"
Diplo Cat, who bears a striking resemblance to Artur Mas, the president of Catalonia, has gathered the members of his gang to discuss their most audacious scheme yet. Independence. Benny the Ball is to be placed in charge of fundraising - from local government administrations across Catalonia. Choo-Choo, when not falling for a passing supermodel or having allegations made about him as to Swiss bank accounts, is to co-ordinate efforts in Catalonia's 30-plus commercial missions and five political delegations across the world. Brain is to be the mastermind behind the network of amateur volunteers who will take the Catalonian message of independence to a wider world. The scheme seems a good one, but Diplo Cat knows that Officer Dibble, who may on the face of it appear to be ineffectual and to have a face not dissimilar to the prime minister of Spain, is on his case. Will Diplo Cat and his gang get their way, or will, as usual, Benny's naïveté, Choo-Choo's insatiable appetite for a life of luxury and Brain's outright stupidity see them all return to the alleys of Barcelona to lick their wounds and contemplate how they might otherwise tackle Catalonia's enormous fiscal deficit?
"Top Cat" was my favourite cartoon. Much as I always of course wanted T.C. to get one over on Officer Dibble, I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for the hapless cop. There is a part of me which feels sorry for my Diplo Cat real-life Dibble. Mariano Rajoy carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. If there is a more miserable-looking national leader anywhere, I would be surprised. There he is, trying and failing to get to terms with Spain's economy, and what else is he faced with? Catalonia's Top Cat and his drive towards independence. Diplocat is the name that has been given to the network which the Catalonians have devised to get the point across about the vision for independence that T.C. (Artur Mas) and his fellows have.
The Diplocat effort draws, you won't be surprised, on new media. As an example of its reach, it has 713 people who like its CatalansUK Facebook page. There is also a website dedicated to the Diplocat effort in the UK. Catalansuk.com. Conveniently, it is in English. (A note to those in Mallorca who reject trilingual education: when it comes to communicating with the great wide world, it does help to use a language spoken by rather more than the nine million or so Catalan speakers.) The stat for this number of speakers is just one thing you will find in a clearly set-out explanation as to why Catalonia wants to hold a referendum which might lead to it becoming an independent state. It is, naturally enough, somewhat biased, but you probably won't find a better explanation.
Diplocat is a quite extraordinary phenomenon. It is extraordinary that Catalonia has, and therefore funds, quite so many missions and delegations across the world as it is. For a region of Spain, it has been organising itself as a quasi-separate entity for some time. The use of the internet to carry the message of independence certainly gives this message far greater potency than might otherwise have been the case, but will Diplocat succeed in being anything other than a scheme destined to fail from the outset, one that would see my Diplo Cat and his friends sent scurrying for cover and rethinking their strategy?
Mas made a miscalculation when he mistook a million more people protesting on the streets of Barcelona as the green light for an election which was a sort of pre-referendum referendum. He came unstuck and lost some parliamentary ground. The drive towards independence, in its current guise, came as a result of a failure to renegotiate the fiscal pact between Catalonia and Madrid. As ever, things come down to money. And for the Catalonian electorate, they came down to the economy and jobs. They didn't necessarily come down to Mas's wish for independence.
Nevertheless, the CatalansUK document ends by referring to polls which suggest that there would be a vote in favour of independence. Maybe this would be borne out by a referendum. Or maybe it wouldn't be. One way or the other, we are going to find out in the not too distant future whether Mas will remain the most tip top Diplo Cat.
* http://www.catalansuk.com/news/42/diplocat-catalan-diplomacy-abroad
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Diplo Cat, who bears a striking resemblance to Artur Mas, the president of Catalonia, has gathered the members of his gang to discuss their most audacious scheme yet. Independence. Benny the Ball is to be placed in charge of fundraising - from local government administrations across Catalonia. Choo-Choo, when not falling for a passing supermodel or having allegations made about him as to Swiss bank accounts, is to co-ordinate efforts in Catalonia's 30-plus commercial missions and five political delegations across the world. Brain is to be the mastermind behind the network of amateur volunteers who will take the Catalonian message of independence to a wider world. The scheme seems a good one, but Diplo Cat knows that Officer Dibble, who may on the face of it appear to be ineffectual and to have a face not dissimilar to the prime minister of Spain, is on his case. Will Diplo Cat and his gang get their way, or will, as usual, Benny's naïveté, Choo-Choo's insatiable appetite for a life of luxury and Brain's outright stupidity see them all return to the alleys of Barcelona to lick their wounds and contemplate how they might otherwise tackle Catalonia's enormous fiscal deficit?
"Top Cat" was my favourite cartoon. Much as I always of course wanted T.C. to get one over on Officer Dibble, I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for the hapless cop. There is a part of me which feels sorry for my Diplo Cat real-life Dibble. Mariano Rajoy carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. If there is a more miserable-looking national leader anywhere, I would be surprised. There he is, trying and failing to get to terms with Spain's economy, and what else is he faced with? Catalonia's Top Cat and his drive towards independence. Diplocat is the name that has been given to the network which the Catalonians have devised to get the point across about the vision for independence that T.C. (Artur Mas) and his fellows have.
The Diplocat effort draws, you won't be surprised, on new media. As an example of its reach, it has 713 people who like its CatalansUK Facebook page. There is also a website dedicated to the Diplocat effort in the UK. Catalansuk.com. Conveniently, it is in English. (A note to those in Mallorca who reject trilingual education: when it comes to communicating with the great wide world, it does help to use a language spoken by rather more than the nine million or so Catalan speakers.) The stat for this number of speakers is just one thing you will find in a clearly set-out explanation as to why Catalonia wants to hold a referendum which might lead to it becoming an independent state. It is, naturally enough, somewhat biased, but you probably won't find a better explanation.
Diplocat is a quite extraordinary phenomenon. It is extraordinary that Catalonia has, and therefore funds, quite so many missions and delegations across the world as it is. For a region of Spain, it has been organising itself as a quasi-separate entity for some time. The use of the internet to carry the message of independence certainly gives this message far greater potency than might otherwise have been the case, but will Diplocat succeed in being anything other than a scheme destined to fail from the outset, one that would see my Diplo Cat and his friends sent scurrying for cover and rethinking their strategy?
Mas made a miscalculation when he mistook a million more people protesting on the streets of Barcelona as the green light for an election which was a sort of pre-referendum referendum. He came unstuck and lost some parliamentary ground. The drive towards independence, in its current guise, came as a result of a failure to renegotiate the fiscal pact between Catalonia and Madrid. As ever, things come down to money. And for the Catalonian electorate, they came down to the economy and jobs. They didn't necessarily come down to Mas's wish for independence.
Nevertheless, the CatalansUK document ends by referring to polls which suggest that there would be a vote in favour of independence. Maybe this would be borne out by a referendum. Or maybe it wouldn't be. One way or the other, we are going to find out in the not too distant future whether Mas will remain the most tip top Diplo Cat.
* http://www.catalansuk.com/news/42/diplocat-catalan-diplomacy-abroad
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Another Fine Mas: After the election
You will recall that photo of President Obama, Hillary Clinton and various other voyeurs in the White House "situation room" watching the last moments of Osama bin Laden. It wasn't quite the same, in that no one actually got topped, but there was a similar gathering of Balearics politico voyeurs to watch the last moments of Artur Mas's political suicide attempt in Catalonia at the weekend. There, in their midst, was Jolly Joe Bauzà in a PP "situation room". Mission accomplished, they would have thought.
Would they have been right to have thought this? A combination of media slur and central government PP insinuations had undermined Mas. Which is what they would have hoped, though whether the accusations about Mas, kickbacks and Swiss bank accounts really had anything to do with the Catalonia election result is very debatable.
Bauzà rejoiced in good Thatcher-recapture-of-South-Georgia style. The Catalonian people have rejected independence, he rejoiced, failing entirely to appreciate that the Catalonian people hadn't rejected independence. What they had done was to suggest that they might quite like independence at some future date but that they didn't necessarily want Artur leading the charge.
No one foresaw what happened at the polling stations on Sunday. It had been forecast Mas's CiU wouldn't get an absolute majority but it had not been forecast that the CiU would lose seats. Or in quite the number that it did. Twelve fewer than it had before the election, Artur and the CiU are in a real pickle.
Mas has said that he will not resign but he should resign. He made a colossal error of judgement. He took the huge pro-independence rally in Barcelona in September as the indication that he could call an election and get a ringing endorsement from all this pro-independence sentiment that would enable him to set the independence ball rolling. His error was in believing that this pro-independence sentiment wanted him to be the ball roller.
What was being overlooked in the run-up to the Catalonia election was the fact that it was an election, not a vote on independence. Granted, independence and a mandate to press for it were the reasons for calling the election, but elections are rarely only concerned with one issue. Artur knew full well that his austerity measures, ones which, in conditions of normal political harmony, would have Mariano Rajoy voicing support for the Catalonians, were not playing terribly well with the Catalan citizenship. The independence gambit was, therefore, his way of seeking to regain popular support. Or so he must have thought. This was his error, however. He, too, forgot that elections are about more than one issue. Or that elections are often about one other issue - it's the economy, stupid. The CiU took an unexpected beating at the polls which should in fact have been expected. Mas committed suicide because he overlooked the small matters of the economy and his austerity measures.
Now he finds himself having to form a coalition with very unlikely bedfellows. There are two main options - the ERC (the Catalan Republican Left) or the PSC (the Catalonian version of the PSOE socialists). The ERC are fervent independentists. The PSC aren't. Like PSOE nationally, they don't approve of separatism. For the right-leaning, conservative Catholic CiU neither option is particularly attractive. Where the economy is concerned, the PSC would probably make greater sense as a coalition partner, but if this is the option Mas were to follow, the independence issue would be dead and buried (for now), thus provoking the obvious question as to why Mas ever bothered raising it.
But the independence issue will not go away. Bauzà is completely wrong in his analysis because not only have the ERC gained significantly, a party that had never previously had parliamentary representation, the anti-capitalist CUP, now has three seats. Mas may have been right about the sentiment for independence, but he most certainly hadn't bargained on the electorate actually voting for parties for whom independence is pretty much their only reason for being.
The belief is that Mas will press ahead towards a referendum with the ERC by his side. If anything, the election will cause a greater entrenching of views. There was just a possibility that Rajoy might have responded by revisiting the Catalonian request for tax-raising powers (the rejection of which kicked off the momentum towards independence), but one feels that this is now impossible. While pro-Spanish unity politicians like the Balearics president might think that mission was accomplished on Sunday, he is very wrong. It was a botched job and one that has made the situation potentially more volatile than it was.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Would they have been right to have thought this? A combination of media slur and central government PP insinuations had undermined Mas. Which is what they would have hoped, though whether the accusations about Mas, kickbacks and Swiss bank accounts really had anything to do with the Catalonia election result is very debatable.
Bauzà rejoiced in good Thatcher-recapture-of-South-Georgia style. The Catalonian people have rejected independence, he rejoiced, failing entirely to appreciate that the Catalonian people hadn't rejected independence. What they had done was to suggest that they might quite like independence at some future date but that they didn't necessarily want Artur leading the charge.
No one foresaw what happened at the polling stations on Sunday. It had been forecast Mas's CiU wouldn't get an absolute majority but it had not been forecast that the CiU would lose seats. Or in quite the number that it did. Twelve fewer than it had before the election, Artur and the CiU are in a real pickle.
Mas has said that he will not resign but he should resign. He made a colossal error of judgement. He took the huge pro-independence rally in Barcelona in September as the indication that he could call an election and get a ringing endorsement from all this pro-independence sentiment that would enable him to set the independence ball rolling. His error was in believing that this pro-independence sentiment wanted him to be the ball roller.
What was being overlooked in the run-up to the Catalonia election was the fact that it was an election, not a vote on independence. Granted, independence and a mandate to press for it were the reasons for calling the election, but elections are rarely only concerned with one issue. Artur knew full well that his austerity measures, ones which, in conditions of normal political harmony, would have Mariano Rajoy voicing support for the Catalonians, were not playing terribly well with the Catalan citizenship. The independence gambit was, therefore, his way of seeking to regain popular support. Or so he must have thought. This was his error, however. He, too, forgot that elections are about more than one issue. Or that elections are often about one other issue - it's the economy, stupid. The CiU took an unexpected beating at the polls which should in fact have been expected. Mas committed suicide because he overlooked the small matters of the economy and his austerity measures.
Now he finds himself having to form a coalition with very unlikely bedfellows. There are two main options - the ERC (the Catalan Republican Left) or the PSC (the Catalonian version of the PSOE socialists). The ERC are fervent independentists. The PSC aren't. Like PSOE nationally, they don't approve of separatism. For the right-leaning, conservative Catholic CiU neither option is particularly attractive. Where the economy is concerned, the PSC would probably make greater sense as a coalition partner, but if this is the option Mas were to follow, the independence issue would be dead and buried (for now), thus provoking the obvious question as to why Mas ever bothered raising it.
But the independence issue will not go away. Bauzà is completely wrong in his analysis because not only have the ERC gained significantly, a party that had never previously had parliamentary representation, the anti-capitalist CUP, now has three seats. Mas may have been right about the sentiment for independence, but he most certainly hadn't bargained on the electorate actually voting for parties for whom independence is pretty much their only reason for being.
The belief is that Mas will press ahead towards a referendum with the ERC by his side. If anything, the election will cause a greater entrenching of views. There was just a possibility that Rajoy might have responded by revisiting the Catalonian request for tax-raising powers (the rejection of which kicked off the momentum towards independence), but one feels that this is now impossible. While pro-Spanish unity politicians like the Balearics president might think that mission was accomplished on Sunday, he is very wrong. It was a botched job and one that has made the situation potentially more volatile than it was.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Catalonia's Day Of Destiny?
The question mark in this article's title is important. On Sunday there will be an election in Catalonia. To believe some, you would think that the result would all but seal Catalonia's destiny. It will do nothing of the sort.
Artur Mas, the Catalonian president, has called the election for two reasons: one, he failed to secure an agreement on tax-raising powers with central government; two, because he is seeking a mandate which might lead to a referendum on Catalonian independence. The election may be the first step in securing independence, but this is all it is.
Mas's failure to get Prime Minister Rajoy to allow Catalonia to raise income and other taxes is what precipitated the election. Or so it is said. Mas would have known that Rajoy would not consent to the demand. Official rejection was needed to set in motion the independence gambit, the first stage of which is a new election. Mas, hopeful of shoring up popularity, which had been dwindling because of his own austerity measures, has used the duller fiscal and economic and so therefore less radical argument to appeal to the altogether more radical and romantic tendency in Catalonia, that of independence.
The justification for Catalonia seeking tax-raising powers are two-fold: a) its contribution in funding fiscal equalisation (richer regions fund poorer ones) is, along with Madrid's, the highest in absolute terms; b) unlike the Basque Country and Navarre, it doesn't have such powers, so misses out on greater revenue, albeit that it would still, as with these two regions, have to transfer a proportion of tax revenue to central government.
History, inevitably, plays a huge part in the Catalonian argument. The reasons for the Basque Country and Navarre enjoying privileges that no other region of Spain does can be traced back to the early eighteenth century and to the War of the Spanish Succession. Catalonia lost privileges it once had because it took the wrong side.
Economics and finance are, though, only a part of the story. However much it is disputed that Catalonia has an historic claim to be a separate nation, there is a belief that it does have such a claim. This is the romantic argument, one stripped of the pragmatism of the purely economic. When a million or so people take to the streets to demand independence, they do so with the notion of long-denied nationhood in mind, not tax returns.
But none of this is actually to be decided on Sunday. Mas's CiU party may not get the absolute majority it wants (polls suggest that it won't). If it fails to or fails to increase the number of seats it has in the Catalonian parliament, Mas would not benefit from the "exceptional majority" he has said is required to move towards what would be an illegal referendum that would place Catalonia on a collision course with central government. The Republican Left party looks likely to make gains and so could well support Mas. In combination with the CiU, the number of seats may well exceed the 68 for an outright majority, but the ERC Republicans are a very different beast to the Catholic conservative CiU.
All the talk of independence, all the talk of how a separate Catalonia may or may not be able to align itself with the European Union, all the talk of the eventual creation of a Greater Catalonia that would embrace the Balearics (a ridiculous notion as there is no desire for such a thing in the Balearics except among a very small minority), all the wilder talk of possible military intervention have been premature. Even were Mas to get an absolute majority, getting to a referendum, let alone independence, would be some way down the track. And chances are that the independence gambit has, all along, been one to make Rajoy change his mind on tax-raising.
Premature or not, there are forces which have been seeking to discredit Mas. Central government is one, and the press, in the form of "El Mundo", another; the Catalonian public prosecutor is to open proceedings for libel against the newspaper for alleging that a police report exists which suggests Mas has taken kickbacks. It is the resort to attempt to undermine Mas that highlights why it is important that Catalonia does not secede. Catalonia is, in a sense, the conscience of Spain. It has received its knocks and its injustices, perceived or real, but it has retained an independence of voice as well as a tradition of liberalism. Catalonia's past should be part of Spain's present and future, as Spain needs Catalonia as much for its traditions of liberty as it does for its money. Don't go, Catalonia.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Artur Mas, the Catalonian president, has called the election for two reasons: one, he failed to secure an agreement on tax-raising powers with central government; two, because he is seeking a mandate which might lead to a referendum on Catalonian independence. The election may be the first step in securing independence, but this is all it is.
Mas's failure to get Prime Minister Rajoy to allow Catalonia to raise income and other taxes is what precipitated the election. Or so it is said. Mas would have known that Rajoy would not consent to the demand. Official rejection was needed to set in motion the independence gambit, the first stage of which is a new election. Mas, hopeful of shoring up popularity, which had been dwindling because of his own austerity measures, has used the duller fiscal and economic and so therefore less radical argument to appeal to the altogether more radical and romantic tendency in Catalonia, that of independence.
The justification for Catalonia seeking tax-raising powers are two-fold: a) its contribution in funding fiscal equalisation (richer regions fund poorer ones) is, along with Madrid's, the highest in absolute terms; b) unlike the Basque Country and Navarre, it doesn't have such powers, so misses out on greater revenue, albeit that it would still, as with these two regions, have to transfer a proportion of tax revenue to central government.
History, inevitably, plays a huge part in the Catalonian argument. The reasons for the Basque Country and Navarre enjoying privileges that no other region of Spain does can be traced back to the early eighteenth century and to the War of the Spanish Succession. Catalonia lost privileges it once had because it took the wrong side.
Economics and finance are, though, only a part of the story. However much it is disputed that Catalonia has an historic claim to be a separate nation, there is a belief that it does have such a claim. This is the romantic argument, one stripped of the pragmatism of the purely economic. When a million or so people take to the streets to demand independence, they do so with the notion of long-denied nationhood in mind, not tax returns.
But none of this is actually to be decided on Sunday. Mas's CiU party may not get the absolute majority it wants (polls suggest that it won't). If it fails to or fails to increase the number of seats it has in the Catalonian parliament, Mas would not benefit from the "exceptional majority" he has said is required to move towards what would be an illegal referendum that would place Catalonia on a collision course with central government. The Republican Left party looks likely to make gains and so could well support Mas. In combination with the CiU, the number of seats may well exceed the 68 for an outright majority, but the ERC Republicans are a very different beast to the Catholic conservative CiU.
All the talk of independence, all the talk of how a separate Catalonia may or may not be able to align itself with the European Union, all the talk of the eventual creation of a Greater Catalonia that would embrace the Balearics (a ridiculous notion as there is no desire for such a thing in the Balearics except among a very small minority), all the wilder talk of possible military intervention have been premature. Even were Mas to get an absolute majority, getting to a referendum, let alone independence, would be some way down the track. And chances are that the independence gambit has, all along, been one to make Rajoy change his mind on tax-raising.
Premature or not, there are forces which have been seeking to discredit Mas. Central government is one, and the press, in the form of "El Mundo", another; the Catalonian public prosecutor is to open proceedings for libel against the newspaper for alleging that a police report exists which suggests Mas has taken kickbacks. It is the resort to attempt to undermine Mas that highlights why it is important that Catalonia does not secede. Catalonia is, in a sense, the conscience of Spain. It has received its knocks and its injustices, perceived or real, but it has retained an independence of voice as well as a tradition of liberalism. Catalonia's past should be part of Spain's present and future, as Spain needs Catalonia as much for its traditions of liberty as it does for its money. Don't go, Catalonia.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Smelling Rats: Deer's balls and Artur Mas
There's a smell around. It's a not unfamiliar one. It's the smells of rats. I smell rats. At least two of them. One rat is a rat that isn't a deer, the smell of the other rat has wafted across from Catalonia.
I don't know what to make of the Delgado photos. In that, I don't know why they have appeared when they have, i.e. now. Their appearance may simply be because they were delivered to the press out of the blue. Possibly. But the press tend to have these things hanging around, waiting for an opportune moment. As I suggested yesterday, coming so soon after the Bosch-Company diving affair, there is a hint of more than mere coincidence. Not that I don't take great delight in the Partido Popular thrashing around in embarrassment - I do - but when photos of the type that embarrass Delgado and the PP are as old as they are (at least eighteen months), it is very reasonable to ask why now and to wonder if they have indeed just turned up out of the blue.
The photos have gone international. The "Daily Mail" has featured them, reiterating the bad image line that the local press has hammered home and provoking not untypical, British readership Spain-is barbaric-and-cruel-to-animals comments. The "it-sets-back-animal-rights" argument that is being trotted out locally is one of righteous indignation without any pause to raise the question of the timing. It is an argument that is also wrong. It sets animal rights forward. A photo of a stupid politician with a deer's balls on his head should work far greater wonders in shifting Spanish opinion than any demo outside a bullfight.
Delgado should be congratulated for making an idiot of himself and for promoting animal rights. He should also be congratulated, and of course all the righteousness entirely misses this point, for providing one of the most hilarious examples of politician berkdom that one is ever likely to encounter, even in a country blessed with as many capable of such berkdom as Spain has. The image with the balls on his head is one destined no doubt for "Have I Got News For You" or a similar show; it is a comedian and satirist's dream. It might be one that means Spain (or more accurately, Mallorca) being poked fun at, but Delgado is the one who should be the butt of the jokes.
While I smell a rat at the timing of the release of the photos, the smell is nothing like as strong as that coming from Catalonia. A few days ahead of the election which may give Artur Mas the mandate to possibly stage a referendum on Catalonian independence, what happens? Out of the blue comes what is said to be a police report in which Mas is implicated for taking kickbacks for public works contracts. The report is odd, as neither the prosecutor nor the judge in charge of the case into contractual wrongdoings in Catalonia appears to be aware of it. The public's attention to the existence of this report came in the right-wing "El Mundo", no great fan of Mas's independence ambitions therefore. Mas is going to sue.
Whatever the truth might be of what "El Mundo" has to say, and former president Jordi Pujol is also named by the paper and is also taking legal action, the timing has to be queried. The suspicion is of an attempt, and a possibly crude one at that, to blacken Mas's name just prior to the election.
The press is all about getting scoops. Of course it is. But I have commented before on the degree to which the media is influenced by political parties in Spain. This sort of influence is exerted elsewhere - as we know - but in Spain, it is the case that you have to consider much of what appears in the media in terms of motive. And whose motive, more to the point.
The two stories - Delgado and the deer, Mas and the alleged kickbacks - are very different. The first should be treated for what it is, the story of a politician who has provided a moment of high but warped comedy; the second, if the story proves to be without foundation (and there may be some foundation), is far more serious. Spain is a country that might fall apart because of Mas and Catalonia. It still has an immature and undeveloped sense of real democracy, one that would be enhanced by Catalonia staying where it is, i.e. inside Spain, but being a constant thorn in the state flesh to ensure that this democracy is one day truly demonstrated. But within this immaturity there is a fourth estate which has yet to demonstrate that it might genuinely one day claim to be independent. For now, too many rats can be smelt, and too often.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
I don't know what to make of the Delgado photos. In that, I don't know why they have appeared when they have, i.e. now. Their appearance may simply be because they were delivered to the press out of the blue. Possibly. But the press tend to have these things hanging around, waiting for an opportune moment. As I suggested yesterday, coming so soon after the Bosch-Company diving affair, there is a hint of more than mere coincidence. Not that I don't take great delight in the Partido Popular thrashing around in embarrassment - I do - but when photos of the type that embarrass Delgado and the PP are as old as they are (at least eighteen months), it is very reasonable to ask why now and to wonder if they have indeed just turned up out of the blue.
The photos have gone international. The "Daily Mail" has featured them, reiterating the bad image line that the local press has hammered home and provoking not untypical, British readership Spain-is barbaric-and-cruel-to-animals comments. The "it-sets-back-animal-rights" argument that is being trotted out locally is one of righteous indignation without any pause to raise the question of the timing. It is an argument that is also wrong. It sets animal rights forward. A photo of a stupid politician with a deer's balls on his head should work far greater wonders in shifting Spanish opinion than any demo outside a bullfight.
Delgado should be congratulated for making an idiot of himself and for promoting animal rights. He should also be congratulated, and of course all the righteousness entirely misses this point, for providing one of the most hilarious examples of politician berkdom that one is ever likely to encounter, even in a country blessed with as many capable of such berkdom as Spain has. The image with the balls on his head is one destined no doubt for "Have I Got News For You" or a similar show; it is a comedian and satirist's dream. It might be one that means Spain (or more accurately, Mallorca) being poked fun at, but Delgado is the one who should be the butt of the jokes.
While I smell a rat at the timing of the release of the photos, the smell is nothing like as strong as that coming from Catalonia. A few days ahead of the election which may give Artur Mas the mandate to possibly stage a referendum on Catalonian independence, what happens? Out of the blue comes what is said to be a police report in which Mas is implicated for taking kickbacks for public works contracts. The report is odd, as neither the prosecutor nor the judge in charge of the case into contractual wrongdoings in Catalonia appears to be aware of it. The public's attention to the existence of this report came in the right-wing "El Mundo", no great fan of Mas's independence ambitions therefore. Mas is going to sue.
Whatever the truth might be of what "El Mundo" has to say, and former president Jordi Pujol is also named by the paper and is also taking legal action, the timing has to be queried. The suspicion is of an attempt, and a possibly crude one at that, to blacken Mas's name just prior to the election.
The press is all about getting scoops. Of course it is. But I have commented before on the degree to which the media is influenced by political parties in Spain. This sort of influence is exerted elsewhere - as we know - but in Spain, it is the case that you have to consider much of what appears in the media in terms of motive. And whose motive, more to the point.
The two stories - Delgado and the deer, Mas and the alleged kickbacks - are very different. The first should be treated for what it is, the story of a politician who has provided a moment of high but warped comedy; the second, if the story proves to be without foundation (and there may be some foundation), is far more serious. Spain is a country that might fall apart because of Mas and Catalonia. It still has an immature and undeveloped sense of real democracy, one that would be enhanced by Catalonia staying where it is, i.e. inside Spain, but being a constant thorn in the state flesh to ensure that this democracy is one day truly demonstrated. But within this immaturity there is a fourth estate which has yet to demonstrate that it might genuinely one day claim to be independent. For now, too many rats can be smelt, and too often.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
A Very Spanish Coup
Thirty years ago next Saturday something didn't happen. Partly because it didn't happen, 27 October 1982 is not afforded great prominence in recent history. There is no 27-O that has slipped into the general vocabulary in the way that both 23-F and 24-F have. What a difference nineteen months made. On 27 October 1982 nothing happened. It was a very Spanish coup as it didn't take place.
Despite 23-F and 24-F having acquired great status as the two days in February 1981 when a coup was attempted and then quelled, they too are indicative of a very Spanish coup. Manuel from "Fawlty Towers" wandered into the parliament building waving a pistol, some shots were fired, things looked a bit dicey for a time, then the King went on telly, and everyone forgot about the coup. It only seemed to confirm a Spanish propensity to cock things up. They can't even do coups properly. They should have known better anyway. Four years before the 1981 attempt, the staff from Grace Brothers, holidaying on the Costa Plonka, had heralded how revolution would be bound to fail.
Of course, revolution hadn't failed in the past. The Spanish were actually pretty good at the art, but that was in the day before Spain acquired some semblance of modernity and had been overrun by mercenary tourists and a film crew for "Are You Being Served? The Movie". 23-F was daft enough. 27-O was dafter still. Both coups were from a bygone era when coups were coups and people really did get shot and governments were overthrown.
What made 27-O especially daft was the fact that the army colonels who had plotted the coup attempt had done so because they didn't want any nasty socialists taking over Spain. They had neglected to notice, however, that Felipe González, destined to be the first socialist prime minister in the post-Franco era, was cut from a somewhat different cloth to the communists who had come to dominate the Republic prior to Franco's revolution. They hadn't neglected the fact that González's PSOE was destined to win the general election on 28 October 1982 - it was this victory that they wanted to avoid - but they had nevertheless neglected the enthusiasm for PSOE among the Spanish people and the expectation for change. They were of the past, out of step, still holding to an outmoded notion of the military as the supreme force in the land.
When the coup was uncovered - some three weeks before it was due to take place - the plotters were arrested. They were dealt with in a kindly fashion. PSOE had no wish to antagonise the army by pressing for swingeing reprisals. Another way of looking at the moderate way in which the colonels were treated is that they were considered fools, deserving of some sympathy. The coup attempt wasn't swept under the carpet so much as it wasn't granted a huge amount of attention. 27-O was swiftly forgotten both because it didn't actually happen and because it didn't merit being remembered.
As a consequence, this coming Saturday is unlikely to arouse much if anything by way of commemoration, except in one regard, that of discussion of the possibility, however remote, of another very Spanish coup or some act involving the military.
In theory, the Constitution drawn up after Franco stripped the military of much of its power. But theory and practice are not always the same thing. The theory hasn't prevented there being hints bordering on threats that the military would intervene because of the Catalonia question. And one might add mutterings from the armed forces that have been critical of the political class as a whole and supportive of protests against austerity measures.
Since the Catalonian president Artur Mas announced his intention to call an election on 25 November which, if he wins, would be seen as giving him a popular mandate to seek independence for Catalonia, the rhetoric has been cranked up. Mas has been warned that he risks being "inhabilitated". This is not an English word, but in being lifted from the Spanish, it describes rather well what his fate would be. A referendum on secession would be illegal, and the Spanish state would find a way to remove him. Such a move would be like a different type of very Spanish coup; the national government ousting a regional government president, and a Catalonian one, to boot. There should be concern at the ramifications of such a move.
If 27-O is likely to pass without any fanfare, 25-N will not. Catalonia and Spain are moving into unchartered territory, one in which different agents will seek to plant their stakes - those of political parties most obviously. But what of other agents? As the rhetoric widens to embrace Mallorca, the Esquerra Republicana having suggested that Mallorcans could opt to be a part of a Greater Catalonia, it might not be, you fear, just the politicians who undertake a battle in this unknown territory.
27-O might be forgotten, but it might be as well if it were better remembered.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Despite 23-F and 24-F having acquired great status as the two days in February 1981 when a coup was attempted and then quelled, they too are indicative of a very Spanish coup. Manuel from "Fawlty Towers" wandered into the parliament building waving a pistol, some shots were fired, things looked a bit dicey for a time, then the King went on telly, and everyone forgot about the coup. It only seemed to confirm a Spanish propensity to cock things up. They can't even do coups properly. They should have known better anyway. Four years before the 1981 attempt, the staff from Grace Brothers, holidaying on the Costa Plonka, had heralded how revolution would be bound to fail.
Of course, revolution hadn't failed in the past. The Spanish were actually pretty good at the art, but that was in the day before Spain acquired some semblance of modernity and had been overrun by mercenary tourists and a film crew for "Are You Being Served? The Movie". 23-F was daft enough. 27-O was dafter still. Both coups were from a bygone era when coups were coups and people really did get shot and governments were overthrown.
What made 27-O especially daft was the fact that the army colonels who had plotted the coup attempt had done so because they didn't want any nasty socialists taking over Spain. They had neglected to notice, however, that Felipe González, destined to be the first socialist prime minister in the post-Franco era, was cut from a somewhat different cloth to the communists who had come to dominate the Republic prior to Franco's revolution. They hadn't neglected the fact that González's PSOE was destined to win the general election on 28 October 1982 - it was this victory that they wanted to avoid - but they had nevertheless neglected the enthusiasm for PSOE among the Spanish people and the expectation for change. They were of the past, out of step, still holding to an outmoded notion of the military as the supreme force in the land.
When the coup was uncovered - some three weeks before it was due to take place - the plotters were arrested. They were dealt with in a kindly fashion. PSOE had no wish to antagonise the army by pressing for swingeing reprisals. Another way of looking at the moderate way in which the colonels were treated is that they were considered fools, deserving of some sympathy. The coup attempt wasn't swept under the carpet so much as it wasn't granted a huge amount of attention. 27-O was swiftly forgotten both because it didn't actually happen and because it didn't merit being remembered.
As a consequence, this coming Saturday is unlikely to arouse much if anything by way of commemoration, except in one regard, that of discussion of the possibility, however remote, of another very Spanish coup or some act involving the military.
In theory, the Constitution drawn up after Franco stripped the military of much of its power. But theory and practice are not always the same thing. The theory hasn't prevented there being hints bordering on threats that the military would intervene because of the Catalonia question. And one might add mutterings from the armed forces that have been critical of the political class as a whole and supportive of protests against austerity measures.
Since the Catalonian president Artur Mas announced his intention to call an election on 25 November which, if he wins, would be seen as giving him a popular mandate to seek independence for Catalonia, the rhetoric has been cranked up. Mas has been warned that he risks being "inhabilitated". This is not an English word, but in being lifted from the Spanish, it describes rather well what his fate would be. A referendum on secession would be illegal, and the Spanish state would find a way to remove him. Such a move would be like a different type of very Spanish coup; the national government ousting a regional government president, and a Catalonian one, to boot. There should be concern at the ramifications of such a move.
If 27-O is likely to pass without any fanfare, 25-N will not. Catalonia and Spain are moving into unchartered territory, one in which different agents will seek to plant their stakes - those of political parties most obviously. But what of other agents? As the rhetoric widens to embrace Mallorca, the Esquerra Republicana having suggested that Mallorcans could opt to be a part of a Greater Catalonia, it might not be, you fear, just the politicians who undertake a battle in this unknown territory.
27-O might be forgotten, but it might be as well if it were better remembered.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, September 24, 2012
The Crazy World Of Arthur Mas
Included in the Nueva Planta decrees issued by King Philip V in the early eighteenth century were those which allowed Navarre and the Basque Country to keep their charters. Both were given special privileges because they had supported Philip during the War of the Spanish Succession. Catalonia lost its charter because it had backed the wrong horse.
These special privileges still exist. Navarre and the Basque Country operate financial pacts with the Spanish state. These mean that they have tax-raising powers, a privilege that is not shared by Catalonia which wants greater powers as well as more of the financial pot and to stop having to pay for other regions to the extent that it has been. The president of Catalonia, Arthur Mas (who we should call Artur), has been told by Mariano Rajoy that he can't have such powers. As a result, Artur is considering not so much taking his bat home but pulling the whole team off the Spanish park.
Mas is saying that Catalonia needs its own structures as a state and that it is now its turn for transition (Spain having had its). The spokesperson for the Catalonian government, Francesc Homs, is saying that a referendum on independence is possible within four years. The King is telling the Catalonians to stop chasing rainbows. Rubalcaba, for the opposition PSOE, is telling Mas to back off. Rajoy is doing his best Charles de Gaulle ("non, "non") and is defending the Constitution. The European Union is getting into a bit of a flap about the whole thing.
When the 600,000, or one and a half million or two million (take your pick from the different sources) took to the streets of Barcelona on Catalonia's National Day (and the Catalonians celebrate a day when they were given a sound kicking by Philip V), Mas would have taken this as a signal to suggest he has a mandate for embarking on an independentist route. He doesn't officially have such a mandate, only one to negotiate a better financial deal for Catalonia, but this isn't stopping him from playing the independent card for his own political advantage (always assuming it is in fact an advantage).
Rajoy and Mas are not unalike. Both have the air of the cold fish about them. Mas has suggested in the past that he is more a technocrat than politician, so his movement towards separatism might appear strange. But technocrats can do their sums. Catalonia may be in debt up to its neck and may be needing a massive bailout from Madrid, but it would be argued that it wouldn't be in so much debt if it hadn't been made to hand over money to pay for mad projects in regions of Spain which don't have a euro to urinate into.
What Mas isn't is a raving loony. He is basically a conservative politician when he's not being a technocrat. There may in fact be method in his madness if it were to result in a redefinition of Spain's regions, one that is more federal. Yet this comes at a time when there are arguments aplenty to get rid of the regions because they have been so financially promiscuous. Mas can't be accused of this when he has been introducing austerity measures in Catalonia that have made him unpopular. The independence thing might, therefore, be purely a political gambit to re-establish this lost popularity.
It is, though, a dangerous game, and the danger goes deeper than just a threat to declare independence. It shouldn't be forgotten that in 2006 the army general José Mena was put under house arrest for suggesting that the military might intervene were Catalonia to be granted greater autonomy. Unlike Mena, an army colonel, Francisco Alamán Castro, appears to have avoided any sanction for stating the case for military intervention in the event of independence. This was in an interview with a far-right publication at the end of last month. Catalonia, separatism, independence conjure up memories and worrying scenarios that make the claim for independence a very different beast to that of Scotland's.
Mas may well call an election in November and hope that he gets a popular mandate for independence. It's not out of the question that he would, though any move towards independence would be blocked by Rajoy raising the defence of the Constitution which doesn't permit a region's independence. Mas argues that this is a clause that reflected the time when it was written, three years after Franco's death. Be this as it may, Rajoy has said he will uphold the Constitution if necessary. The question is how he is prepared to uphold it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
These special privileges still exist. Navarre and the Basque Country operate financial pacts with the Spanish state. These mean that they have tax-raising powers, a privilege that is not shared by Catalonia which wants greater powers as well as more of the financial pot and to stop having to pay for other regions to the extent that it has been. The president of Catalonia, Arthur Mas (who we should call Artur), has been told by Mariano Rajoy that he can't have such powers. As a result, Artur is considering not so much taking his bat home but pulling the whole team off the Spanish park.
Mas is saying that Catalonia needs its own structures as a state and that it is now its turn for transition (Spain having had its). The spokesperson for the Catalonian government, Francesc Homs, is saying that a referendum on independence is possible within four years. The King is telling the Catalonians to stop chasing rainbows. Rubalcaba, for the opposition PSOE, is telling Mas to back off. Rajoy is doing his best Charles de Gaulle ("non, "non") and is defending the Constitution. The European Union is getting into a bit of a flap about the whole thing.
When the 600,000, or one and a half million or two million (take your pick from the different sources) took to the streets of Barcelona on Catalonia's National Day (and the Catalonians celebrate a day when they were given a sound kicking by Philip V), Mas would have taken this as a signal to suggest he has a mandate for embarking on an independentist route. He doesn't officially have such a mandate, only one to negotiate a better financial deal for Catalonia, but this isn't stopping him from playing the independent card for his own political advantage (always assuming it is in fact an advantage).
Rajoy and Mas are not unalike. Both have the air of the cold fish about them. Mas has suggested in the past that he is more a technocrat than politician, so his movement towards separatism might appear strange. But technocrats can do their sums. Catalonia may be in debt up to its neck and may be needing a massive bailout from Madrid, but it would be argued that it wouldn't be in so much debt if it hadn't been made to hand over money to pay for mad projects in regions of Spain which don't have a euro to urinate into.
What Mas isn't is a raving loony. He is basically a conservative politician when he's not being a technocrat. There may in fact be method in his madness if it were to result in a redefinition of Spain's regions, one that is more federal. Yet this comes at a time when there are arguments aplenty to get rid of the regions because they have been so financially promiscuous. Mas can't be accused of this when he has been introducing austerity measures in Catalonia that have made him unpopular. The independence thing might, therefore, be purely a political gambit to re-establish this lost popularity.
It is, though, a dangerous game, and the danger goes deeper than just a threat to declare independence. It shouldn't be forgotten that in 2006 the army general José Mena was put under house arrest for suggesting that the military might intervene were Catalonia to be granted greater autonomy. Unlike Mena, an army colonel, Francisco Alamán Castro, appears to have avoided any sanction for stating the case for military intervention in the event of independence. This was in an interview with a far-right publication at the end of last month. Catalonia, separatism, independence conjure up memories and worrying scenarios that make the claim for independence a very different beast to that of Scotland's.
Mas may well call an election in November and hope that he gets a popular mandate for independence. It's not out of the question that he would, though any move towards independence would be blocked by Rajoy raising the defence of the Constitution which doesn't permit a region's independence. Mas argues that this is a clause that reflected the time when it was written, three years after Franco's death. Be this as it may, Rajoy has said he will uphold the Constitution if necessary. The question is how he is prepared to uphold it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, October 28, 2011
When Joe Met Arthur
Can politicians ever just be friends, or will there always be more to the relationship? What was said between José and Artur when they took themselves off for a spot of lunch at Palma's Bar Bosch? Did they pledge undying fraternal togetherness, and if so, what language did they use?
"When Harry Met Sally" posited the question about being friends. At one stage, disagreement as to the question and differing philosophies, following what Sally had taken as a pass by Harry (at an American diner take on Bar Bosch), led to them not seeing each other for several years.
José and Artur, respectively President Bauzá of the Balearics and President Mas of Catalonia, met in Palma the other day. They are more Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau than Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. The odd couple. They share certain things in common, but they don't quite fit.
There is the Catalan thing. They both speak it, though José would prefer not to call it Catalan and would prefer that they spoke Castilian. There are the politics. Both the Partido Popular and Artur's Convergència i Unió occupy some similar political terrain, but the PP is further to the right than the CiU. And then there is the independence question. It is here that they have very different philosophies. Though the CiU manages to downplay its separationist tendency, Mas is all for Catalan self-government; Bauzá most definitely isn't.
What everyone of course wanted to know was what Mas made of Bauzá's attitude towards Catalan. Everyone wanted to know, which is why he sidestepped the issue, other than to say that Catalan is our "common language". Common to whom exactly?
Bauza's Catalan is one of dialect and his argument is one that is dialectic; he and Mas agree to disagree as, for Bauzá, Castilian is the common language and the dialects of Catalan are specific to the individual Balearic islands, but ne'er should enter the language of Catalanism and independence.
Mind you, they probably didn't discuss the matter in quite such terms, as they bit into an austerity-correct Catalan bread roll at Bar Bosch. Yet they were able to agree that the cultures of the Balearics and the language, or should this be languages, will be jointly promoted through the Ramon Llull Institute, and lent their support to the exhibition of the artist Joan Miró, a native of Catalonia but a resident of Mallorca, as it travels next year to London and Washington.
Far more important was that both Mas and Bauzá had the opportunity to slag off their respective predecessors. None of any of the current mess is our fault; here was some common ground, along with the dirty great holes full of debt and deficit in the ground beneath the Balearic and Catalonian presidents.
There was a chance for a touch of celebration. The Spanish Government and the European Union had just announced that they are going to pump God knows how many millions or billions into the so-called Mediterranean Corridor, a new high-speed rail link to connect Algeciras with France. Not that it is entirely clear quite how beneficial this will be for the Balearics, despite Bauzá having been firmly in favour. He says it will mean a reduction in the cost of imports. Possibly, though he might also want to have a word with maritime operators.
Odd couple they may be, but they are similar in having similar concerns. And odd it may be if a Catalonian government, albeit one that is of a conservative political bent, should offer a model to both Bauzá and his commandants at Partido Popular central office. Catalonia's health service, as broke as that of the Balearics, is undergoing what amounts to a partial privatisation, though Mas rejects a system of "co-payment", one that Bauzá's master, Mariano Rajoy, has been accused of planning to introduce (paying to see a national health doctor, for example).
Of course, one doesn't really know what Rajoy plans because he either doesn't have any plans or, more likely, he's keeping them firmly under wraps before unleashing them on an electorate that will have willingly voted for the slaughter. One doesn't really know the full extent of Bauzá's plans either. He had been asked (pressurised) by central office not to announce the Balearics budget until after the national elections, but he now will - on Monday.
When Joe met Arthur was a pleasant diversion before the pain is delivered. It was friendly enough. Maybe they will remain friends, but they will never agree on Catalanism, and when Rajoy wins, what might this mean for Catalonia? Friendly for now, but disagreement will not be far away.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
"When Harry Met Sally" posited the question about being friends. At one stage, disagreement as to the question and differing philosophies, following what Sally had taken as a pass by Harry (at an American diner take on Bar Bosch), led to them not seeing each other for several years.
José and Artur, respectively President Bauzá of the Balearics and President Mas of Catalonia, met in Palma the other day. They are more Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau than Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. The odd couple. They share certain things in common, but they don't quite fit.
There is the Catalan thing. They both speak it, though José would prefer not to call it Catalan and would prefer that they spoke Castilian. There are the politics. Both the Partido Popular and Artur's Convergència i Unió occupy some similar political terrain, but the PP is further to the right than the CiU. And then there is the independence question. It is here that they have very different philosophies. Though the CiU manages to downplay its separationist tendency, Mas is all for Catalan self-government; Bauzá most definitely isn't.
What everyone of course wanted to know was what Mas made of Bauzá's attitude towards Catalan. Everyone wanted to know, which is why he sidestepped the issue, other than to say that Catalan is our "common language". Common to whom exactly?
Bauza's Catalan is one of dialect and his argument is one that is dialectic; he and Mas agree to disagree as, for Bauzá, Castilian is the common language and the dialects of Catalan are specific to the individual Balearic islands, but ne'er should enter the language of Catalanism and independence.
Mind you, they probably didn't discuss the matter in quite such terms, as they bit into an austerity-correct Catalan bread roll at Bar Bosch. Yet they were able to agree that the cultures of the Balearics and the language, or should this be languages, will be jointly promoted through the Ramon Llull Institute, and lent their support to the exhibition of the artist Joan Miró, a native of Catalonia but a resident of Mallorca, as it travels next year to London and Washington.
Far more important was that both Mas and Bauzá had the opportunity to slag off their respective predecessors. None of any of the current mess is our fault; here was some common ground, along with the dirty great holes full of debt and deficit in the ground beneath the Balearic and Catalonian presidents.
There was a chance for a touch of celebration. The Spanish Government and the European Union had just announced that they are going to pump God knows how many millions or billions into the so-called Mediterranean Corridor, a new high-speed rail link to connect Algeciras with France. Not that it is entirely clear quite how beneficial this will be for the Balearics, despite Bauzá having been firmly in favour. He says it will mean a reduction in the cost of imports. Possibly, though he might also want to have a word with maritime operators.
Odd couple they may be, but they are similar in having similar concerns. And odd it may be if a Catalonian government, albeit one that is of a conservative political bent, should offer a model to both Bauzá and his commandants at Partido Popular central office. Catalonia's health service, as broke as that of the Balearics, is undergoing what amounts to a partial privatisation, though Mas rejects a system of "co-payment", one that Bauzá's master, Mariano Rajoy, has been accused of planning to introduce (paying to see a national health doctor, for example).
Of course, one doesn't really know what Rajoy plans because he either doesn't have any plans or, more likely, he's keeping them firmly under wraps before unleashing them on an electorate that will have willingly voted for the slaughter. One doesn't really know the full extent of Bauzá's plans either. He had been asked (pressurised) by central office not to announce the Balearics budget until after the national elections, but he now will - on Monday.
When Joe met Arthur was a pleasant diversion before the pain is delivered. It was friendly enough. Maybe they will remain friends, but they will never agree on Catalanism, and when Rajoy wins, what might this mean for Catalonia? Friendly for now, but disagreement will not be far away.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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