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Today’s FT quote:
Spain lurched further towards a full-blown constitutional crisis as Catalonia announced a snap election potentially opening the way for the country’s most economically important region to declare independence from Madrid.“The hour has come to exercise our right to self rule,” said Artur Mas, Catalonia’s president. He called the vote, which is likely to be cast as a proxy referendum on Catalan independence, after Mr Rajoy last week rejected his demands for greater fiscal autonomy, triggering a wave of nationalist sentiment in the northern region.
http://www.ft.comHow much political support the secessionists have is unclear but it is a major concern.
If Spain become politically unstable substantial funds from the ESM may be in jeopardy.
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Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Telegraph:
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@mark wrote:
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Telegraph:
Yes I read that and was reluctant to post it. It is quite worrying, but AEP is not one for holding back
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I have no doubt at all that Rajoy would take the military option as a final resort. The officer corps are always spoiling for a fight. Spain will never allow Catalonia to break away.
Ambrose’s article is well put and illustrates just how potentially dangerous separatism is in a modern world, especially to Spain where pride and machismo rule.
I can recommend Paul Preston’s bio of Franco, an excellent read and agree this situation is different today, although Catalonia held out against his forces and suffered greatly. There is still today a great deal of inherited resentment towards the Spanish monarchy. Rightly in my view that catastrophe has never been forgotten and should be uppermost in the minds of the people when they vote.
Suffering at the hands of a modern day Franco will be equally as great.
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@logan wrote:
I have no doubt at all that Rajoy would take the military option as a final resort. The officer corps are always spoiling for a fight. Spain will never allow Catalonia to break away.
Ambrose’s article is well put and illustrates just how potentially dangerous separatism is in a modern world, especially to Spain where pride and machismo rule.
I can recommend Paul Preston’s bio of Franco, an excellent read and agree this situation is different today, although Catalonia held out against his forces and suffered greatly. There is still today a great deal of inherited resentment towards the Spanish monarchy. Rightly in my view that catastrophe has never been forgotten and should be uppermost in the minds of the people when they vote.
For some reason (perhaps because of Orwell) the Brits have forgotten the main resistance in the Spanish civil war to Franco’s rebellion took place in Madrid – surrounded on 4 sides, and with saboteurs within (the infamous fifth column) they nevertheless held out for nearly 3 years. Catalunya squandered this time engaging in internal battles – Communists vs Poum vs Anarchists vs Catalan nationalists. Of course, after Madrid fell to the fascists, it was only a few days before Catalunya was overwhelmed. There were plenty of fascists who welcomed Franco into Barcelona too – it’s not this idealistic society people sometimes try and portray.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lRkQOqLt-w
I agree with points made elsewhere that if Catalunya does leave Spain they may well find themselves shut out of the EU. Not just because Spain would veto this, but because other countries with separarist concerns (France and even the UK) would try and discourage this type of actionSuffering at the hands of a modern day Franco will be equally as great.
It’s the banks who we should fear.
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The suffering of Catalonia in the Spanish civil war. The battle of the Ebro was the decisive victory when Catalans and other factions fought long and hard to defend.
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@logan wrote:
The suffering of Catalonia in the Spanish civil war. The battle of the Ebro was the decisive victory when Catalans and other factions fought long and hard to defend.
It seems that from your Catalan link, Barcelona even fell before Madrid
Little by little, the Catalan cities started to fall. Barcelona gave-in between January 26th and February 1939.
More here from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_MadridBy the spring of 1939, after the collapse of the Republican forces on other fronts, it was clear that the Republican cause in Madrid was doomed.
There is no doubt that fighting was intense in various parts of the country, and atrocities were commited on both sides (as the winning side obviously the bigger part of this was from the rebels). But as I stated, it does seem that Brits have forgotten that Madrid held out against Franco’s forces for most of the civil war.
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History isn’t the only motivation. As a native Californian, I would love for the US to remove our membership in the United States. Just like Catalunya, we send more money to the cental government than we receive from the central government. In our case, we send a ton of tax revenue to Washington DC, to support the poorer states in the US, than we get back from the US. OK, the rich should always help the poor, so I’m fine with that.
What is very irritating is that politicians in Washington DC bash California’s debt. Really? The debt that we incurred in part by funding public schools in Mississippi? The debt we incurred to rebuild New Orleans? The debt we are incurring to support State governments that are now trying to remove the voting rights of the poor?
Another issue is that because we Californians usually vote for Democrats for president (but usually not for governor), Republican presidents have foolishly punished California, the country’s cash cow, by awarding contracts to States that vote Republican. Fine, get those states to be fiscally sound. But that doesn’t happen – the backwater ways of the ignorant Southern States is such that money is squandered and more often than not, there is not sustained economic development.
I suspect the same happens to Catalunya.
Finally, if any PM of Spain would reach out to Catalunya, make some accomodation to their culture, and cherish the region that is one of (or the major?) Spain’s economic powerhouses, treating it with the respect that it deserves, we may not have the situation we have now.
If Catalunya leaves Spain, it is because of Spain’s stupidity.
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I entirely agree Gary.
Felipe González, former Socialist prime minister and emblematic (if tarnished) figure of the democratic transition, last week said the constitution needed to be recast into a more federalist mould.I doubt that would be sufficient to calm the separatist clamor. If Catalonia succeeds the Basque nation would rise up once more for the same thing. Two regions upon the rest of Spain depends.
That is why a believe the military option would be used as a last resort.
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“I agree with points made elsewhere that if Catalunya does leave Spain they may well find themselves shut out of the EU. Not just because Spain would veto this, but because other countries with separarist concerns (France and even the UK) would try and discourage this type of action”
Any country could veto it, however the EU ascension process takes many years and it would be a very bad place outside of the EU during a economic crash. I’m sure Finland and Germany would be ecstatic at the option of refusing entry of another debtor country into the EU.
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The Spanish government has so far shown no willingness to defuse the Catalan crisis. Vice-premier Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría said yesterday that the government has the means to stop this referendum on self-rule and “is willing to use it”.
That is the first public threat to the secessionists.
It’s perfectly clear that Catalan succession can not take place without a serious constitutional crisis which could force Spain out of the EU never mind the Euro.
The EU could in theory at least embrace an independent Catalonia and eject Spain especially if the military option is used..
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