The emergence of a democratic right to self-determination in Europe 1 THE EMERGENCE OF A DEMOCRATIC RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION IN EUROPE DANIEL TURP MARC SANJAUME-CALVET DIRECTORS / COORDINATORS CENTRE MAURITS COPPIETERS 2016 2 The emergence of a democratic right to self-determination in Europe 3 Contents Foreword 6 Preface 8 Authors 12 ÅLAND ISLANDS - Bjarne Lindström 20 ARAGON - Carlos Serrano Lacarra 26 BAVARIA - Klaus-Jürgen Nagel 38 BRITTANY - Tudi Kernalegenn 56 CATALAN COUNTRIES - Marc Sanjaume-Calvet and Lluís Pérez Lozano 66 CORNWALL - Joanie Willett 90 CORSICA - Thierry Dominici 100 ALSACE - Étienne Schmitt 112 THE BASQUE COUNTRY - Jule Goikoetxea 122 THE FAROE ISLANDS - Sjúrður Skaale 136 GALICIA - Henrique del Bosque Zapata 146 GREENLAND - Adam Grydehøj 156 NORTHERN IRELAND - Alex Schwartz 162 SARDINIA - Andrea Deffenu 172 SCOTLAND - Ailsa Henderson 182 SICILIA - Diego Praino 192 SOUTH TYROL - Sergiu Constantin 200 THE AOSTA VALLEY - Roberto Louvin 212 VENETO - Gennaro Ferraiuolo 222 FLANDERS - Bart Maddens 234 WALES - Alan Sandry 246 WALLONIA - Mathias Berhoumi 254 Conclusion - Daniel Turp 264 Abbreviations 273 Legal sources 279 Bibliography 283 This publication is financed with the support of the Centre Maurits Coppieters 296 European Parliament (EP). The EP is not responsible for Members of the CMC 299 any use made of the content of this publication. The Colophon 301 editor of the publication is the sole person liable. The emergence of a democratic right to self-determination in Europe 5 ples should be able to determine their path towards autonomy or greater autonomy, or to independence and with ties to the European Union. Its content is diverse – it looks into the struggles of the peoples of Europe from many different perspectives, be they cultural, economic, historical, legal, political or sociological. We would like to thank all the authors that took part in this project and provided all these perspectives. We are grateful to our friends in the Cen- tre Maurits Coppieters, its Galician President Xabier Macias and its Flem- ish Director Gunther Fritz Dauwen, who trusted us to make this book hap- pen. We are particularly thankful to our Catalan friend Ignasi Centelles who has invested much time and energy into this project. Foreword The right to self-determination of peoples is more alive than ever. It is important that the peoples of Europe and the international community as a whole persist in the quest for the recognition of this fundamental col- lective right that is theirs. Achieving freedom for a people is a matter of conviction and perseverance. It is, to use the formula of Ernest Renan, a plebiscite of every day. We are pleased to present to the members of the European Free Alliance this multi-authored book on The Emergence of a Democratic Right of Daniel Turp Self-Determination in Europe. Prepared under the auspices of the Centre Professor of International and Constitutional Law, Université de Montréal, Maurits Coppieters, this book endeavours to study the right to self- President of the Institut de recherche sur l’autodétermination determination of peoples – a fundamental collective right. More than ever des peuples et les indépendances nationales before, it is the subject of heated debate. Marc Sanjaume-Calvet The Scottish referendum on September 18th, 2014, and the Catalan plebi- Postdoctoral researcher at Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité scitary election on September 27th, 2015, exemplify the exercise of this et la démocratie (CRIDAQ), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) right. Yet, the United Kingdom and Spain had two very different ways of dealing with the claim of one of its nations to freely decide their political status. The first has recognized the right to choose for Scots and the sec- ond has been attempting to thwart such a right for the Catalans. This book goes beyond Catalonia and Scotland and presents the cases of 22 nations, which claim a right to self-determination. These case studies show a clear evolution towards a democratic right to self-determination, but they also reveal a resistance in some countries to the idea that peo- 6 The emergence of a democratic right to self-determination in Europe 7 That is why we are pleased with this initiative of the Centre Maurits Coppieters to demonstrate that the concept itself has moved on from remedial self-determination to implementing self-determination for basic democratic purposes, enhancing democracy for the people and peoples of Europe and the world. Our foundation was set up in 2007. It has branches in Flanders, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Aragon, Wales, Valencian Country, Brittany, Rijeka, Sardinia, Transylvania, Occitania, the Balearic Islands, the Macedonian minority in Greece, Galicia and Corsica. As a Corsican, I am proud to have contributed to the development of the Centre Maurits Coppieters through our own think tank and weekly journal Arritti (Stand Up). Arritti celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. During this time, it has helped Preface the likes of Coppieters and its founding members to capitalize on more than a century of political thought and social analysis in creating new ideas for Europe. This publication is the result of all of our experiences and new ideas, and it is designed to provide reflections on self-determination in the Europe of the 21st century. IMPLEMENTING SELF-DETERMINATION PROGRESS FOR PEOPLES AND FOR BASIC DEMOCRATIC PURPOSES PROGRESS FOR HUMANITY AS A WHOLE François Alfonsi Xabier Macias President of EFA President of Centre Maurits Coppieters We, in the European Free Alliance (EFA), believe that 2014 was the year of The idea for this book was conceived in March 2014. The World Network self-determination. With a demonstration in Brussels in March, drawing for the Collective Rights of Peoples met at the European Parliament in Europe-wide support for our key principle, and progress in European conjunction with a demonstration in Brussels in support of independence Parliament elections in May, as well as the Scottish referendum and the movements in Scotland, Flanders and Catalonia. Centre Maurits Catalan consultation, I believe that my opening statement is correct. Coppieters was hosting the Network for the second time in the capital of the European Union, with the support of the EFA. It heard with interest We also think that the period 2014-2017 is going to be seen as the time the proposal made by Daniel Turp, who serves on its Scientific Advisory when the wider public discovered, embraced, and even recognized the Council as an expert in international law, that the wording of the right principle of self-determination as a key to modernizing our 21st century to self-determination should be updated in light of new experiences of democracies and building momentum for the idea in the European Union many stateless peoples and nations and their emerging civic and political (EU). movements, and that the basis of their democratic right to freely determine their own futures should be affirmed. 8 The emergence of a democratic right to self-determination in Europe 9 The Network in question had started to come together some years earlier, progress for humanity as a whole. This was what we, at the Centre Maurits when efforts to include collective rights into the theoretical framework of Coppieters, recognised when we decided to offer the European experience the Left, which was in search of new approaches, led to the active partici- to this debate and work on this publication. pation of the Centre Internacional Escarré per a les Minories Ètniques i les Nacions (CIEMEN) and other Galician, Basque and Kurdish organisations We are extremely grateful for the collaboration of Professor Daniel Turp in the World Social Forum (WSF), launched in Porto Alegre (Brazil) in and Catalan scholar Marc Sanjaume who made this multi-authored book 2001 as the principal expression of the anti-globalisation movement. This possible. initiative was a continuation of earlier joint actions by the same players in the international sphere, such as the Conference of Stateless Nations of Europe (CONSEU), which first met in 1985. The primary expression of this work took place at the 2009 WSF in Belém do Pará in Brazilian Amazonia with the organisation of a space for the collective rights of peoples, where experiences were shared and discussions were held among representatives of the Baluchi, Kurdish, Corsican, Cornish, Catalan, Basque, Galician, Sardinian, Aymara, Mayan, Mapuche, Quechua, Tamil, Amazigh, Palestinian and Sahrawi peoples. It became clear that there was a global dimension to the denial of political rights for peoples calling for sovereignty by certain states, which have been drawn into crisis by many anti-democratic trends that globalisation entails. The World Network was eventually set up in Girona (Catalonia) in April 2010, alongside the resurgence of independence movements that were starting to demonstrate the potential for democratisation and social transformation inherent in processes of liberation. In sad contrast, more orthodox, traditional and emerging left-wing political forces retained a cosmopolitan attitude that prevented them from associating with the construction (or reconstruction) of new forms of sovereignty, which break away from old jingoistic states and economic globalisation. This context seems to present a double challenge: convincing citizens that achieving or restoring self-government is the best way forward in achieving the prosperity and equality that these peoples need; and persuading them – as the Galician nationalists annihilated by Franco’s dictatorship said – that a freed nation could be a symbol of inclusivity, its very existence enriching the cultural diversity that we all seek. If we speak of rights, all arguments are to little avail. This book aims to show that progress made by the peoples of Europe is reflected in 10 The emergence of a democratic right to self-determination in Europe 11 Sergiu Constantin Researcher at the Institute for Minority Rights of the European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen (Italy).