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In Focus CIDOB 03 CIDOB • Barcelona Centre for International 2012 for September Affairs. Centre CIDOB • Barcelona in focusThe Barcelona Centre for International Affairs Brief 03 Spain’s territorial tensions: OCTOBER A turning point? 2012 Francesc Badia and Oleguer Sarsanedas, CIDOB t is said that the late Don Juan, Count of Barcelona and father of King Juan Carlos I, gave his son a piece of advice the day he abdicated the crown (so as to confer dynastic legitimacy on the Spanish Monarchy reinstated by Franco): Imake sure the Catalans feel comfortable, because you cannot run Spain without the Catalans. Now, thirty-five years later, among the many things the current cri- sis is erasing in Spain, the comfort level of the Catalans ranks high on the list. On September 11 (Catalonia’s National Day), a massive pro-independence rally collapsed central Barcelona for many hours. Citizens of all ages and conditions (families with small children, senior citizens, young people) arrived, a substantial number of them in rented coaches, from all over Catalonia. They marched carry- ing flags and shouting “Independència!” behind a giant banner that read: “Catalo- nia, the next state in Europe”. Never before had the case for Catalan independ- ence rallied so many people in a party-like mood, chanting, celebrating, as if in an American-style parade. It was perhaps the largest demonstration ever in Barcelo- na, initially convened by civic and grass-root groups -which have been mobilising for the cause of independence since at least 2009, holding informal polls in most towns and villages throughout Catalonia. These groups had been preparing for a big demonstration for months, and only as D-day approached, and in the light of the momentum it was gathering, did the mainstream media (national TV, radio stations, pro-government newspapers) decided to fully back it. Most ministers of the Government of Catalonia –the Generalitat- attended, but not the Catalan Presi- dent, Mr. Artur Mas, who waited until the aftermath of the historical event to tell the country, in an institutional address from the government palace, that he had heard the voice of the people, and it was his own. He has since used multiple and creative expressions to define what that voice said/meant --full sovereignty, the right to decide, national plenitude, state structures- and to embrace the cause of independence while carefully avoiding the powerful word. Although Catalan grievances against the Spanish state are a well-known political fact (at least since political Catalanism became the expression of long-standing cultural, economic and political discontent in Catalonia in the early 20th century), the huge size of the demonstration came as a surprise to everyone, including both the Catalan and the Spanish governments. In any case, the demonstration ignited the fuse of a process which, for practical purposes, is unknown territory for all the political actors involved. And apart from their engrained tendency to shy away from difficult and contentious matters, there is nothing that unsettles Spanish politicians more than unchartered waters. in focus CIDOB 03 . OCTOBER 2012 1 CIDOB • Barcelona Centre for International 2012 for September Affairs. Centre CIDOB • Barcelona Since September 11, 2012, the unfolding of the Catalan/Spanish drama has be- come a recurring front-page feature in the news (regional, national and interna- tional). More importantly, it has radically shaken the political landscape in Spain --and, especially, in Catalonia—in a number of ways. First, the Catalan government --led by Convergència i Unió (CiU), a coalition of two nationalist parties which had never before publicly shown any breakaway tendencies-- is maneuvering to position itself at the forefront of the popular move- ment that has burst onto the political scene. Artur Mas has called for early elec- tions on 25 November, hoping to cash in with an increased parliamentary majority for the stand it has taken demanding “state structures” for Catalonia (CiU now holds a relative majority in parliament, where its minority government has sur- vived mainly thanks to Popular Party (PP) propping). After takin g notice of a straight denial in Madrid to his flagship project –a renewed fiscal system similar to the one the Basque Country and Navarre are enjoying– the call for early elec- tions was seen inevitable. To his critics, this is all just a sovereigntist veil to con- veniently pull over President Mas’s contested record in government since 2010 (under increasingly difficult financial circumstances, CiU has been taking heavy austerity measures that, as elsewhere, have been challenged through protests in the streets by those directly affected, and saw the streets of Barcelona repeatedly taken by angry protesters, a minority of which went extremely violent during a general strike that took place earlier this year, smashing shop windows and burn- ing up to 300 waste containers in the city center). The impact of the September 11 rally, logically, has also shaken the rest of the Catalan political spectrum. Parties to the left of CiU are positioning themselves in favour of a popular vote on self-determination –with the exception of the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), which advocates a hazy “federalist” solution that the Span- ish Socialist Party (PSOE), its counterpart in Madrid, does not entirely share. To the right of CiU, the PP is positioning itself as a bulwark against “separatism”. It should be noted that before its dissolution prior to the November elections, the Catalan Parliament passed a resolution (with a two-thirds majority and the ab- stention of the Socialists) requesting that the next government call for a popular vote on Catalan statehood. Predictably, the September 11 rally in Barcelona has prompted bad-tempered and extremely defensive reactions on the part of the Spanish government, which bran- dishes the Constitution as proof of the unlawfulness of the Catalan initiative. Some months ago, the Financial Times expressed suspicion of the PP government’s at- tempt to shift the blame for the Spanish deficit onto the supposedly spendthrift regional governments, while omitting the fact that regional governments are re- sponsible for public services such as education and health, which take up most of the public expenditure, and that their financing –with the exception of the Basque Country and Navarre-- depends on the Spanish government. The PP administra- tion is heir to the Spanish Right’s French-style centralized and unitary conception of the nation-state. It therefore “intensely dislikes” (as the Financial Times puts it) the present State-of-the-Autonomies territorial model defined in the 1978 Consti- tution. Comments on the “Catalan question” by government and party officials, and by numerous unofficial agencies and opinion-makers in the media (some of them arguing for re-centralization of essential services, a few openly calling for the suppression –manu militari, if need be-- of self-government), with their unmis- takable Ancien Régime flavor, have the effect of firing up pro-independence spirit even further. The fact is that Spanish President Mariano Rajoy is receiving messages, both from Brussels and from the Catalan/Spanish business community, to the effect that a no-nonsense, rational, ideology-free settlement of the situation would be appreci- ated, sooner rather than later. These messages go on to suggest that such a set- 2 in focus CIDOB 03 . OCTOBER 2012 CIDOB • Barcelona Centre for International 2012 for September Affairs. Centre CIDOB • Barcelona tlement should seriously address the present political and fiscal realities, that it would be a serious mistake to jeopardize further one of Spain’s main contributors to economic growth, and that a solution should be found, once and for all, for the Spanish territorial structure –which, quite obviously, is not working--, even if this means amending the current Constitution. The Constitution establishes a territorial organization, based on devolution, and known in Spain as the “State of the Autonomies”. Autonomous Communities (which are the highest level administrative division in the country) were to be formed by adjacent provinces with common historical, cultural, and economic traits. The basic institutional law of each Autonomous Community -there are 17 of them, based on a confusing mixture of traditional regional and former provin- cial distribution, out of which 6 are former provinces like Madrid, Murcia or la Rioja, plus 2 autonomous cities (Ceuta and Melilla)- is known as a “Statute of Autonomy”. Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country, which rightly identified themselves as “historic nationalities”, were granted self-government through an accelerated process. Andalusia went through its own complex process –calling for a referendum in its 8 provinces-, while the rest of the regions followed a second track procedure as stipulated in the Constitution, in a “coffee-for-everyone” spree (the expression was coined, at the time, by opponents of this equalization). The Spanish Autonomous Communities have wide legislative and executive au- tonomy, their own parliaments and governments. The distribution of powers, as laid out in their Statutes of Autonomy, is different for each community, as devolu- tion was originally intended to be asymmetrical. More powers devolved to the “historic” nationalities (the three that have their own language and had enjoyed an autonomous status prior to the Franco dictatorship –the Basque Country, Cata- lonia, and Galicia—, plus Andalusia
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