Catalonia's parliament backs declaration to split from Spain

Political parties are discussing whether their candidates should agree debating Puigdemont via TV monitors and how this would affect their candidacies. Conservative Ciudadanos and separatist Catalunya en Comun accept the proposition, the socialist PSC and conservative PP reject the idea, others worry this will highlight or handicap him, that errors and misstatements by candidates will be overlooked due to the unusual participation of Puigdemont: http://www.elmundo.es/espana/2017/12/03/5a22fb40268e3e23138b45e7.html

 

Puigdemont says if the separatists prevail in the regional election this means he is reinstated, Esquerra (about a third of the separatists) disagrees.

 

The CUP says it will boycott the Govern (cabinet) unless the President affirmatively commits to unilateral independence, thus the CUP's anticipated 5 delegates to the Parliament will not add their votes to those of the 62 delegates Esquerra and PDeCat are expected to get (preventing them from forming a majority).

The Catalonian election in 4 days will be the tenth time the region has gone to the polls in 7 years. These elections indicate the separatist process has had a strong effect. Now, Esquerra and Ciudadanos are battling for a majority while in 2010 these two got less than 10% of the vote.

Voters in the region are very engaged and this is evident from the growing voter turnout; 59% voted in the 2010 regional election, 68% voted in 2012 and 77% in 2015, it is expected over 80% will vote this time.

Conventional political parties not engaged in the separatist issue have disappeared. Social Democrat CiU (Convergencia I Unio), which had 62 delegates in 2010 was dissolved. Since 2014 Convergencia was rebranded for 6 different elections. The socialist PSC, which had 52 delegates in 1999, would count as a success if they could retain the 28 they got in 2010. Center-right conservative PP which had 11 delegates in 2015 will likely lose about half of them this time.

Separatism has radicalized the voters. While in 2010 CiU and PSC got the most votes, now all parties have gone to extremes, Esquerra and Convergencia are more separatist while Ciudadanos, PP and PSC have become more pro-Spain. The parties in the middle PSC and Convergencia lost support while those on the extremes (Ciudadanos and Esquerra) gained followers.

Now Catalonian society is equally divided according to ethnicity, with 37% of the Catalonians who have Catalonian parents favoring separatism and an equal number of Catalonians whose parents migrated to the region from the rest of Spain opposed. These two groups also feature different financial outlooks with higher unemployment, lower education and more poverty among anti-separatist Catalonians of immigrant descent.

Between 2006 and 2012 the percentage of Catalonians who felt their financial situation had worsened rose from 30% to 79%. Unemployment, cutbacks in social spending and evictions have had tremendous impact and separatist parties have promised independence will improve things.The economic crisis and austerity measures have fueled dissatisfaction with the government in Madrid.

Now the economic crisis is having the opposite effect and is mobilizing poorly paid service sector workers concerned over the dramatic drop in tourism and the flight of thousands of major corporations, 35% of the Catalonians expect their economy will worsen, most worried are those who support Ciudadanos (55%), followed by PSC (51%) and PP (48%), while wealthier and better educated supporters of Esquerra and PDeCat are less concerned with just 23% pessimistic about the economy. https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/12/15/actualidad/1513358503_871139.html

 

What is important now is not to confuse the defeat of the kamikaze who fled to Brussels with the solution to the problem in Catalonia. Rajoy has resolved the immediate problem, but he needs to address the underlying issue, this is his greatest responsibility which he cannot evade with a short-term solution to the greatest problem the nation has faced since the Transition.

Rajoy should have ever collected signatures in opposition to the Catalonian Statute of Autonomy, never have ignored the threats of Mas to agitate for separatism, never have dismissed the separatists interpretation of the 2015 election as a mandate for self-determination, never given up the battle for the political discourse, never have shielded himself in the courts to evade his institutional responsibilities, and he should never have unnecessarily risked the Constitutional Court’s unanimity, sinceneven though Puigdemont’s appointment as reginal president would violate the regional government’s own laws, this would allow Esquerra to get rid of him by judicial process. As Rubalcaba noted; “they [Esquerra] want’s the Spanish government to get him [Puigdemont] out of the way. Pity Sáenz de Santamaría didn’t see this.

After his visit to Barcelona in 1916, Unamuno wrote; “how mistaken Spaniards failed to appreciate Catalanism was more than just a matter of business, custom, tariffs and industrial hegemony. No, there was much more than that, and it was much more intimate.”

That “intimate” additional element remains and there is a mutual blindness that impedes resolution; the separatists can’t see why with 47% support they can rule -but not pursue independence, and Madrid can’t see how just halting whatever illegality will allow them to avoid allowing the growth of the percentage of disaffected in the region.

 

Puigdemont has agreed to "step aside", but wants (incarcerated) Jordi Sanchez in his place. No resolution, I expect Parlament dissolved by mid April, new elections in the summer.

 

This has been tried many times. It never works out well for Catalonia.

 

Miserable kids in Catalonian public schools (if they speak Spanish):

Worse if their parents are in the police force:

This is awful.

 

It is unclear whether the new regional president will have the votes to get his Cabinet installed, the CUP has reservations, PdeCat and Esquerra don’t see things the same way, Puigdemont seems sidelined.

If Torrá can get his Cabinet approved, the requisite conditions to remove application of Article 155 will be met, and then the Spanish authorities will have to stop requisitioning records from the regional authorities documenting the former regional government’s malfeasances, but by now I suspect Madrid has all the evidence it needs.

I expect the judicial authorities will be ready to proceed within a couple of months, break for summer and begin hearings in September.​

 

Puigdemonth could be extradited by Germany:

Puigdemont should get packing.

 

Today's El Pais reports that Miquel Iceta, Catalonian socialist party leader, noted today that dialogue between the regional government and Madrid will only be beneficial if both sides recognize each other as valid interlocutors and confine themselves eithin the bounds of the law. Iceta said he had not asked the new regional presient to explicitly renounce anything, but did say he finds the unilateral and illegal route as over. “In politics mistakes may be made, but it is not good to repeat them. Unilateralism failed in the previous regional legislature as it was too costly and had no effect, this was a big mistake” he said.

The new regional president, Joaquim Torra opened a round of consultations with parties in the Generalitat, opposition leader Ines Arrimadas declined the invitation, Iceta was the next up. The meeting was described as “cordial” and neither side made reference to what remains an intractable difference.

 

Batet was born in Barcelona.

I agree constitutional reform is needed and I think the regional administration is the primary issue requiring reconsideration. Some have suggested a more federal system, but I suspect this would be more advantageous for other regions (Catalonia has just 4 provinces) while Andalusia, Castille Leon and Castille La Mancha are all larger, though only Andalusia has a greater population.

I suspect a more satisfactory allocation of power for Catalonia would have to reflect economic performance. It is unclear what effect the separatist crisis has had on this region’s economy, no doubt it is negative, but we don’t know how bad. Two years ago Catalonia was the most important region of Spain based on economic performance, however per capita income in the single district of the region of Madrid, the Basque Country and Navarre is higher.

It will be interesting to see how Spain can amend its constitution to take into account economic performance.

I certainly don’t expect any reform will provide for a regional right to secede.

 

Catalonia losing diplomatic representation: