What to say about the contretemps in Spain? In case you’re just tuning in here’s what’s happened so far:
- The political leaders of the wealthy Catalan province of Spain decided to conduct a plebiscite on independence for the province.
- The Spanish government asserted that the plebiscite was illegal under the present Spanish constitution.
- A very large majority of a very small minority of the eligible voters in Catalonia voted in favor of independence.
- Madrid condemned the result.
- The Catalan regional government declared independence.
- Madrid dissolved the Catalonian regional government and assumed direct rule.
Madrid has acted as expected, as it must, and as it should. It’s somewhat as though Silicon Valley had declared its independence from the State of California.
I’ve already asked my questions about this before. Does Catalonia really have a history distinct from Spanish history? My casual researches don’t suggest that it does. A linguistic community isn’t necessarily a country.
What’s the unit of measure of sovereignty? The province? The city? The block? The individual? Whatever the answer how is that to be managed?
IMO countries aren’t granted sovereignty, they seize it. Maybe things are different in Europe.
Update
If Catalonia’s police force remains neutral, Madrid’s takeover of the provincial government will stand.
My understanding is that Catalonia has been a part of what eventually became Spain since at least the 12th Century. Nearly a millenium. This independence movement appears to be a relatively recent development and is arguably as much an effort at a power grab via populism by the leadership in Barcelona.
My questions since all this started are the same as yours, but the most important one to me what, if anything, the Catalans can actually do to support this claimed independence. They aren’t getting any support from abroad and don’t seem to have any support inside Spain itself. There’s a report today in the NY Times that even the Basques aren’t really showing much enthusiasm about what’s going on in Catalonia.
As it stands, the leaders don’t really have a plan and that they seem to be hoping that Madrid will just give in at some point. As I’ve noted in my own posts about this at OTB, that seems unlikely not the least because Prime Minister Rajoy is already in a precarious political position in Madrid and could easily see his government toppled if he is perceived as not sufficiently supporting the idea of a unified Spain.
That’s the way I interpret it. I think that Catalonia’s political leaders are counting on the EU to ride to the rescue. IMO that’s a vain hope. There isn’t a member country that doesn’t have provinces with ambitious local leaders.
Just to be contrarian, George Orwell wrote of his Spanish Civil War experiences in a book called Homage to Catalonia I think the notion was that, while part of Spain, Catalonia was also a very distinct region, not at all identical with the southern and central provinces.
I dunno. Spain is not the only European state with ancient but never quite settled political or linguistic differences. France comes to mind, also Italy. The UK of course. Late Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Russia and the Baltics and the “‘stans”.
Your item 3 might be incorrect. Initial reports indicated that the leave vote constituted an absolute majority of all eligible voters, including those who abstained.
But that actually irrelevant. What counts in politics is not numbers but passion. The Communists who rule China make up only a few tenths of one percent of the population, yet their rule is secure. If the Catalan leavers want it badly enough, they will create a violent hell until they get their way. And on the other end of the Pyrenees are the Basque. And across the Pyrenees is the Provence.
Foreign support for independence movements always depends on the interests of the foreigners and has no relation to the merits or demerits of the case. The Kurds are a case in point. When we needed some infantry in Iraq and Syria, we were their friends. We dangled independence before them. Now we don’t need them, and they are being told to shut up and sit down.
We will support Madrid because we don’t want to see France, Britain, Germany, Italy et al. break up. These state governments have been obviated by the EU; they only rubber stamp the edicts of the EU bureaucracy. So it is natural that ethnic groups they contain will want self rule. They don’t need the state governments. Actually, the EU bureaucrats would like that, too, because the numerous small ethno-states would be easier to dominate.
I think a better way of saying that would be “your item #3 may understate the level of support for independence in Catalonia”.
I dunno. Spain is not the only European state with ancient but never quite settled political or linguistic differences. France comes to mind, also Italy. The UK of course. Late Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Russia and the Baltics and the “‘stansâ€.
Also Belgium.
bob sykes: Initial reports indicated that the leave vote constituted an absolute majority of all eligible voters, including those who abstained.
Turnout was 43%, so clearly it couldn’t have been a majority of all eligible voters. (2nd PDF)