Catalonia to declare its independence on Monday?

 

Catalonia will move on Monday to declare independence from Spain, a regional government source said, as the European Union nation nears a rupture that threatens the foundations of its young democracy and has unnerved financial markets.

Pro-independence parties which control the regional parliament have asked for a debate and vote on Monday on declaring independence, the source said. A declaration should follow this vote, although it is unclear when.

Catalan President Carles Puigdemont earlier told the BBC that his government would ask the region’s parliament to declare independence after tallying votes from last weekend’s referendum, which Madrid says was illegal.  Reuters

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"Puigdemont’s comments appeared after Spain’s King Felipe VI accused secessionist leaders on Tuesday of shattering democratic principles and dividing Catalan society, as tens of thousands protested against a violent police crackdown on Sunday’s vote. "  Reuters

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Both the king, Felipe VI, and the EU are understandably unwilling to accept the desire of what may be only a plurality of Catalans for independence from Spain.  Some 46% of eligible voters voted in the referendum in the face of violent suppression by the Spanish Guardia Civil.

Is the Spanish Civil War going to have a re-run?  The scenario thus far seems eerily familiar.

If the Catalans leave Spain, or try to do so, surely the Basques will do much the same thing.  pl

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spain-politics-catalonia/catalonia-to-move-to-declare-independence-from-spain-on-monday-idUSKCN1C9109

Comments

[Eric Newhill]

We seem to be seeing the dividing of nation states into subsets based on ethnic, cultural and religious fault lines. It's happening in the US too.

I am beginning to think that once a nation state containing non-homogenous peoples reaches some critical population level, dissolution becomes inevitable. That seems to be what we are seeing. History seems to support the idea. If so, this, of course, bodes badly for globalism and the multi-culti promoters.

[Sam Peralta]

Col. Lang,

You are absolutely correct that if Catalonia secedes the Basque will not be too far behind.

Spain will respond with repression in Catalonia as they will not accept secession. It is not clear that the Catalans will take up arms. More likely they will use civil disobedience and Spain will suppress that with military force if necessary.

IMO, EU & NATO set the precedent with the forced breakup of Serbia. Now they will hide behind "legalism" and be shown for what they really are. All this talk about human rights and self-determination will be shown for the empty words they are. It is only a matter of time before other regions start to exert separatist pressures. The EU common currency and bureaucratic state will come under increasing discord. Those wanting increasing "unification" through a fiscal union will be opposed by those who believe in increasing sovereignty of peoples with common language and cultural commonality. The open border policy of allowing millions of primarily economic refugees from North Africa and Africa is causing a backlash as reflected in recent elections which have proven to be increasingly divisive. Italy will have elections next spring and euro-sceptic parties are no longer in the fringe.

It will be interesting to see how public opinion morphs if many Catalans are gunned down in the streets by Spanish forces. The images of the attempted disruption of the Catalonian referendum through the use of force beamed for all to see is upending all the self-righteous EU rhetoric. Will people buy what the EU sells anymore?

[Not In Istanbul]

According to my contacts in Barcelona, the police action has irrevocably destroyed the desire of many Catalans to remain a part of Spain. Add in the stupidity of a king talking about democracy, and the efforts to avoid a rupture by the Spanish state seem to be nonexistent. The dynamic between Catalonia and the central government really mirrors that between the European North and the South.

If separation doesn't effectively happen this year, I'd bet that within the next five years it will. Some of my formerly non-interested/status-quo hugging friends are even moving back to Barcelona so they can actively participate in shaping its independent future. In the next weeks or months there might even be a significant flow of people leaving/returning to Catalonia leading to a more politically homogenous society capable of ever greater, faster action.

The neo-german colonial project called the EU seems like it will soon come to an end. All it needs is another 2008.

As Ernest Hemingway wrote in 'The Sun Also Rises':

'How did you go bankrupt?' Bill asked.
'Two ways,' Mike said. 'Gradually and then suddenly.'

We are witnessing that now take place in Catalonia.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I do not think so.

Catalans have been agitating for separation from Spain for centuries and always failed. They are like the Kurds, always reveling, and always achieving nothing.

Their best chance was the Civil War, which they spent in murdering other Spaniards as well as Catalans.

And all because of that damn Latin script which emphasizes vowels rather than consonants; creating the delusion of being a separate language and in fact, being the same language as Castilian and Portuguese.

There are many many Spaniards that will go and fight to keep Catalonia in Spain. Just like Kurds, the end state will be a lot of dead young men and women while their elderly leaders would be safely ensconced in this or that European capital farther North.

[Babak Makkinejad]

So, Democracy means having the ability of destroying the state by a minority of Catalans?

In other words, Legitimate Authority, under whose auspices the representative system of government is setup, and at whose head stands the Monarch of Spain, should let itself be destroyed by a minority government seated under the Laws of that same said Legitimate Authority?

At least the Confederate States, singly and collectively, could lay claim to being Legitimate Authority.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Nah, the central authority will send soldiers to shoot the rebels or hand them from the nearest tree.

Chinese Government sent tanks to run over the demonstrators at the Gate of Heavenly Peace. That government was not going to risk chaos in China - with potentially tens of millions of dead, by indulging the theatrics of goddess of Democracy supporters.

[ISL]

See Nigel Farage's comments

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-04/nigel-farage-blasts-eu-juncker-over-catalonia-spain-violates-article-2-lisbon-treaty

The lack of censure of Spain will strongly support Italexit and Nexit and other movements. Given that the EU is no longer providing rising living standards for the majority of people (their 1% are doing nicely, of course).

At some point the EU will have to either censure Spain (whose economic situation means the EU can blackmail them), or the rest will run for the door.

[Oilman2]

@ Eric Newhill...

I'm not sure it is merely population level. It's more like ever diminishing returns from ever expanding government bureaucracy. When the bureaucrats impede business with regulations, permits, licenses and inspections, it contains business by reducing profits and cash flows. When this happens at the city, county, state, national and EU levels - it is onerous in the extreme. Further, when government employees are paid more than the private sector, the golden calf of government bloats even more.

Yet this is what the globalists propose - a never ending burden of taxation, regulation, permitting and licensing for everything possible. Globalists want to monetize everything, especially the movement of money via transaction fees. They want us to pay for their grand livelihoods, while they remain inaccessible and unresponsive behind myriad walls of bureaucrats, procedures and policy. This is what is happening all around the planet, with a very few exceptions.

Reverting to common cultural identity is the simplest way to reduce the burdens of those outside the immediate area whom you are supporting with your taxes. Sending taxes away and never seeing anything returned to you other than"security" is an argument whose shelf life has expired. This will become more true if an economy is struggling or in decline.

Most people just want to be able to earn a living and enjoy their lives - conquering the world and solving global problems are far out of their reach. Yet they can make a difference locally, and cut out the wasteful middlemen, committeemen and managers required for global endeavors. Getting your own house in order will allow countries the wherewithal to cooperate on other issues.

The great globalist experiment will not endure, as the cost for the majority of the populace is too high.

[b]

There will be no war.

There is not a majority in Catalonia that wants to separate. There is a wide majority in all of Spain that is against any such move. It is seen as unjust. Catalonia already has a significant degree of autonomy. It has no political allies.

Catalonia has many banks. These are licensed by the central government in Madrid. Without license, they have no access to funds, to ECB transfer systems and other necessary connections. If Madrid pulls the plug teh ATMs will be empty. Catalonia comes to a standstill.

[alaric]

@Sam Peralta

"It will be interesting to see how public opinion morphs if many Catalans are gunned down in the streets by Spanish forces. "

I sincerely doubt that this will happen. I also doubt the Basques will declare independence because the Basques have a pretty good deal and quite a bit of autonomy. You have noticed that ETA has not blown anything up in a long time.

Catalonia is a problem, not just for Spain but all Europe. What you have there is a privileged region, whose success is really a product of its location (it is the part of Spain with the best land access to France thanks to flatter terrain than elsewhere and it has always had important ports linking Spain to France and the Mediterranean). The privileged want more privilege and they have weaponized regionalism into a potent political tool via control of schools, politics and media. NO ONE IN EUROPE wants to fuel this type of behavior because that could bite them in the rear, especially the French who have Catalans and Basques.

The separatists have been using this to torment and blackmail the Spanish gov for some time. Every Spaniard I've spoken to over the years and even in the 90s and was and is sick of the Catalan separatists. Most i speak to want Catalonia to leave. MY guess is that it would have been a matter of time before the Catalan were able to vote legally (because the Spaniards really don't like the Separatists). Instead they pulled this vote. I assume the timing means this is about money but the Spanish government is also facing a time bomb in that the younger generation of "Catalan" have been completely brainwashed in their schools. I cannot say how amazed I am that lefties are supporting the very ugly, misguided, discriminatory, and elitist ideology that is the Catalan identity.

FYI: I used the term "Catalan" here to refer to residents of that part of Spain but the Catalan are no more a people than say New Yorkers. The people of Catalonia are massive mutts of various Mediterranean, Northern European, North African and Iberian stock. They are not a people. Their identity as such is a creation of their own. Their language is influenced more by their location and trade with the French and others in the Mediterranean but they are far from the only region in Spain or Europe with its own dialect. Yes their history is unique and yes so is the history of the people in most every region in Europe.

I don't know what will happen next but the problem this independence has is it they movement has not come close to proving it is acting in the will of the people.

[Allen Thomson]

I'm keeping an eye on Galicia now because of some slightly distant in-laws there and its own independentista history. Galicia is at least semi-Portuguese and it would be interesting if Portugal were put in a position of having to express an opinion on the matter.

[Adrestia]

IMO Catalonia will declare independence & Spain will react with violence. This might well trigger a rapid desintegration of the EU. I don't exclude civil war or new totalitarian states in Europe.

For a background my opinions are posted in: Independence for Catalonia is a bad idea?
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/10/httpswwwnytimescom20171001worldeuropecatalonia-independence-referendumhtml.html

IMO this is another example of the existential crisis our OECD democracies are in.

As an outsider I see similar trends in the US. Eg Puerto Rico, statements from states such as California or mayor Rahm Emanuel, internal divisions between population groups, huge wealth difference etc. The cost of almost 2 decades of war and no prospect of finishing these soon. Similar problems and causes with different symptoms.

IMO our world will be very different in 5 years time.

[LondonBob]

The Catalans have no arms and no one will recognise or support them anyway. The Catalan leader is a cunning demagogue but I expect he will back down, Madrid won't.

Anyway the Spanish military will operating in support of the civil authorities, they won't be sending in the tanks and troops with live rounds. More Operation Motorman than Hungary 56, I would expect.

[Prem]

The results announced on the 1st were:

YES: 90.1%
NO: 7.9%
Turnout: ~42% for counted ballots (2,262,424), ~56% if including the confiscated ballot boxes (~770,000) out of 5,343,358 registered voters.

Assuming that the confiscated votes were similar, YES = 51% of registered voters for independence.

The stupidity of sending in tbe Guardia Civil may well have doomed any long term prospect of Catalonia staying in Spain.

[turcopolier]

Prem

Yes, someone wrote that when the British shot the leaders of the 1916 Post Office rebellion in the courtyard of Dublin Castle, Ireland was at last free. pl

[Lemur]

The Catalans have a distinct history. Franco's centralization of the Spanish state place them in too close an orbit to Madrid.

I don't think its prudent to dismiss the various of Iberian identities. By way of comparison, Australia and New Zealand are very closely aligned historically, culturally, ethnically, and politically; yet I can assure you we are very happy being divided into two sovereign countries, and can tell the difference between each other. Good fences make good neighbors.

There's a legitimate case to be made an arraignment between the Catalans and Madrid could have kept the present version of Spain intact, but Madrid has refused to play ball. Now this can go one of two ways - Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia.

[ToivoS]

I attended a Catalonian independence rally in Barcelona a few years ago. It was part of a demonstration that included over a million participants throughout Catalonia -- if I recall it was a line of people holding hands that snaked throughout Catalonia about 1000 miles long. In the center of Barcelona there must have been many hundreds of thousands of people. Right in the center of this demonstration were a few thousand Basques. Waving their flags, chanting their slogans. It was an impressive display.

Yes, I do believe if Catalonia gains independence the Basques will soon follow.

[Lemur]

What you're describing is a hypothetical basic norm, or ultimate legal reality, the first historical constitution presupposed to be valid, underlying the legal system.

Kelsen called this the 'grundnorm'.

How does it change?

•Either in a manner in ‘which the legal order itself determines’, or illegally – replacement of old grundnorm through revolution.

•“If [the revolutionaries] succeed...the old order ceases, and the new order [becomes] efficacious, because the individuals whose behaviour the new order regulates [generally conform] with [it], then [it] is [a] a valid order.…If the revolutionaries fail, if the [attempted order] remains inefficacious, then... their undertaking is interpreted, not as a legal, law-creating act... establish[ing]... a constitution, but as an illegal act, [a]...crime of treason [against the surviving grundnorm].”

[Babak Makkinejad]

So what 90%. They are not a sovereign people and do not have the legal right to destroy the state. At least they should have the courage and the decency of Kurds to take up arms and start killing other Spaniards to become Sovereign - Legitimacy and Force go together.

[eakens]

Sounds like a good time to start thinking about buying some Barcelona property!

[Babak Makkinejad]

I agree.

[Lemur]

Antoly Karlin has the figures:

"If reports that 700,000 came out in Barcelona are accurate, then Spain in its current borders is likely done for.

This is about as high a percentage of the Barcelona metropolitan area’s 5.4 million as the 500,000 Ukrainians who came out at the height of Euromaidan in the 3.3 million Kiev conglomerate area – and the latter drew from a country of 45 million versus less than 8 million Catalans.

For comparison, the largest of the protests that “shook the Kremlin” during the 2011-12 election season garnered about 100,000 people in a city of well more than 10 million.

I am not writing Spain off entirely. But Madrid’s challenges going ahead are huge.

Around 51% of the all Catalan voters expressed their desire for independence in the recent referendum. After the police violence, and the hardline response of Rajoy and now the King – in itself yet more evidence that Madrid has settled for a police response – this will have surely jumped by another 10% to 20% points."

Further:

"50% of all Catalan voters were already going to vote Yes, and after today’s events, they must have gained another 10% or 20% points. The local police refuse to obey central commands. They are for all intents and purposes now “lost” to Spain, at least for the time being.

Very soon the time will come when the Catalonian parliament declares independence. At that point, if Spain wishes to remain whole, there will have to be mass arrests of their government and replacement with a caretaker administration. The security forces tasked with carrying this out must be absolutely loyal for the operation to be successful. The sense that the political elites have their backs is a prerequisite of police loyalty. If they feel that they are going to be stabbed in the back by weak politicians concerned at the first signs of pressure, then they are not going to be able to fulfill their orders with the requisite degree of decisiveness and ruthlessness. They are instead going to fold once their encounter serious resistance and Madrid will have no choice but to make its peace with an independent Catalonia.

This is what happened with Yanukovych in the Ukraine in 2013-14, who stabbed the security men charged with keeping his regime in power in the back by refusing to provide them support once things got too hot. This totally demoralized them and ensured the triumph of the Euromaidan."

[kao_hsien_chih]

The great irony is that this is the direct consequence of globalism and multicultism. Catalan independentists, like their counterparts elsewhere in Europe (e.g. Belgium and Scotland) think that, by ditching the "middlemen," e.g. the federal Belgium, UK, and Spain, they can do better as members of the globalist international organizations. There is no reason to believe yet that they are necessarily wrong...unless they are backed by Russians like Novorossiyans and Abkhazians (kidding, but not 100% so).

[JamesT]

It turns out that the Catalonians don't actually want independence, they have just been tricked into thinking they do by those dastardly Russians. The Washington Post:

"... the Catalan nationalists’ only backers are separatist-ruled Scotland, the pariah government of Venezuela and Russia’s intelligence and propaganda apparatus, which mobilized its media outlets and social media bots in support of the separatists. Moscow evidently perceives the Catalan movement as another vehicle for dividing and weakening the democratic West."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/catalonia-held-a-referendum-russia-won/2017/10/02/f618cd7c-a798-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html

[English Outsider]

Colonel - Sinn Fein was nothing much before the Easter Rising and the executions and internment that followed it. Afterwards, in the 1918 election, it swept the board. Churchill's subsequent sending in of the Black and Tans, together with the use of the Auxiliaries, was the last nail in the coffin of foreign rule over Ireland.

I am firmly convinced that the road to Irish independence would have been far more sensibly worked out had the British Government not acted as it did. The subsequent civil war would not have occurred had it not been for the intransigent position adopted by the British Government in the negotiations.

I've no idea whether the Catalans should have or should even want independence. There the comparison with Ireland is unclear. But witnessing the mistakes of a century ago in Ireland repeated faithfully so far by the Spanish Government of today is an extraordinary sight.