Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Catalonia

Analysis and commentary about the independence crisis in Catalonia by Nick Ottens (based in Barcelona) and Ainslie Noble (an expert in Basque and Catalan identity issues).

  • Sánchez Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Federalizing Spain

    There is hope here in Catalonia that the new Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, will be more conciliatory than the last. But he mustn’t make the same mistake as his predecessor, I argue in an op-ed for the Netherlands’ NRC newspaper.

    Mariano Rajoy denied the Catalans a referendum on independence and radicalized the region’s autonomy movement. Whereas only one in five Catalans wanted to secede from Spain when he took office, now 40 to 50 percent do.

    Similarly, in the Basque Country, only one in five want to break away. But many more want a referendum. The Basques, whose culture and language predate Spain’s, believe they have a right to self-determination.

    Sánchez, so far, disagrees. But he has shown magnanimity toward the Catalans, lifting spending controls on the regional government and raising the possibility of constitutional reform. Sánchez shouldn’t fear a federal Spain, I write — and he has no time to lose.

    His Socialist government has a majority of four. Right-wing parties oppose more autonomy for the Basque Country and Catalonia. The liberal Citizens, who take the hardest line, are the biggest party in the polls. If Sánchez wants to make his mark, he must do so before elections in 2020.

  • Spain Lifts Catalan Spending Controls, Hints at Reform

    Spain has lifted controls on Catalonia’s public finances and called for constitutional reforms to dissuade the region from breaking away.

    The goodwill measures of the new Socialist government are an about-face from the clampdown under conservative prime minister Mariano Rajoy, who was ousted in a confidence vote last week.

    Socialist Party leader Pedro Sánchez, the new prime minister, backed Rajoy when he suspended Catalonia’s autonomy in the wake of the October 1 independence referendum. But he also argued for talks to convince a majority of Catalans to stay in Spain. Rajoy refused to so much as sit down with the region’s separatists. (more…)

  • Catalans Again Compromise. Will Spain Too?

    Mariano Rajoy
    Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy makes a speech in Congress in Madrid, October 11, 2017 (La Moncloa)

    Catalonia’s separatists have again compromised, withdrawing four proposed regional ministers who were unacceptable to Spain.

    The question now is: will Spain restore autonomy? Or will it find yet another reason to maintain direct rule? (more…)

  • Spain Rejects Catalan Cabinet Picks, Maintains Direct Rule

    Spain has rejected four of the ministers nominated by the newly inaugurated Catalan president, Quim Torra, postponing the restoration of autonomy in the region.

    Spanish authorities have described the cabinet picks as a “provocation”. The reason is that two of them are in jail, awaiting trial for their role in the October 1 referendum, while the other two have fled to Belgium.

    Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has called for a “viable” Catalan government.

    El País reports that Rajoy’s refusal to restore home rule has created the novel situation “in which Torra is the head of the Catalan government, yet each regional department will continue to answer to the national minister currently in charge of each area.” (more…)

  • Who Is Catalonia’s New President and What Happens Next?

    Quim Torra
    Quim Torra enters the parliament of Catalonia to be sworn in as regional president, May 14 (Parlament de Catalunya/Miguel González de la Fuente)

    Quim Torra has been elected president of Catalonia with 66 to 65 votes in the regional legislature.

    Torra was supported by his own party, Together for Catalonia, and its ally, the Republican Left. Both seek Catalan independence.

    The smallest separatist party, the Popular Unity Candidacy, abstained to make it possible for Torra to take office, but it considered his predecessor, Carles Puigdemont, the only legitimate candidate.

    Puigdemont, who led Together for Catalonia to victory in December’s election, was removed from power by Spain in the wake of the October 1 independence referendum that had been ruled illegal by the Constitutional Court. (more…)

  • Catalans Find Fourth Candidate for Regional Presidency

    Palau de la Generalitat Barcelona Spain
    Palace of the Catalan regional government in Barcelona, Spain at night (iStock/Tomas Sereda)

    Catalonia’s largest independence party, Together for Yes, has proposed its fourth candidate for the regional presidency after the Constitutional Court suspended a law to allow Carles Puigdemont to be sworn in from abroad.

    Quim Torra, the former president of the pro-independence civil society organization Òmnium Cultural, is due to be inaugurated next week. (more…)

  • Catalan Parties Fall Out Over Puigdemont’s Reinstatement

    Catalonia’s second largest independence party, the Republican Left, has rejected the bid of its ally, Together for Catalonia, to reinstate Carles Puigdemont as regional president.

    The parties, with support from the far-left Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), recently changed the law to make it possible for Puigdemont to be sworn in from abroad. But the Republican Left now calls for a candidate who is not in legal trouble.

    Puigdemont is held in Germany awaiting possible extradition to Spain for declaring Catalan independence following the October 1 referendum. The new law is almost certain to be stuck down by the Constitutional Court.

    Yet the hardline CUP maintains that Puigdemont is the only legitimate candidate. It has threatened to pull out of the separatist coalition if the other parties back down.

  • Divided America, Deadlock in Italy and Catalan Separatists Try Again

    Anand Giridharadas writes in The Huffington Post that “Woke America” and “Great America” are so offended by each other that they can barely listen to each other anymore.

    You are what offends you. Are you more offended by racism, sexism and other -isms or by people offended by those things? By the persistence of white privilege or by the term “white privilege”? By all the men who degraded women or by the implication in the air that it was “all” the men? By the original sin of American slavery or by the idea that your country has an original sin — one for which you are somehow responsible?

    Giridharadas argues that beneath the anger of both sides lies pain. The only way to bring people together is to take that pain seriously.

    I argued something similar in Quillette a few months ago: the only way to change minds is to empathize and explain. The meaning of democracy is not winning 50 percent plus one vote and then vanquishing your rivals. It’s a process. If we want to avoid splitting into parallel societies that don’t understand, much less care about, each other, then we all need to make the effort. (more…)

  • Deal Slips Away in Catalonia as Both Sides Dig In

    Barcelona Spain
    W Hotel and Barceloneta Beach in Barcelona, Spain (Unsplash/Benjamín Gremler)

    In my first contribution to World Politics Review, I write that a deal is slipping away in Catalonia as the region’s separatists remain deadlocked with the central government of Spain.

    Both sides are waiting for the other to make the first move: Spain for the Catalans to form a pliable regional government; the separatists for Spain to drop charges against the leaders of their independence movement. Neither is likely to happen. And so six months after the referendum, and four months after regional elections in Catalonia, there still hasn’t been a breakthrough. (more…)

  • American Right Loses Its Mind, Catalans Escalate Legal Fight

    Mocking a survivor of the Parkland, Florida school shooting for failing to get into several colleges. Calling Robert Mueller the head of a crime family. Comparing the FBI to the Gestapo. Leading with a story about sex-crazed pandas on the day President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, is served a search warrant by the FBI.

    Fox News is losing its mind.

    The reasons are obvious:

    • Republicans are expected to lose badly in November’s midterm elections.
    • Robert Mueller is closing in on the president, with a report on his attempts to obstruct justice expected as early as next month.
    • James Comey, whom Trump fired from the FBI when he refused to protect the president from the Russia investigation, has a book out on Tuesday. Politico has its main takeaways.

    It’s easy to dismiss Fox’s antics, but remember: there are millions of Americans who watch — and only watch — this channel, including the president. They don’t know any better. (more…)

  • Legalistic Spain Criticizes Legalistic Germany

    Throughout the Catalan independence crisis, the Spanish government of Mariano Rajoy has taken a legalistic approach. It rejected a referendum in October, arguing it was impossible under Spanish law. When the region voted anyway, Rajoy let prosecutors and judges go after the leaders of the independence movement, never once proposing to meet for negotiations, much less to hash out a compromise.

    Now the same government is criticizing Germany for allowing the legal process to play out in the case of former Catalan president — and fugitive from Spanish justice — Carles Puigdemont. (more…)

  • France Eyes Non-EU Military Force, Trump Governs by Bluffing

    Reuters reports that France is looking to create a European military crisis force outside the EU, so the United Kingdom can participate.

    The idea aims to bring together European countries with a military capacity and political desire to collaborate on planning, carry out joint analyses of emerging crises and to react to them quickly.

    Almost all EU countries have committed to deepening military integration inside the union as well under the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO).

    All of this, of course, is happening against the backdrop of America’s withdrawal from Europe under Donald Trump. (more…)

  • Germany Approves Russian Pipeline, Five Stars Call for Deal with League

    German regulators have approved the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would help Russia bypass Ukraine and its other former satellite states in Eastern Europe.

    Germany and the Netherlands, the two main beneficiaries of the pipeline, are virtually isolated in Europe in their support for it.

    Nord Stream 2 would double the capacity of the existing Baltic Sea pipeline, but it makes no economic sense. Russia uses perhaps 60 percent of its existing pipeline capacity. The only reason for adding a connection is that Russia wants to be able to blackmail Ukraine without interrupting its gas supply to the rest of Europe.

    Regulators in Denmark, Finland and Sweden still need to sign off on the project. (more…)

  • Spain Should Negotiate with Puigdemont, France Didn’t Start the Fire

    In my latest op-ed for the Netherlands’ NRC newspaper, I argue Spain should negotiate with Carles Puigdemont rather than put the former Catalan president in jail.

    Puigdemont was arrested in Germany this weekend on his way back to Belgium from a conference in Finland. He is likely to be extradited.

    The numbers two and three of his party, Together for Catalonia, are already in jail. So is the leader of the second largest independence party, the Republican Left. Its deputy leader has fled to Switzerland.

    At this rate, there won’t be anyone left to form a new government in the region, however, Spain cannot restore home rule so long as there isn’t one. It suspended Catalonia’s autonomy after Puigdemont declared independence in October.

    To break the gridlock, I argue that Spain, being the strongest party in the conflict, must take the first step: offer increased autonomy for Catalonia and a referendum, not on independence, but on a revised autonomy statute. That way, Spain would no longer have to fear secession and the Catalans would feel they are masters of their own fate.

    Unfortunately, such a compromise is unacceptable to Spain’s ruling People’s Party as well as Catalan hardliners.

    English speakers may be interested in my Atlantic Sentinel editorial from December: A Third Way for Catalonia. (more…)

  • Trump on the Warpath, Puigdemont Arrested in Germany

    Donald Trump’s personnel shakeup is deeply troubling, argues Andrew Sullivan in New York magazine — especially the firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, “two individuals who simply couldn’t capitulate to the demand that they obey only Trump, rather than the country as well.”

    Tillerson is being replaced by CIA director Mike Pompeo, “a man whose hatred of Islam is only matched by his sympathy for waterboarders.”

    H.R. McMaster is being replaced as national security advisor by John Bolton, whose agenda, as Fred Kaplan puts it in Slate, is not “peace through strength,” but regime change through war.

    Gary Cohn is being replaced as chief economic advisor by Larry Kudlow: according to Sullivan, “a sane person followed by a delusional maniac Trump sees on Fox.”

    The State Department, indeed, the entire diplomatic apparatus, has, it seems, been replaced by Jared Kushner, “a corrupt enthusiast for West Bank settlements who no longer has a security clearance.”

    Not only do the changes suggest Trump is preparing to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election; they also hint at a future war with Iran.

    Everything we know about Trump’s character tells us that war is the only aspect of foreign relations he understands:

    He cannot exist as an equal party in an international system. He has to dominate other countries the way he does other human beings.

    (more…)