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).

  • Five Catalan Politicians Jailed, Five Reasons for Russia’s Spy Poisoning

    Plaça de Catalunya Barcelona Spain
    Night falls on Plaça de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, September 11, 2017 (Sergio Marchi)

    Five Catalan politicians, including the former speaker of parliament and three acting ministers, have been send (back) to jail for their role in the region’s attempt to break away from Spain.

    The fifth, Jordi Turull, had been put forward as a candidate for regional president by the largest independence party, Together for Catalonia, but he lost a vote in parliament on Thursday.

    A sixth, Marta Rovira, has fled to Switzerland to escape arrest.

    Rovira has led the second largest independence party, the Republican Left, since their leader, Oriol Junqueras, was jailed in December.

    Thousands of Catalans took to the streets of Barcelona on Friday night to demonstrate against the Spanish judge’s decision.

    The arrests make it even more difficult to form a new government in the region. The separatists have a majority, but all their leaders are now either in jail or in self-imposed exile. (more…)

  • Trump Doesn’t Understand New Cold War, Doesn’t Understand Presidency

    Donald Trump doesn’t understand why Russian “resets” have failed in the past, tweeting, “Bush tried to get along, but didn’t have the ‘smarts.’ Obama and Clinton tried, but didn’t have the energy or chemistry.”

    The real reason, as Ryan Bohl has explained here, is that America and Russia have diametrically opposed interests in Europe. “Smarts” or personal chemistry has nothing to do with it.

    In fairness, Trump is hardly the first American president who believes he can overcome the restraints of history and geopolitics through the sheer force of personality. Nor is he the first one to fail. (more…)

  • Mainstream Parties Win Dutch Elections, Catalans to Swear In President

    Mark Rutte
    Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte listens to a debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, January 20, 2016 (European Parliament)

    The far-right Freedom Party and the far-left Socialists underperformed in municipal elections in the Netherlands on Wednesday.

    The ruling liberals and Christian Democrats shared first place. Both got 13 percent support.

    Local parties took 33 percent of the vote, up from 28 percent four years ago.

    The Greens gained at the expense of Labor and the liberal Democrats, especially in the major cities. Although they are still counting the votes in Amsterdam, the Greens are expected to overtake the liberal Democrats as the largest party there.

    Cosmopolitan, left-leaning voters probably switched because they are disappointed the liberal Democrats went into government with three right-wing parties.

    The outcome is nevertheless unlikely to destabilize Mark Rutte’s coalition, which includes the small Christian Union. (more…)

  • Democrats Should Keep Superdelegates, Salvini Calls for Anti-EU Budget

    BuzzFeed reports that Democrats in the United States are considering eliminating superdelegates from their presidential nominating contest.

    That would be a mistake.

    Superdelegates — governors, members of Congress and party officials — are a failsafe, to prevent a Democratic Donald Trump.

    Opponents consider them undemocratic, but this fetishizes democracy. The point of the primary process is — or should be — to find the best candidate possible who can then go on to win in a democratic contest. (more…)

  • Grand Coalition Wins Vote in Germany. Next Problem: Italy

    Sigmar Gabriel Angela Merkel
    German party leaders Sigmar Gabriel and Angela Merkel walk to a news conference in Berlin, June 29, 2015 (Bundesregierung)

    In the end, it wasn’t even close. Nearly twice as many German Social Democratic Party members voted in favor of another grand coalition with Angela Merkel’s conservatives as voted against it. The results of the internal poll were announced on Sunday.

    Parliament is due to confirm Merkel for a fourth term as chancellor next week. If she sits this one out, she will be Germany’s longest-ruling leader since Helmut Kohl.

    Neither of the two major parties is out of the woods yet. The Social Democrats have fallen in the polls, losing support to, well, everyone. Merkel’s Christian Democrats are facing competition from the Free Democrats on the right and the Alternative on the far right. The party will debate in the coming years whether to continue Merkel’s centrist line or lurch to the right.

    For now, though, the center can still hold. (more…)

  • EU Sets Red Lines for Brexit, Puigdemont to Lead Government-in-Waiting

    The European Commission has set out its red lines for Brexit in a draft agreement:

    • Northern Ireland: Would remain in the EU customs union, creating the need for an economic border in the Irish Sea.
    • Free movement: Continued free movement of EU nationals during the post-Brexit transition period.
    • Trade deals: Also during the transition, Britain would not be allowed to initiate or sign trade deals that are prejudicial to EU interests.

    None of these red lines are acceptable to hardline Brexiteers and the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, whose votes Theresa May needs for her majority in Westminster. (more…)

  • Macron Breaks Taboo, Spain Makes Gibraltar Demands

    Emmanuel Macron touched one third rail of French politics and didn’t die: labor reform. Now he is grabbing the other: agriculture.

    French farmers rely heavily on EU agricultural subsidies and are generally less innovative (defenders would say more traditional) than their peers in Germany and the Netherlands, the two largest exporters of agricultural goods in Europe.

    Macron has already opened the door to subsidy reform, arguing that, due to Brexit, cuts are inevitable.

    At the same time, he has promised €5 billion in public investments to kickstart a “cultural revolution” in the sector.

    That may not be enough to convince skeptical farmers while cutting EU subsidies will run into opposition from Italy, Poland and Spain. But it’s a start. (more…)

  • Lies and Distraction from Trump, Putin’s Dangerous War in Syria

    First the lies:

    Just like they don’t want to solve the DACA problem, why didn’t the Democrats pass gun control legislation when they had both the House & Senate during the Obama Administration. Because they didn’t want to, and now they just talk!

    1. It’s the president who unilaterally ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program last year and who is now blocking a compromise. Democrats and center-right Republicans are ready to do a deal.
    2. Democrats tried to get tougher guns laws under Barack Obama. They were frustrated at every turn by Republicans, who turned the filibuster into standard operating procedure in the Senate, as a result of which it now takes sixty votes to get anything of consequence done. When Democrats could briefly muster sixty votes in the early years of Obama’s presidency, they used that opportunity to reform health care. (more…)

  • Corbyn’s Spy Career, Catalan Language War

    The Sun reports that, as a freshman parliamentarian, Jeremy Corbyn was targeted for recruitment by the Czech secret police in 1986 and met at least three times with an intelligence officer posing as a diplomat.

    Corbyn says he never knowingly consorted with an East Bloc agent, but John Schindler, an intelligence expert, points out that only one year before the Labour politician was approached, Britain had expelled 25 Soviet “diplomats” who were really KGB officers “and the high-profile case got nonstop coverage in the British media.”

    For Corbyn not to have considered the possibility he might be meeting with a spy would have been incredibly naive.

    Moreover, Czech human rights abuses under communism were well-known even at the time. What was Corbyn thinking?

    Corbyn, I’m sure, will argue it’s important to hear both sides. That’s what he said when he was asked to defend inviting Hamas and Hezbollah representatives to London in 2009. Except he never invited or met with Israeli representatives, just as he didn’t seek meetings with American officials during the Cold War.

    Corbyn has a long history of instinctively siding with enemies of his country and the West, from Irish republican terrorists to Fidel Castro to Hugo Chávez to Muammar Gaddafi. Michael J. Totten wrote a good overview in The Atlantic last year. That’s what makes the Czech spy story, despite coming from the notoriously sensationalist The Sun, so believable. (more…)

  • Catalan Liberals Start Language War to Woo Conservatives

    Spain’s liberal Citizens party has proposed eliminating the Catalan language requirement for civil servants in the region.

    Catalan would be plus, but no longer a prerequisite for most jobs in the public sector.

    The idea is unlikely to go anywhere. Although the Citizens made their proposal in the Spanish Congress, which could attempt to overrule the separatist majority in the Catalan parliament, national parties would be foolish to aggravate relations with the province.

    So why bother? Because it’s another way for the Citizens to prove to voters in other parts of Spain that they are a national party now. (more…)

  • Still No Government in Catalonia, Shades of Fascism in America

    Catalonia’s independence parties are still struggling to form a government after narrowly defending their majority in the regional legislature in December.

    Together for Yes, the largest party, has requested a rules change to allow Carles Puigdemont to be sworn in as president from abroad.

    Puigdemont is wanted by Spanish authorities for organizing an independence referendum that had been ruled illegal by the Constitutional Court. He has lived in Belgium for the last three months.

    The Republican Left, whose leader, Oriol Junqueras, sits in prison awaiting trial, does not support the effort, fearing it is doomed to fail.

    Spain maintains that Puigdemont cannot resume his post so long as he is wanted for crimes against the state. (more…)

  • Summary of Recent Developments in Catalonia

    Plaça de Sant Jaume Barcelona Spain
    Early morning in Plaça de Sant Jaume, Barcelona, seat of the Catalan regional government (iStock)

    Here is what has happened in Catalonia since the separatists defended their majority in the regional legislature in December. (more…)

  • Catalonia in Common Rules Out Supporting Unionist Government

    Catalonia’s far left has ruled out supporting a regional government led by the pro-business and unionist Citizens party, making another separatist administration almost inevitable.

    Although the Citizens placed first in December’s election, winning 36 out of 135 seats, their gains came at the expense of other parties that want Catalonia to remain Spanish.

    The balance between separatists and unionists has barely changed: the former have seventy seats, the latter 57.

    The remaining eight seats went to Catalonia in Common, a left-wing alliance that includes the regional branch of Podemos. It rejects both independence and Spain’s suspension of Catalan home rule. (more…)

  • Tabarnia: A Separatist Parody That Gets Too Much Attention

    Barcelona flag
    Flag of Barcelona, Spain, September 17, 2013 (Fredrik Rubensson)

    Relatively low support for independence on Catalonia’s Mediterranean coast has caused some to wonder: why not split the cities of Barcelona and Tarragona from the rest of the region?

    Spanish media like 20 minutos, El Confidencial, El Mundo, El País, Libertad Digital and La Razón — eager to belittle Catalan nationalism — have given the tongue-in-cheek proposal, dubbed Tabarnia, disproportionate attention.

    So have Catalan unionists, including Inés Arrimadas, leader of the regional Citizens party, and Albert Rivera, her national party chief.

    It is not entirely without merit. Rural Catalonia is more separatist than cosmopolitan Barcelona and its suburbs.

    But a closer analysis of the most recent election results by the pro-independence outlet El Nacional reveals that the region is more evenly split than the unionists would care to admit. (more…)

  • Both Sides Claim Victory in Catalonia

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

    Both separatists and unionists are claiming victory in Catalonia after the election on Thursday gave a majority of the seats (seventy out of 135) but not the votes (47.5 percent) to the former.

    The view from abroad is that nobody won. (more…)