compromise instead of strife?

Only mildly encouraged that Carles Puigdemont has not yet taken the catastrophic step of declaring unilateral independence. He would have nobody outside Catalunya on his side. Not in the EU and not outside.

Negotiation is necessary. Independence is a matter of function, practicality, not nationalism for its own sake? Surely not in this age!?!? Madrid has to row back on the foolish decision in 2010 to no longer consider Catalunya a 'nation' within the Spanish family. This can be done. Catalans should be given as much autonomy as they want, though it is hard to see what could be more than they already have.

The Spanish model since 1978 has almost been a template for what the EU could be - flags within flags (see previous post) - and should be elaborated not deconstructed. The British have given Europe a terrible example and are not so far learning much of a lesson. Madrid must open its ears to all that Barcelona says, but in the end should come together. Keep those three flags flying under one roof.

Flags within flags: the Catalonia question

As I sit looking out at the blue waters of the Mediterranean three flags fly outside the window: the green-white-green of Andalucia, the red-yellow-red of Spain and the blue and gold of the European Union. It is like a heraldic equivalent of a Russian matryoshka doll, each one representing an entity that is subsumed in the next. 

Yesterday’s unnecessary referendum in Catalonia and the ridiculously heavy-handed reaction by Spanish authorities was the equivalent of taking an axe to a matryoshka to find out what lies inside. Yes, people have the right to vote on who should rule them, but when those who rule them want to gain greater power, greater status for their own egos, at the risk of social and ecnomic stability, the motives of their regional rulers should be called into question.

The European Union, - despite what its detractors will tell you - has been the greatest success storsy in our continents turbulent history in creating peace and prosperity. Not without its problems, but none of them have been tackled by the traditional European way: bloody warfare. It is devoutly to be hoped that the events in Catalonia yesterday are not the first indications of a return to form.

Spain is a federal country, its regions with huge degrees of autonomous power and responsibility. The current Catalan authorities seem tempted to make a grab for more power, and by so doing abandoning their responsibility.

An ‘indpendent’ Catalonia might be a matter of local pride, but not practicality. Vaingloriious at best. Would it leave the EU? No, its proponents declare. Could Spain veto it joining? Yes, of course, any nation can. Would it? Probably not, in the end. 

But what on Earth is the point??? The proponents of Brexit in the supposedly United Kingdom (Watch that space especially if Catalonia does secede from Spain) believe they can strike deals around the world, but really they are hankering after an irrevocably lost empire. 

It may well be, and it may even be desirable, that the day of the nation-state is over, particularlly those which like the UK and Spain are cobbled together composites. But if so, it should not occur through the creation of smaller and would-be more ethnically homogeneous mini-nations; that is a fast track to the past, not the future. 

The EU was and has always been the only way, the matryoshka metaphor the only sane possibility: yes, I can be Scottish and British and European, yes I can be Catalan and Spanish and European. There comes a time when cutting out the middle man isn’t always the answer

Catlunya? Catalonia? How about Europe?

Catalonia/Catalunya - Europa

What is happening in Catalonia today (Catalunya if you prefer - importantly both are allowed and used in both the proviince itself and the rest of Spain) is an accident that was waiting to happend, but didn’t need to. And hs been badly mishandled by both sides.

The independence movement has been simmering for years, like that in Scotland. But it success, its ability to command a majority has never been secure. Catalunya underwent terrible repression in the Franco years, but so did most of Spain. The Basque country - Euskadi - was a particular victim suffering more than perhaps of what is a remarkably diverse country in which the regions today have more devolved powers than any other country in Europe, followed closely by Germany and a greater distance the United Kingdom.

There are many to fault for this fractious referendum which is, as the government in Madrid insists, illegal as it has no basis in the constitution of 1978, which finally buried the Franco dictatorship. The problem is that that constitution also requires a majority of the ‘autonomies’ - which is significantly how Spain’s provinces are referred to, and reflects how they are governed - to agree to one being held.

But referenda are not - as widely imagined - tools of democracy, they are tools of popularism, of mob rule, as 48% of the UK population whose opinion is being flagrantly ignored by the government have experienced to their cost. Fifty plus one is no way to run a country, no way to make decisions that affect millions, not if you expect the aftermath to be pleasant.

The national government in Madrid made a mistake when it barred a law giving the regional government in Barcelona more autonomy. If you opt for an autonopmous regional system, there can be few reasons not to extend it to a logical maximum. In the UK Westminster is discovering this and will discover it further as the absurdly seized powers for government to change law ‘repatriated’ - a foolish term - from the EU to be amended at ministerial will without recourse to the elected parliament (so much for ‘sovereignty’). 

But the pro-independence politicians in Barcelona are the worst sort of opposition: neo-nationalists, borrowing traits from both the Scottish Independence Party and Britain's right wing xenophobic UKIP. What has Catalunya to gain from independence that it cannot with a little negotiations achieve within the Spanish envelope? Little, if anything. The autonomies in Spain set nearly all of their own laws, including control of their own regional police forces, with their own uniforms and the right to use their own languages. Euskadi has been a remarkable example of this, to the extent that the decades-long terrorist campaign has been dropped, in recognition of the success of the peace process in Ireland.

That, sadly, may now be threatend by Brexit, not deliberately (the English only pay attention to the Irish question when bombs explode in their cities) but accidentally. And for the very reason mentioned in the parenthesis above. 

It would be a terrible shame to see Cataunya go the same way. They have the right to their own flag, their own language and to a large extent their own economy. It is far from impossible - as the nationalists throughout Europe fear - that an eventual result of European integration could indeed be a ‘Europe of the Regions’ and the concept of the nation-state wither on the vine. But it is far from certain, and at present what Europe needs is not divisiveness, which too often only is an aid to advance the egotistic careers of certain politicians, but common sense and calm. Wave whatever flag you must, but for now the blue and gold EU banner is the safest. 

Juncker tells it like it is: the EU 27 will not be divided.

Theresa May is in Tallinn, David Davis touring Benelux. There is a terrible failure in the ranks of possibly the worst British government in history to believe that secretly the other European nations believe the same as they do: that the EU is an awkward joke and that nation-states are really all that matters. It is as if the UK has had its eyes closed for more than 40 years and its Europhobic press have been allowed to rant on about 'dictatorship' which in their eyes, and those of the politicians, seems to mean anything they can't totally control.

The rumour that Davis thought it would be possible, the day after the referendum, to fly to Berlin and do a 'deal' with Germany, if true, only reveals how little rudimentary understanding he had of the European ideal. Obviously he never had any sympathy.

The idea that 'they need us more than we need them' was always based on the concept of British exceptionalism, which suggested that other countries in the end always recognise that 'Britain is right', even when it's wrong.

Its greatest manifestation was in the frequent Brexiteer mantra 'the Germans will still want to sell us their cars'. They will, But the cutting point is that the British will still want to buy them, and will buy them. Nobody is talking about trade sanctions. The difference is that they will be a lot more expensive. I remember bringing a VW Golf from the factory at Wolfsburg in 1985, pleased with the price until the WTO tariff of 10% cut in a year later. Then, as usual, the £ collapsed against what was then the DM, and at the prospect of future cheap cars vanished. But I still bought them.

The Single Market ended all that, and if Britain had had the gumption and bravery to join the € we would have had price stability even today. Brexiteers will be rolling their eyeballs and prattling on about Greece and Spain. But Greece has learnt a lesson from the €: you can't spend money you don't have. A lot of the British public, neck high in hock to their credit card issuers and banks, would do well to learn the same. Yes, it hurts, but if you get it right in the end, the pain was worth it.

Meanwhile Spanish GDP is soaring, and unemployment is falling (at last, admittedly). To my deep regret, I fear Britain is incapable of learning any lessons from Europe, because the belief that it knows best is built into the national psyche. The hope that the USA, which has for decades regarded the UK as little more than a pawn to be kept in the back pocket in case reinforcements in a war were needed, has already proved otherwise with Donald Trump's economic warfare against Bombardier, which could yet have unimaginable results in damaging the economy in Northern Ireland, where a lot more is at stake.... but that is a topic for another day.

commoneuropeanhome: Rebirth

commoneuropeanhome: Rebirth: After two years of intermittent dormancy depressed by UK's ill thought out Brexit referendum and its still looming tragic consequences, this blog is at last coming back to life with my own attempts to make sense of what Europe's future entails, as far from possible (which probably his nowhere near far enough) from the aims of ambitious and self-centred national politicians.