Spanish Army units (logistic troops for now) being sent to Catalonia.
Stay safe.
So, what’s interesting now is that the regional President, Carles Puigdemont, went and promised to unilaterally declare independence this weekend. So either he does, and faces up to 20 years in prison, or he doesn’t and the secessionist movement loses most of it’s fuel.
It really looks like he backed himself into a corner expecting some sort of olive branch from Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, but he wasn’t counting on Rajoy’s greatest weapon… doing nothing.
It promises to be an interesting week.
Yesterday, the aforementioned Puigdemont made a special announcement on TV. He didn’t announce plans to declare independence and called for talks.
Now, if history has told us something, once the bluff has failed, the Independence coalition is likely to cannibalize itself, blame it all on poor Puigdemont, and try and use the last week as some form of leverage for a better deal in the future.
Some crazy stuff can still happen, but at this point is unlikely.
I am Spanish, born and bred in La Mancha (the land of D. Quixote). I also lived for 5 years in Barcelona, attending college there. Learned fluent Catalan, and generally had a great time there. Now I live in the Netherlands. Watching all this from outside, my feelings and opinions are:
(1) I dislike how the politicians have dealt with all this, on both sides. I feel very strongly that all this mess could have been avoided and the problems been tackled years ago if only both sides had wanted to.
(2) I have the feeling, however, that this whole mess is very convenient for both sides, because it helps them as a distraction from the serious corruption allegations that both main parties involved in all this (CDC and PP) have hanging over their heads.
(3) If Puigdemont does not unilaterally declare independence, his political career is over. His partners in the Catalan government will eat him alive.
(4) It seems rather obvious to me that the Spanish government has acted with the permission of the EU and other important parties. The general attitude of the international community in all this would seem to indicate that. At least, that is my opinion.
(5) Related to the previous point, the Catalan government had been engaging (or so they said) for several years in a “diplomatic offensive” abroad to whip up support and sympathy for the Catalan independence project among foreign governments. It seems clear to me now that it has failed and that the Spanish government outmaneuvered them thoroughly (I have friends that fully expected foreign governments and international organizations to immediately censure the Spanish government after it arrested several Catalan politicians in the days before the referendum, and after the show of force on the day of the referendum itself - suffice to say, they were very disappointed).
(6) I can only hope that all this ends with some kind of agreement regarding the situation of Catalonia in the country. I have been a keen federalist my whole adult life and I wish things were different. Some of the best years of my life were spent in Barcelona, I love Catalonia and its people, and all this mess is very painful for me.
Question for Go_Arachnid_Laser: I have heard that Bank Sabadell and CaixaBank are moving their HQ out of Catalonia “just in case”… Is that true? (You can reply to me in a PM if you want)
Just my 2 Eurocent!
Moe or less. Sabadell is moving their main HQ, at least temporarily, to Alicante. Weirdly enough, Sabadell bought a lot of Valencian bank offices after the banking crash and they’re doing more business in Valencia than in Catalonia, so it’s probably a move they were already considering and the threat of Unilateral Independence just accelerated that.
CaixaBank is rumoured to move their HQ’s to Palma de Mallorca, waiting for Monday, when the alleged Unilateral Declaration is supposed to take place.
De cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme…
I am really worried about the current clusterfuck, and agree that this just seems pan y circo to distract the populace from other, bigger problems. Also I seriously hope that this doesn’t get violent. It just takes a spark.
Being neither Catalan nor Spanish, I don’t have a dog in this fight. But after watching the videos, and reading the comments of Rajoy and some other Spanish politicos, I’m astounded as too how they can describe police in riot gear beating the hell out of unarmed protestors, and firing rubber bullets into a crowd, as acting with “firmness and serenity”. Seriously? That’s some Putin-level thuggery, there.
Now, now… For it to be Putin-level thuggery there would have had to be deaths, and at least a few hundred people arrested and taken to jail…
Snarking aside, all this police action leaves a bad aftertaste in my mouth. However, it is becoming abundantly clear that the EU and the foreign powers are perfectly OK with this kind of stuff, because they value stability and the integrity of the state of Spain over other things.
Which, as an aside, I (and anybody else who has eyes and a reasonable amount of cynicism and skepticism about the level at which governments are “at the service of the people”, ha ha) would have been able to tell this to Puigdemont et al a long time ago, but well…
Which takes me again to something I said earlier: Both Rajoy and Puigdemont must be ecstatically happy with how things are going on, for this mess helps make people forget about the billions of euros CDC stole and stashed away in discreet bank accounts in Andorra, and about the myriad of corruption cases that haunted, haunt and will still haunt the PP for years to come.
Agh, this sucks, honestly.
Of course, the problem with the images of police force is that the main party behind the independence movement is the party formerly known as Convergence (there was a split when the leaders turned full on separatists, and had to change it to the Catalan Democratic Party. Long story.)
and Convergence weren’t peace-loving pacifists. In 2011, when the whole anti-capitalist protests were all the rage, they were in charge of the Catalan parliament… and sent the regional police to get rid of the protesters in Barcelona with similar brutality. A woman lost her eye. That’s why the use of rubber bullets is banned in Catalonia. Because the same guys that are complaining now sent the Mossos against peaceful protesters.
It’s all a ridiculous political song and dance. It’s two sides of con artists trying to out-con each other.
For a variable amount of N, that seems a sadly-accurate summation of the basic attitudes of too many people in The Spains, both politicians and otherwise. I know a few of those people who spend more time thinking of ways to cheat than of the cards in their hand, and none of them is in politics.
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Well they have done it. And if I was a betting man, I would bet on a nasty civil war. 
Or a N Ireland like Troubles.
You might well be right. Which, I’ve got to say, really surprises me. I wouldn’t have picked Spain as the next European country to have a civil war (my bets would have more been on Greece, Hungary, or other countries with serious ideological divides).
Yes, I had a perception that Spain was a pretty stable country, and that the Catalan independence was the kind of issue that would generate a lot of talk, protests, concessions, and the like, not a unilateral vote for independence. While I can’t predict exactly what’s going to happen, I am willing to predict that things are going to get very, very nasty on the Iberian peninsula.
There is another historical pattern for separatist activity in recent Spanish history. Unless someone can provide evidence that Catalonia will be able to organize and arm a standing military capable of participating in a no-kidding civil war, I think ETA is a more likely model.
As someone who lives here, I still say it would be incredibly surprising if it was either…
Then again, I guess there was people in Srebrenica saying the same right until the last second.
Excellent article on why it could become bloody, using Yugoslavia as an example.
I get the feeling of the game of “chicken.” Each side seems to be daring the other and assuming the other is bluffing as they puff out their chests.
If the police and other local agencies obey regional authorities and ignore central commands will the central government take the step of actually sending in troops? Or will they sit down and negotiate some compromise of increased autonomy short of independence?
No. So the current government is the Popular Party, mostly formed of right wing hardliners. All this chaos is actually good for them, it makes them look strong in front of the voters. They will push for the hardest possible solution: arresting the current Catalan ruling party (Together for Yes) even if it’s with the help of troops. and wait for them to get the harshest possible sentences for Sedition (up to 30 years)
Maybe, in the long road, eventually they will make a couple of concessions, but it won’t be until they look like the absolute victors of this mess. And it won’t be with this Catalan leadership.
But make no mistake, the Together for yes party are equally intransigent. And they are literally ruling by themselves thanks to a small Parliamentary majority without the rest of the Catalan Parliament. This is not a democracy, but a (slight) majority absolute rule. That’s incredibly undemocratic. In a Parliamentary Democracy the custom is that you need two thirds of Parliament to make any particularly relevant decision, and even then there’s plenty of legal safeguards. So they did a horrifying coup first.
Honestly, at least the Central Government will launch Regional Elections, something TxYes refused to do.
I am not. Europeans have been killing each other for 2000 years. In that timeframe, well there sometimes is some arrangement which keeps the peace for a while. The Concert of Europe did from Congress of Vienna to 1914 (mostly anyway). Uncle Sam’s heavy hand has done so from 1945. Thats now under some strain.
Rajoy, Puigdemont and others seem to forget that peace and stability are not inherent conditions nor is their continuance guaranteed no matter how long they have persisted. The require continuous work, negotiations, and compromises. War and disorder are never and should never be thought of as “unthinkable”.