By Muriel Pilkington. The Local Voice
The Catalans were on the march again last Saturday to protest the Constitutional Court’s rulings on the proposed reforms to the region’s Statute which regulates the degree of decentralization from the central government in Madrid. In fact, the Court left 95% of the proposed reforms untouched but it was the ones that it overruled which sent the Catalans out into the streets. Most of the 14 reforms that the Court refused to accept form the very core of the Catalans’ bid for eventual independence from Spain.
In the new Statute, Catalonia wants to be recognised as a nation with national symbols and historical rights, on an equal footing with the central government, with the Spanish language relegated to a second place or removed altogether in education, the regional parliament and all official publications. It also wants an independent system of justice.
The Constitutional Court ruled that there is only one “nation” - that is, Spain - and that Catalan symbols can only be used in an ideological, historical or cultural sense but not in a legal-constitutional sense. The Court ruled that the Catalan regional government, or Generalitat, cannot be on an equal footing with the State, which is superior to all the regional governments. It also stated that the Catalan government cannot impart education “only and exclusively in one of the region’s two co-official languages” (Spanish and Catalan) and is “constitutionally obliged” to recognise both as a means to impart information. It also ruled that the administration of justice cannot be decentralised because the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) is the only State judiciary body.
All the political parties in Catalonia took part in last Saturday’s protest march, except the Partido Popular (PP) which took the proposed reforms to the Constitutional Court in the first place. The Catalans claim they only want more autonomy from Madrid but the PP maintains that the reforms would effectively make the region independent. Only the Basques have a similar level of decentralization from Madrid, probably because they, like the Catalans, have been screaming for independence for many decades, even centuries.
And the Catalans may have a point. Being on the Mediterranean coast, Catalonia was occupied by the Greeks, the Romans, and the Visigoths before being overrun by the Moors, just like most other parts of Spain. After the Moors were forced to retreat in 795 the French king Charlemagne created a buffer zone of small kingdoms on the south side of the Pyrenees, of which Catalonia was one. It was ruled by the Counts of Barcelona appointed by the French rulers until 989, when the then Count declared independence from France. In 1137, another Count married the Queen of Aragon, establishing a dynasty which lasted until Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabel of Castille.
The so-called Catholic Monarchs went on to unite Spain in 1492 and Catalonia became part of the new nation. The Catalans made two attempts to regain their independence. The first revolt in 1640 was quelled. Then the Catalans made the mistake of opposing the Bourbon dynasty during the War of the Spanish Succession. The Bourbons won and Philip V completely subjugated the region in 1714. Catalan separatism re-emerged in the 1850s, and by 1913 Catalonia had won a slight degree of home rule, which was repealed by the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera in 1925. In September 1932, under the Second Republican government the statute of autonomy for Catalonia became law.
However, Franco abolished it in 1939 and banned all manifestations of Catalan nationalism, including the language. After Franco’s death, the first democratically-elected government of Adolfo Suarez granted limited autonomy to Catalonia in September 1977, and the region gained full autonomy in 1979 with the establishment of the autonomous community of Catalonia.
Under the current Constitution, the Madrid government can authorise regional governments to hold referendums but has consistently refused to allow the Catalans and the Basques to hold one on independence. But it is the only way out of this impasse. Over the years, opinion polls have shown a majority in both regions want more autonomy but stop short of outright independence. The Basques and the Catalans should be allowed to vote on independence after having the consequences honestly explained to them, and the nationalist parties pushing for independence must swear to accept the result – as happened in Quebec a few years back.
Some five years ago, the Basque Nationalist Party proposed “independence in free association with Spain” in an effort to get round the drawbacks but nobody in Catalonia has ever spelled out the ramifications of independence there. I’m sure that as soon as the Catalans realise that an independent Catalonia would have to set up its own Football Federation, isolating Barça from the rest of Spain, they would vote massively against the idea. After all, it’s the eternal rivalry between Real Madrid and Barça that makes football here so interesting. As a Real Madrid supporter, I’m rooting for Catalan independence and good riddance to Barça!
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