Catalonia and the European Union

The Spanish state, with the specific endorsement of the King, has made very heavy weather of the ongoing attempt by a bunch of Catalan nationalists to set up an independent state. These Nationalists have achieved a majority in the regional parliament; but there is no reason for an external observer to believe that there would be a majority vote of eligible electors in Catalonia in favour of full international statehood if a full and fair referendum was held. Many Catalans are dubious about the prospect; many other Spaniards live within Catalonia who value to unity of the state, and many non-Spanish EU citizens may have voting rights.

The regional government was crazy to hold a 'referendum' that the central government simply had to declare illegal and disrupt. The very heavy-handed methods used by some police will affect the debate for months to come, and will scar some people for life [and some of them will pass on visceral hatred of 'Madrid' to future generations].

It appears that up to a quarter of the population did manage to fill in ballot forms - the exact number will never be known - and the regional authorities announced that 90% of the votes they have received were in favour of a split. Thus they claim that they will declare 'independence' within a few days; and bring their region under Spanish martial law. A few individuals will leap onto a bandwagon from being demonstrators to seeking 'martyrdom', mostly by getting themselves imprisoned but some  may put themselves at risk of being killed, either in skirmishes or by committing terrorist offences which could be subject to the death penalty.

The exclusive responsibility for bringing the situation to such a crisis point lies on the regional government. It has no evidence that even a narrow majority of the population wants this high level of confrontation; even if they do resent the net payment that is extracted from their taxes to support the less-affluent areas of a large and complex country. The regional hotheads have mistaken a populist fad for a massive and well-founded 'national' consensus of the Catalans: and in so doing have set back the negotiation of a well-justified extension of their region's autonomy for a generation.

While individual politicians all over the EU have expressed regret at the heavy approach from Madrid, the EU institutions have been united in support of the central government, which is the member of the Union. There are far too many minorities, all over Europe, who would claim various degrees of separation - ranging from autonomous status to full sovereignty and EU membership - or their allegedly separate status. Hence the Union shrugs off such disruptive aspirations, and [in the way of all bureaucracies] discounts the claims of populist 'nationalism'. Left over from the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, a couple of million 'ethnic Hungarians' live in Slovakia, Romania and Ukraine. Slovakia grants minority rights to the Hungarian language and to Hungarians, but takes careful steps constantly to adjust county boundaries so that none of then ever shows a majority Hungarian population that could then opt for secession [notionally taking their Slovak minority into an alien state]. Left over from Stalin's ruthless realignment of frontiers and populations in 1944-8 are at least twenty million German descendants of the expelled populations of East Prussia, eastern Pomerania, Danzig, Sliesia, the Saxon settlements of Transylvania, Sudetenland and many more areas that were ethnically cleared.

Bundled into a single country as Belgium, Netherlandish-speaking Catholics were allocated with French-speaking Walloons and given a foreign king to 'unite' them: a bizarre settlement that just about works, but is repeatedly threatened. Two small German-speaking areas were allocated to Belgium by the Versailles Treaty, and remain within the state with local linguistic exceptionalism. It is now a strange thought that most of Napoleon's 'French' subjects did not speak Ille-de-France French, but used a whole host of regional languages; many of which are related to what is spoken in other territories under different governments, as was his own native Corsican patois. A rigorous policy of enforced use of French was imposed through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: most notably on the Germans of Alsace and Lorriane between the two world wars. Several regions of Italy are home to vissiparous movements; and there is no clear linguistic frontier of demarcation between Poland and Belorussia or Ukraine. Latvia and [to a lesser extent] Lithuania and Estonia have an uneasy endowment of Russian-speakers whose families were settled there by Stalin.

Ireland is providing a serious sticking-point in the Brexit negotiations. Brittany and Cornwall have minorities who cherish a fondly romantic view of their common separateness from the states in which they subsist. Hundreds of thousands of Austrians were given Italian first names by decree in the South Tyrol when it was ceded to Italy as a shabby reward for its belated entry into the First World War on the winning side. Greece still prevents the statelet of Macedonia from using that name because it has its own province of Macedonia, complete with a suppressed Slav minority population.

In the ignoble but undoubtedly aristocratic tradition of Metternich, the EU simply prefers not to know about these nationalist issues. In the high-level scenario building around Brexit, some ScotNats though that there was a chance that a suddenly-independent Scotland could retain the UK's membership of the EU. The fact that there has been a decline in support for independence since the referendum on that subject opted for retention of the UK made a snap referendum too risky; and EU sources made it clear that a post-Brexit breakaway Scotland would have to go to be back of the queue for EU membership applications.

Spain has now been brought to the brink of a massive and wholly unnecessary confrontation, by a minority of a minority who are trying to impose a new constitutional order on a putative statelet. They are more appallingly ignorant even than they are overwhelmed by ambition. It will be tragic when people start getting hurt as a result of their irrational ambition.

Crisis and Perspective

Without moving from my desk in 114 Batovce I can look down the village green past the baker's shop and the news kiosk to the church, surrounded by red tiled roofs; and beyond to the hills that mark the northern limit of the Danube Plain. In a short walk I can see the manifold evidence of an improved standard of life in the EU, NATO and [latterly] the eurozone: we have improved roads, restored buildings, an up-to-date supermarket and a useful general store that occupies the old Co-op premises. The veg man still sets up his stall three times a week, good local wine is between two and three euros a bottle and a half-litre of excellent beer in the pub costs less than one euro. We have an excellent local administration, led by a sensitive and intelligent Mayor. Economic growth is strong; and while unemployment is rising jobs are still being created in modern factories in the major cities.
Slovakia was emerging from the mire of communism - and still outside the European Union - when lying became institutionalised among the EU insiders; most obviously in the late 'eighties in the matter of the ERM [exchange rate mechanism], the scheme under which the currencies of member states were meant to 'converge' as a first step towards creating a common currency. If the exchange rate of any member currency moved to more than 2.5% above or below the average value of all the member currencies, the central bank and the government of that country had to take the necessary measures to bring the exchange rate back into conformity with the rules. There was a huge amount of fudging of figures: so although the range between the most divergent country above the average and the most divergent below the average was supposed to be a maximum of 5%, much higher diversion was tacitly tolerated. Not even that fudge could accommodate Italy, so the Italians were allowed a special range up to 7.5%: making the 'official' maximum divergeance between the lira and the currency furthest from it in strength 10%. Britain was a Johnny-come-lately into the system, tried to keep the rules with gold-plated rigidity, almost bankrupted the Bank of England in the process, and withdrew in ignomony in 1992.
The core EU countries then proceeded to create the common currency, the euro, on the understanding that the 'weaker bretheren' might not always be efficient in action or honest in their reporting of it. Member governments retained their power over taxation and spending policy, which they were supposed to exercise in accordance with the 'Growth and Stability Pact' so that the economic policies of the eurozone might converge and make the currency viable. Among the first to breach the Pact were France and Germany; and thereafter hypocrisy was institutionalised alongside making false returns and empty promises.
New members continued to join the euro, presumably hoping that there was enough validity in what was said in support of the system by the leaders of the major EU member states; and Slovakia was admitted on January 1, 2009.
Now the Slovaks have become pretty well aware of the rotten state of the EU. They presented the lowest turnout of any member state in the latest European Parliament election, and their parliament has hesitated to agree to any bail-out for profligate medacious south Europeans: they may still decide to stop any drain of their resources into the black hole created by the debts of the 'pigs' [Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain]. They are probably prepared to surrender more economic sovereignty to a strong and honestly-run eurozone [one national magasine a couple of weeks ago had a front cover asking 'IS THIS THE END OF SLOVAKIA?' as a sovereign state]; but that is a far cry from continuing to accept the pack of lies on which the currency was originally floated.
David Cameron is free to demand 'action' from the euro-states: but following the news from a village in one of the healthier member economies one becames aware of the seriousness of the issues that have to be resolved before the longer term future of the euro can be defined. On the same day [22/9/11], Cameron told the United Nations that they had a duty to oppose oppressive regimes that attacked their own people; and failed to mention Zimbabwe. That is the same sort of selective blindness as that which enabled European politicians and Brussels eurorats to con seventeen nations into accepting the euro: so, as usual, we have the pot describing the kettle as smoke-tarmished.