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CATALONIA’S LEADER HAS vowed that a symbolic independence vote banned by the Spanish government will go ahead this Sunday, setting the stage for a constitutional conflict unprecedented in post-Franco Spain.
Defying the latest in a string of legal challenges by Madrid, regional president Artur Mas promised to defend Catalans’ “right to decide”, despite a ruling from Spain’s Constitutional Court a day earlier to suspend the planned vote.
“We have decided to carry on with this participative process,” Mas said. “All peoples have the right to decide their future.”
Sunday’s vote, which Mas insisted is not a “referendum”, will be organised by volunteers without an official electoral roll, but holding it in defiance of the court’s veto puts Mas on delicate ground.
Pushing on with the vote, after the court ordered it be suspended while it rules on an appeal by Madrid, will be seen as an act of civil disobedience, analysts say.
Proud of their distinct language and culture, and accounting for nearly a fifth of Spain’s economy, Catalonia’s 7.5 million inhabitants have increasingly demanded greater autonomy.
Catalonia formally adopted the status of a “nation” in a 2006 charter that increased its autonomy, but the Constitutional Court overruled that nationhood claim, fuelling pro-independence feeling.
Spain’s recent economic crisis has increased unemployment and hardship in the region and swelled its debts, but in 2012 Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy rejected Mas’s request for greater powers for Catalonia to tax and spend.
Catalans were fired up by the independence referendum in Scotland in September, even though voters there rejected a separation from Britain.
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I’m sure they won’t bottle it like Scotland did !
Not a hope. It will be a landslide.
No more Barca in la liga…?
No more Barca, period.
Because without the money that Barca pockets in ‘la Liga’, there would be no Barca.
I’m gonna assume English is your second language, and what you’re really tryna say is getting lost in translation. No entiendo :)
You sir are an idiot
Yer picture is upside down ya fool
Upsidedownhead !
I say free the people of Catalonia, at least they have the balls to go it alone unlike a certain neighbour .
We all know what’s up their man skirts don’t we , a big UK nappy held up with frilly Knickers…. :)
Viva le revolution
Spain is up the sh!tter if the Basque lads leave with them
Spain is up the sh!tter no matter who leaves or who stays, that’s a whole different story
Catalonians – Beware of Water Charges ! ..and the I.M.F. – Don’t let them in whatever you do !
This is such a load of nonsense. Catalonia voting for independence would make as much sense as Galway county voting for independence from the Republic. An unimaginable absurdity without ANY historical foundation. Catalonia has never been a country. If anything it would have been a separate entity from Castille, but still, part of the Kingdom of Aragon and not a country.
Yes, I know, the Irish love to think that any separatist movement out there in the world makes as much historical sense as their own. And as such they draw comparisons between the own Irish independence and the Basque nationalists (and terrorists) or the Catalan. And sure comment sections like this one thrive with ignoramuses and dreamers who hope to relive their own independence (of which they know very little to be honest, as if they had to face today the hardship and bloodshed that irish independence costed, I very much doubt they’d go for it).
Madrid won’t be listening? Are you effing kidding me? Of course they are listening. They are dying to see Artur Mas trying something funny and they will put his ass in jail.
I fully support Galway Independence !
Before Spain, Catalonia was part of the Kingdom of Aragon. Before Aragon, Catalonia was its own state. Your comparison with Galway is complete horse manure. The people of Galway consider themselves Irish and an integral part of Ireland. They have the same identity and culture as the rest of Ireland. Catalonia has, despite Spanish unionist persistence, a history as an independent state. They have a unique history, language and culture which Madrid, far too often, has tried to suppress. And now Madrid is basically telling Catalans that democracy is only good enough for Spanish people and that the Catalans are unfit for democracy.
Someone needs a Snickers.
Yes, I have no doubt *you*’d support it.
That would be *you’d*.
Catalonia is incomparable with Galway.
Catalonia was a county, not a kingdom.
Sorry, we have a Constitution in Spain, if Catalonia is to become an independent state, the constitution needs to be change, and this needs to be done democratically, by having all the people in Spain voting in a referendum to change the Constitution.
Any alternative would be considered a coup d’état.
Madrid is not trying to suppress Catalonia’s own culture. Catalonia has its own parliament, its own elections, its own institutions. Their language is officially recognised in the Constitution and it is taught in schools and used by the official institutions as the first language.
Catalonia was known as a county. It was still independent. Monaco is a principality, and not a kingdom. Would you dispute its independence? Luxembourg is a duchy and ruled by a duke. Would you dispute its independence? Catalonia, while not of the same prestige or status as, say, the Frankish Empire, was independent until the 12th century. Ireland, however, was never an independent political entity until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, and even then it only included 5/6 of the island. Catalonia is simply 100 years later, but with a stronger claim to having previously existed as an independent state than Ireland. If you want consistency, then you should refuse to recognise Ireland as an independent state as well as the independence of every state on the American continents.
No, it wouldn’t be a coup d’etat. A coup d’etat is when one group overthrows the government through non-democratic means. This is simply one region having a referendum on secession through democratic means. The government of Spain won’t change and the government of Catalonia won’t change. It doesn’t mean Catalonia will be independent. It means they will have officially declared their desire to be. Spain can then initiate a consultation process with the people and change the constitution to allow Catalonia secede. But we know that the Spanish people have a supremacist attitude towards minorities so that’ll hardly pass.
“the Spanish people have a supremacist attitude towards minorities”
Why are you singling out the Spanish people with such a comment? Democracy is about having a supremacist attitude towards minorities, it is precisely what defines a democracy, the rule of the majority.
It does not matter how many Catalonians want independence because IT IS NOT UP TO THEM TO VOTE IT. This is the law of the land. If Catalonia tries to go against the law of the land and overthrow the Spanish government (even if it is just in the region of Catalonia), that is a coup.
If all they are doing is a big poll, they can skip it. We all know there is a very strong independence sentiment in Catalonia.
I see you don’t know what the word “supremacist” is. You don’t know what “democracy” means. You don’t know what “coup d’etat” means. Is there any point in arguing with you when you don’t have a fluent command of English, you don’t know the history of Catalonia and you look down your nose at Catalans.
It is not a coup. Nothing will change because Spain won’t let it. How does that not compute? The same government will sit in Madrid governing the same country, including Catalonia. The same government will also sit in Barcelona governing the same Catalan territory, but this time with a mandate from the people to start negotiating with the central authorities in Madrid for a process for independence. Under no stretch of the imagination could you consider it a coup.
Oh I am not arguing, I’m just telling you. See, I am part of the Spanish majority, and you are just a nobody belonging to some weird minority in Ireland and I couldn’t care less what you say or think you have to say.
Catalunya was a separate ‘dukedom’ before merging with Aragon as a result of dynastic marriage.
Becoming part of Castile was an accident of genealogy, when the Aragon line died out due to lack of a son.
It is a coup because the Spanish government has power in the Catalonia region, removing such power would mean overthrowing the delegation of the Spanish government in the region.
You are talking just about this ‘referendum’ that is now just a big poll. I am going further to the point where the Catalan government actually declares itself independent from the Spanish one. You seem to be missing the point of the whole thing, which is to obtain independence.
Such independence cannot be negotiated by the Catalan government, it is a constitutional change and requires the people (democracy, remember, that thing I know not what it means) to vote on it.
Yup, there goes that supremacist attitude again. It would remind me of a form of racist fascism. At least I know the Spaniards would never be racist fascists and treat their minorities like dirt and, say, ban their languages, ban their use of indigenous names, etc. under the dictatorial rule of a fascist. Oh, wait! Oops! And now here you are looking down your nose at Catalans and saying they should not have the right to rule themselves.
What in the name of the FSM are you talking about. There is no such ban? There was, sure, so what.
But Spain has said they won’t allow the people to vote on constitutional change, so, again, showing your government’s disdain for democracy. Basically, because of what the majority in Madrid want, the people of Barcelona will never be allowed independence. They ask for a vote for independence. Madrid says no. They ask for a consultation process (rather than a referendum). Madrid says no. They ask for talks to discuss the situation. Madrid says no. They look for a democratic process to change the constitution. Madrid says no. Couple that attitude with mass discrimination and now I see exactly how ETA plagued Spain for so long.
There is no point calling for a referendum for something that would see zero support outside Catalonia.
There isn’t any point on such referendum, simply no point, we already know the result would be an overwhelming no to their independence.
I don’t particularly think that Spain has the democracy thing figured out (quite the contrary, our last constitutional change was not voted, and it brought quite the outrage in Spain, understandably). We have corruption everywhere, our justice system is a joke and yes, we have quite the unsolved issues with inequalities, minorities, our history being ignored and well, you could list things here forever. And I do believe some are improving while others are getting worse.
It is not ‘Madrid says no’ it is Spain says no, and that includes huge parts of Catalonia too, by the way. Is it that hard to understand? Is it undemocratic just because the majority don’t share your own views?
Funny, the feeling I got from a lot of people when I was living in Madrid was, if the Catalans want to be independent, let them vote on it.
I’ve been following Emilio’s comments and his English seems flawless to me. But hey, don’t let that stop flinging insults around just because the guy is debating very well with you ;-)
I hope Catalonia gets what it wants – it can’t do much worse than here, bankrupt in less than a century of running our own country.
Now in hoc to the tune of billions, with ongoing emigration, inept/mediocre politicians – and the real prospect of SF/IRA sharing power…
I hope so too, I’d love to see them as an independent state and outside the EU. I’d love to see how they get embargoed by the country with whom they do most trade with (Spain). I’d love to see all Catalans around the EU having to produce work permits and visas to stay in the many EU countries that they have emigrated to. I’d love to see the Spanish government issuing warnings that ‘Spanish passports with Catalonia addresses are invalid’.
I’d love to see a huge chunk of Catalonia’s businesses relocating back to Spain. I’d love to see the massive block of the Catalonian population that do not want such independence move back to Spain.
But more likely what we are going to see is that Artur Mas is bluffing, and this whole house of cards is going to fall apart within the next few weeks.
And that bitter and vile attitude, Emilio, is exactly why the Catalans want rid of Spain. You’re saying that if the Catalans don’t want to be governed by Catalan-hating Spaniards in Madrid that they should be plunged into poverty and treated as second class citizens. What a horrible person you are. It also shows that you do not respect democracy and believe that the Catalans are incapable of managing their own affairs, unlike the superior Spanish people
If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have told a completely different story. All my life I have supported their fight for self-determination, the expression of their culture and language.
Now they have just pissed off everyone and I am just outlining the consequences of their actions, they have been warned.
So you support their right to self-determination but you don’t believe they have a right to express that self-determination. Wow!
I *USED* to. Can you understand English? I don’t any more.
Well then you should have said “All my life I HAD supported…”
Ah well, if you just focus on my typos you can go and shag a sheep.
Jesus Emilio, you’re not pleading your case here well at all. No wonder the Catalans are looking for independence from people like you. Who warned the Catalans about their actions? You yourself? And I can’t see how they’ve done anything wrong, only look for freedom.
Freedom? You think this is about freedom? You are more deluded than I thought.
Yes freedom from ars*holes like yourself! Bitter Spaniards that hate the people in Catalonia anyway!
No, I didn’t point out a typo. I pointed out a grammatical error that completely changes the meaning of what you were saying. You should look up the meaning of typo.
Typos can change the meaning of a sentence (how is irrelevant). Considering that I started that line with a “If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have told a completely different story”, but you chose to ignore that bit and only focus on the one where a typo could have led to confusion, it makes me think you are just focusing on the typo.
Also, you have also commented that I don’t have full command of the English language. You can cut me some slack or not, that’s up to you. I couldn’t care less.
I don’t hate the people in Catalonia. I hate the morons that believe that Spain and Catalonia must be enemies. I hate the (mostly catalonian) politicians that have brought this about. And I hate specially the Spanish politicians that have let this happen because it has worked in their favour of dividing and polarising the electorate.
I supported their struggle when it made sense, today it does not. But sure, you keep imagining that Catalonia now is like Ireland under British rule.
You seem like a lovely person yourself, Brian, insulting someone because they don’t share your opinion. Way to debate.
“Catalans were fired up by the independence referendum in Scotland in September, even though voters there rejected a separation from Britain.”
How could Scotland separate from Britain when they live on the island of Britain. If they had become an independent country they would have separated from the U.K. surely but not Britain unless they got a really big saw and cut the island in half.
Emilio whilst I don’t agree with all you have to say, I am in agreement with your predicted dismal forecast if Catalonia were to become independent.
I’m Irish living in Scotland & voted a very definite NO to independence in the Scottish referendum. Scotland was doomed if it voted YES. Major banks & businesses were all ready to leave at the drop of a hat if a vote for independence was declared. Businesses had already lost so much at the prospect of independence that by midday on the day a NO vote was announced, 12.7 billion pounds was recovered on the stock exchange!
On a more personal level, I am an NHS employee & have just finally managed to afford a mortgage on a modest flat in Edinburgh. If a YES vote was declared, my husband would have lost his job here, we would have been at least £80k in negative equity overnight, we had no idea what currency we were going to use, we did know that Spain would have vetoed our entry to the EU & the list goes on.
I think it’s time people get over this perceived notion that ‘Scotland bottled it.’ If you squint a bit that may well seem to be the case but believe me, if you look at it with eyes wide open then anyone with anything to lose went to bed terrified on the night of the count that the YES campaign had lied their way to a majority vote & all for what? Scotland didn’t “bottle it.” The majority cast a cautious & well-informed vote. They looked at the unpredictable times we’re living in & all that could be gained from a united front.
You got scared simple . Scotland had a great chance you had the cash everything, they bluffed you into believing otherwise . They needed you more .
Give Spain back to the moors!
Nobody likes you Emilio so shush . :)
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