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Catalonia Declares Independence; Spain Approves Central Takeover Of Region (npr.org)
Readers share a report: Lawmakers in Catalonia have declared independence from Spain in a historic vote that prompted protests and celebration. The government in Madrid, vowing to halt any would-be secession, has authorized the Spanish prime minister to take over direct rule of the previously semi-autonomous region. The vote in the Catalan Parliament comes nearly a month after the region held a referendum on independence, over Spain's objections. The regional president then declared his support for separation from Spain but also called for talks with Madrid, in an ambiguous speech. Spain's central government, promising to crack down harshly if the declaration was real, told the region's leaders to make up their mind: Yes or no? Independence or not? Now it's final: Independence, Catalonia said.
when Spain sends in the shocktroopers.
... and I'm not talking military protection. I don't think anyone is about to invade Catalonia (besides the Spanish). I'm talking about protecting citizen rights, protecting their economy, protecting their well being. There are certain economies of scale a country of Catalonia won't have on their side. It will be a lot more expensive to be independent. That extra money they spend in taxes to Spain will quickly be gobbled up by their new extra expenses.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
> I fully support the right of any region to decide who rules them
So to be clear, you believe the Union was wrong in the civil war?
That said, I think Catalonia is making a big mistake here. There is no way they will be better off without the protection of Spain and the European Union.
Protection from what? From countries that would take most of Catalonia's economic output and use it for themselves?
Or maybe you meant "protection" against police beating and arresting citizens for trying to vote.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sure, we all saw how well the EU "protection" worked in, e.g., Greece (or everywhere else).
We kind of have some experience with this in Canada... the problem will be the separatists who want full autonomy (fine) will not care if they drag non-separatists with them (not fine), and likely won't even respect the concept of parts of their region separating from them to stay with Spain (also not fine).
Spain kind of has a responsibility to the citizens of the region who DON'T want to go (even if there's only one of them, because they don't have a lot of responsibility for those who are at least technically traitors due to acts of sedition).
And if you magically get all that sorted out, there's still the endless bickering over how to divide up Spain - borders, debt share, citizenship rights, trade agreements, government pensions... every single item on the list (including bajillions of items I've likely overlooked) has the potential to bring the two sides to civil war.
Greece was rolling downhill straight into a manure pile regardless of the EU.
The EU can't magically fix entrenched internal problems.
The issue is that the EU will not likely accept Catalonia in to the EU. Spain will obviously try to block it, but other EU nations also don't like the precedent it could set by allowing a region to separate but still maintain ties to the EU.
Trade deals with other countries are far more likely.
Many of the driving forces involved were the same ones that started the Civil War in 1936. Just without the fascists this time.
While I generally support self determination for geographic regions the law in Spain does seem to make the declaration of independence illegal.
Could someone explain this one to me? So you support independence unless the mother country passes a law declaring it illegal lol. Not exactly difficult for the mother country to do that, is it? In fact almost all countries have laws against secession. The Scottish referendum was an oddity (and frankly I still don't know why Cameron even allowed it).
== Jez ==
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Existing EU member states can veto membership proposals for new countries, so there's no chance Catalonia would get in unless Spain withdrew. This won't even make it to that point though as Spain won't legally recognize the succession as it wasn't even close to legal and there aren't such an overwhelming majority of Catalonians who want to be independent to make a war possible.
The Articles of Secession disagree with you. Maybe the original authors should have consulted you first?
This is an excellent example of why to avoid and diffuse geographic income concentration. When a high concentration of wealthy workers are gathered into one region, they'll soon want to secede so that they can live in a country free of poor people. The super-rich have options like Monaco, St. Bart's, and ships like The World and Utopia, but wealthy workers can't afford these so they go for secession.
You see similar secessionist urges coming from Silicon Valley for the same reason. No word on what they plan to do with their large homeless population though, perhaps they'd make it a law of their new country that anyone below a certain net worth would be exiled? No word on who will clean the toilets etc. either. Maybe they'll have very loose immigrant labor policies so that people can commute across the border?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I fully support the right of any region to decide who rules them (if decided by fair and free referendum).
All members of my census block have voted unanimously to succeed from the country and immediately cease any and all tax payments to local and national taxing authorities.
Thanks for your support.
Duely noted- you shall receive a demand for $100,000 as your share of the national debt; plus several million in legal work to separate our two countries. Expect to produce a visa when reentering the country, failure to do so will be seen as an invasion- we shall retaliate by taking your land and putting you in a military prison. Because we have no trade agreement with you- you shall pay a major tariff on any goods you move between our two nations.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Apart from the fact that they were a nation of their own once, have a separate cultural identity and language that was suppressed via fascist dictatorship, your correct, it's just a group of rich people gathering together to screw the poor.
The problem is not the referendum or the result, it's the Spanish constitution.
We've been saying the same thing about the 2nd amendment for years. A constitution either needs to be fully upheld or amended by the decision of the entire people. Picking and choosing which parts to follow and when devalues the entire concept.
LMOL uh no Potsy. Goldman Sachs helped them big time.
That's downright silly. Goldman Sachs are no angels, but blaming them for the Greek crisis is similar to a bad craftsman blaming his tools. All Goldman Sachs did was enable multiple incompetent and dishonest Greek governments to screw all pooches they could get their paws on. It was not Goldman Sachs that was deciding Greek policy. It was consecutive Greek governments from all parties. They chose to cook the books, they enabled and enjoyed massive corruption, they stole and wasted money like it was going out of style. And it was the Greek people that cheerfully and repeatedly voted those characters in, because they liked the populist give-aways, and thought the rest of Europe has a duty to pay for their lifestyle. So, sorry, I'm not at all buying into the Greek victimhood narrative.
Greece had a golden opportunity to get loans at a very low interest rate, because lenders saw "Germany" on the EU credit card Greece was using. Had the Greeks had even a smidgen of vision, they'd have used this to invest, modernize their economy and infrastructure, increase their productivity. Instead, they wasted all the money on corruption, on give-aways, on the most inefficient and bloated public sector in the EU (jobs for the boys!), on the earliest retirement age in the EU, and so on. And when the brown and smelly hit the fan, what was the Greek reaction? Do you think any of them - politicians, or population, say "we fucked up, we need to fix it somehow"? No, they hurled insults at the EU and Germany, they demonstrated in the streets, they ran referendums trying to blackmail Europe into keeping paying for their undeservedly high quality of life. And I still don't see concerted effort to fix the problems - even now, five years or more after the beginning of the issues, Greece is still almost at the bottom of the EU countries in the Corruption Perception Index published by Transparency International; only Bulgaria scores worse.
The EU had no interest in helping Greece.
First, that's bull. The EU went overboard in helping Greece - they got hundreds of billions in bailouts and bank recapitalization, creditors were forced to accept "haircuts", and so on. Second, why would the EU prioritize Greece for help? If it's about helping the quality of life of the population, there are many other countries in the EU that make do with much less money than Greece. For example, the average Bulgarian's annual income is only about one third of the average Greek's. If anybody has a claim on European help, it's the poorest countries, not Greece.