BREAKING: Catalonia Declares Independence

[Former President tack50]

Remember how 700 mayors said they were going to support the referendum and allow polling places in town hall owned sites? Well, they are now in trouble.

http://www.dw.com/en/spain-threatens-to-arrest-700-catalan-mayors-over-independence-vote/a-40491262

The Spanish courts and government has indicted those 700+ mayors under charges of illegal public spending, contempt of court and prevarication. If they refuse to go to court to declare, they will be arrested.

The far left CUP has already said that its 16 mayors will not attend the request and won't go to declare on court. So they'll probably be arrested if the courts follow through with the threat.

If found guilty of any of those 3 they would be barred from public office for a while. Depending on the exact ruling it would also imply either a fine or prision time (up to 8 years)

I personally find this to be going too far. It's like Rajoy and the courts deliberately want to create martyrs. It would be one thing if they arrested Puigdemont and his cabinet after a DUI, but arresting  mostly innocent mayors from mostly small towns?

This won't end up well

[Former President tack50]

Today the police arrested a dozen of high officials of the Catalan government, apparently the main organizers of the referendum. Also the police has been raiding printing companies and confiscated the ballots they found there. It's hard to see how the referendum could take place normally after all that.

Guardia Civil or Mossos d'Esquadra?

Guardia Civil. Though it was after an order from Catalan courts, not Spanish ones.

[Former President tack50]

Couldn't the Generalitat have organized this referendum simultaneously with the next Catalan regional election? In that case it would have been more difficult for Madrid to physically stop the voting from taking place.

In theory yeah, that was actually a possibility discussed, but I think they went against it in the end. I mean, just imagine the sh**tshow if the pro-independence side loses its majority while at the same time "yes" wins (unionists still won't vote)

[Former President tack50]

Obviously federal police destroying schools will convince those Catalans that they don't need independence.

I agree. Personally I think it should have been handled like 2014. Just allow the Catalan people to vote, say it's illegal and that's it.

My only theory as for why the government is asking this way is because there's some people asking for a harsher response. Yesterday there were many unionist protests all around Spain, and one of the slogans you could read on the signs was "Mr Rajoy, wake up and put order!". I guess if Rajoy went for a softer response he might lose votes to Cs (which would have adopted a harder position).

But it's still a stupid response. This is unsustainable.

Anyways, the current referendum is being a sh**tshow anyways. The vote counting system is down, 30% of polling places are closed, volunteers counting the votes, last minute changes to the rules, etc. It's only barely better than a North Korean election. I can't see how Catalonia declares independence based on that,

[Former President tack50]

You know things are going badly when even soccer is being affected. Barça has asked for today's match against UD Las Palmas (from the Canary Islands) to be suspended.

Also for some bizarre reason UD Las Palmas planned to play with a Spanish flag on their shirts

[Former President tack50]

Jeremy Corbyn has condemned the police violence: https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/914468254986448899

Belgium's PM has also done the same: https://twitter.com/CharlesMichel/status/914455311553040384

[Former President tack50]

Polling stations closed, now they are counting the votes. They closed slightly less 2 hours ago

[Former President tack50]

Official provisional results of the referendum:

Yes 2,020,144(90 %)
No 176,566(7,8 %)
Turnout: 2,262,464 (using the 2015 regional election as a benchmark, 41% turnout)

Some votes still to be counted, like 50 000 or so.

[Former President tack50]

Official provisional results of the referendum:

Yes 2,020,144(90 %)
No 176,566(7,8 %)
Turnout: 2,262,464 (using the 2015 regional election as a benchmark, 41% turnout)

Some votes still to be counted, like 50 000 or so.

If you take into account the ballots seized by the police, does the turnout rise to 50 percent?

Who knows?

According to the pro-independence side there were 700k ballots seized which would place turnout at 54% turnout or so. Others claim that had there been no police intervention turnout would have reached 55%. Of course unionists will claim that it's less, that the people whose ballots were seized voted elsewhere anyways or that there were tons of instances of people voting more than once.

[Former President tack50]

Will the Catalans now have another snap election as a de facto independence referendum?

Probably, I can't see the current government coalition lasting for more than a few months unless they actually declare independence.

[Former President tack50]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/03/europe/catalonia-general-strike-protests-barcelona/index.html

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King Felipe usually doesn't get involved in government affairs...so this is truly serious. We almost certainly will see troops marching into Catalonia should they declare independence.

Yeah this is extremely serious for the king to put a speech on national TV. IMO the speech was pretty lame and he didn't say anything he hadn't said before, but the fact that he made a speech is truly unprecedented.

Outside Christmas, only 3 speeches have ever happened before: during the 1981 coup, right after the Madrid bombings in 2004 and  when Juan Carlos resigned.

[Former President tack50]

Imagine if Canada has sent in the tanks during the Quebec 1995 referendum?

Well, was that referendum agreed with the federal government or unilateral? And most importantly of all, was it legal according to Canadian law?

[Former President tack50]

CUP seems to be angry at Puigdemont and are already calling him a "traitor". Early elections in Catalonia?

Well, if CUP out of all people end up fulfilling Cs dream I'll be surprised. JxSí indeed lacks a majority if CUP leaves the Catalan parliament (which they've said they'd do). Then again if they insist on dialog and the like maybe Podemos will support JxSí temporarily in exchange for more talks and no more unilateral actions?

[Former President tack50]

Can't Spain just give Catalonia Scotland like devolved powers within a united and indivisible Spain?

It already has, Catalonia has had a devolved government since 1980 or so. Of course, unlike in the UK (where England has no devolved powers except for London) in Spain everyone got a devolved government.

[Former President tack50]

Can't Spain just give Catalonia Scotland like devolved powers within a united and indivisible Spain?

They already have since the re-establishment of democracy in Spain. What they didnt have is more control over taxes that go to the central government because they get less in return than what they pay. But Rajoy has decided to work with PSOE to change it because he knows its the quickest way to lower support for Independence if he diffuses one and the main argument they have for independence.

The thing is that giving Catalonia fiscal autonomy would hurt the rest of the country quite a bit. Catalonia is the 2nd largest net contributor to the Spanish budget. If their contributions were lowered, poor regions would stop receiving development money from rich ones.

So poor communities like Andalucia or Extremadura are mostly opposed since they would receive less money or would even be eternally poor, losing any chances to develop if they stopped receiving money from richer places.

Then again, you could also argue that it's a cheap price to pay in exchange for Catalonia and the Basques (who would revolt if you removed their fiscal autonomy) to remain. Better to have them as loose communities than to lose them forever.

[Former President tack50]

https://in.reuters.com/article/spain-politics-catalonia/spain-plans-new-elections-in-catalonia-to-end-independence-bid-opposition-idINKBN1CP13Y

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Unless the Government in Madrid bans pro-independence parties, the situation will repeat itself in January.

To be fair there's a not insignificant chance of pro-independence parties falling short of a majority. Polls currently put them right at the edge of one. If they lost their majority you'd see them need to get an agreement with CQSP/CeC (basically Podemos's brand there), which while firmly in favour of a referendum, reject unilateral moves.

So depending on how much both sides want to compromise and what the Catalan government wants, that opens many possibilities, like ERC-CQSP-PSC, ERC-CQSP-CUP or ERC-CQSP-PDECat. Maybe even a minority ERC-CQSP government with PDECat and CUP abstaining.

But yeah, if pro-independence parties get a majority things will repeat themselves.

Also, funny how you mention banning secessionist parties, as the Catalan PP leader Xavier Garcia Albiol and other PP hardliners mentioned that possibility reciently:

http://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20171016/432123007829/xavier-garcia-albiol-prohibir-programas-electorales-independentistas-elecciones.html?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social

I don't think that happened though. Even banning Batasuna (which had ties to ETA) was already quite a stretch on the limits of what was constitutional apparently.

[Former President tack50]

Apparently the CUP is going to boycott the December election:

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/29/catalonia-independence-madrid-elections-rajoy

What?!? That's the stupidest thing the nationalists could possibly do in this situation.

To be fair it's CUP, they are the far left radicals. I expect the mainstream secessionists (PDECat and ERC) to run in the election.

[Former President tack50]

How about, as a compromise, a Principality of Catalonia in personal union with the Kingdom of Spain? They would share the monarch, the military and foreign policy but otherwise Catalonia would be independent. Would that be acceptable to either of the sides?

The Basque Country tried to go for something similar, and arguably less ambitious in the mid 00s and it failed spectacularly. Their plan was basically that, become a "free associated state", where Spain would control the military, foreign policy and not much else.

Their plan was rejected in the Spanish congress 23-313, with only nationalists voting in favour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibarretxe_Plan

And regardless, it was unconstitutional. An Ibarretxe Plan reboot would probably make no one happy. Spain becoming a federation, either symmetrical like the US or assymetrical like Russia (on paper) are commonly cited options though, but they are less ambitious and give the federal government slightly more powers than what you propose.

[Former President tack50]

Spain requested a european arrest warrant against Puigdemont.
Many are truly shocked by the decision to jail the whole government. The crisis continues...

As a foreigner I stayed away from gatherings of both side. Will go tonight for the first time.

They broke the law plus their leader fled to Brussels, i don't know how they would escape jail time, especially when there is a risk of escape of many former Catalonia government members.

To be fair, while I agree with the government going to prison (they didn't even reply to the judge with the exception of Santi Vila, who replied and as a result was allowed to leave under a 50 000€ bail), my main issue is that Spanish judges don't even seem consistent!

There were technically 2 parallel judges: one for the Catalan Government and one against the table of the Catalan Parliament (the one who decides what legislators will vote that day). They were both given less than 48h to prepare their defenses.

However, in the latter case the judge conceded 1 extra week to prepare a defense at the petition of the accused attorneys (although they were placed under cautionary measures like taking their passports), while on the former case (Catalan government) that petition was denied and they were sent to prison inmediately.

Now, it's not like 1 extra week free would matter that much but it would still make it look much better.

[Former President tack50]

Mr. Puigdemont himself: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/06/carles-puigdemont-catalonia-democracy-spain-catalans

I wonder what he plans next.

He has said that he has no problem with running again as PDECat's candidate if the party wants him to run. The other alternative seems Santi Vila, who wants the party to moderate, and advocates for basically copying Podemos' position of "referendum, but a legal one". But I Vila's candidacy won't go anywhere.

Also, this means that the 2 main secessionist canidates won't be able to campaign effectively. Puigdemont is in Brussels and Junqueras is in jail. In fact, they might not even be able to vote for themselves! (though I think that they will both be allowed to vote by mail)

[Former President tack50]

If the Catalonians really want independence, they need to negotiate for a referendum - not with Rajoy, but with the King. Let the King name his nephew, Felipe de Marichalar y Borbón, as “Prince of Catalonia,” if the referendum succeeds.

The king has literally 0 power whatsoever. So negotiating with him would be worthless. Plus, every time a Spanish king has meddled in politics he has been replaced by a Republic and/or overthrown in a coup

[Former President tack50]

Latest poll has pro-Spain parties getting a positive swing from 2015 to get to 52.8% of the vote versus 48.0% in 2015.  It seems CUP is taking a hit.  Seat wise it seems the pro-independence parties could still win a majority but most likely will fall short.  It does seem that the 2015 UDC vote is mostly not going to JuntsxCat which is what one would expect.

I must admit that the pro-independence parties are doing better then I would expect given what took place last few weeks. This does speak to the salience of the regional identity issue.

Worth noting that of the remnants of UDC, the largest made a deal to contest the election alongside PSC. Ramon Espadaler, a regional minister and the last secretary general of UDC is number 3 for Barcelona. So maybe they are going there.

[Former President tack50]

Even though I don't like him I have to admit, Puigdemont does know a lot of languages (Spanish and Catalan obviously, but also French and English). He seems to be very good with languages, I wouldn't be surprised if he picked up decent German in 2 years or so.

Meanwhile, the Spanish PM... yeah, nothing. Not even Galician! (no Spanish PM has ever spoken a foreign language in fact, though Aznar did learn English after he left)

Also, a Spanish radio host, Federico Jimenez Losantos, has made some headlines because he said that "we have 200 000 German hostages in the Balearic Islands" and that "pubs can explode in Bavaria".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWZrs3_oSss (Spanish with English subtitles)

If anyone knows Spanish here's the full program (which lasts for several hours): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQw8robQ3Tg

Now, he isn't really representative of Spain, or even of the Spanish right, but this kind of rethoric is still very worrying.

[Former President tack50]

Even though I don't like him I have to admit, Puigdemont does know a lot of languages (Spanish and Catalan obviously, but also French and English). He seems to be very good with languages, I wouldn't be surprised if he picked up decent German in 2 years or so.

Meanwhile, the Spanish PM... yeah, nothing. Not even Galician! (no Spanish PM has ever spoken a foreign language in fact, though Aznar did learn English after he left)

Pedro Sánchez must be the first Spanish PM in the present democratic period who is fluent in English. Sánchez co-religionist Juan Negrin,  who led the Spanish Republican government during the Civil War, is probably the most multilingual of all. Negrin was able to speak German (he studied medicine at Kiel and Leipzig universities), French, English,  Italian and Russian... and apparently he was studying Chinese during his final years in exile (Negrin died in Paris). I am certain that Sánchez is more skilled than Puigdemont in the Shakespeare's tongue, but the Catalan politician also speaks some French...

Yes, that is all correct. Negrin's language skills are very impressive indeed being fluent in so many languages; especially by 1930s standards.

I have heard some rumours that short lived PM Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo was fluent in French but I have never been able to confirm them. Other than him I believe Sanchez is the only PM to speak a foreign language fluently, though I do expect Spanish PMs to be fluent in English as the norm from now on