Spanish
life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
-
Christopher Howse: A
Pilgrim in Spain.
Life
in Spain
- Cataluña 1: So, Spain's Constitutional Court - which can act remarkably quickly when presssed - has banned the meeting of the Catalan parliament set for next Monday. That's going to work well, isn't it? This court, by the way, seems to always hand down judgments which suit the president of the day. Funny, that.
- Cataluña 2: At the end for this post is another excellent piece from Ambrose Evans Pritchard. I've refrained from my customary highlighting as I'd have to do it for the whole article.
- Cataluña 3: Even before I'd read AEP's article I'd observed – to myself – that it would all depend on finance/money/cash. It really isn't necessary to send in an army, unless you want to show how tough (and stupid) you are. The Spanish government, backed by the EU, the ECB can surely cut this off the cash, forcing the Catalan government to 'see sense'. Capital flight would undermine the government completely. Though the corrupt politicians there already have their loot banked in Andorra and other EU states, of course. Early steps in this process? - 1. Standard & Poor’s today put Catalonia’s credit rating — at B+/B, it’s already deep into junk — on review for a downgrade of one notch or more, “If we believed that escalating political tensions between Catalonia’s government and Spain’s central government could put in question the full and timely refinancing of Catalonia’s short-term debt instruments or undermine the effectiveness of the central government’s financial support to Catalonia.” 2. People in Catalonia are already moving their money. While some of the wealthiest are shifting their funds out of Spain altogether, most people are moving their money from their bank branch in Catalonia to a branch somewhere else in Spain. The money stays within the same financial institution, which even in the case of Caixabank and Sabadell is registered in Spain. As such, the money is moving around but most of it’s not actually leaving the system.
- Cataluña 4: It's scarcely credible to read that: The Rajoy administration dispatched two military convoys to Barcelona today to beef up its coercive capabilities in the city as well as provide logistic support to the Civil Guard and National Police based there. Is the man really as inept as he's long seemed? Has he no awareness of how things are perceived by decision-makers outside Spain? Does he think Spain can prosper without their endorsement and support? One fears so.
- Cataluña 6: And here's quite the daftest comment I've read so far, from a pious Catholic who's tempted to see everything in terms of his religion:- It might there be some (even if slightly[!] tangential) relation between the current Catalan crisis and the later Pontevedra apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima to Sister Lucia in the late 1920s? People often forget that Fatima apparitions, albeit in a private capacity, occurred in Spain. Indeed I believe it was in Pontevedra that according to them testimony of Sister Lucia, Our Lady explicitly called for the Pope and Bishops to consecrate Russia in unison. She also asked people to pray for "Russia, Spain, Portugal, Europe and the world", in that order. The current Prime Minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, grew up in Pontevedra and was its council president after the fall of Franco. The centennial anniversary of the miracle of the Sun will be on October 13. The projected unilateral declaration of independence by the Catalans is slated to take place around the same time. If this happens, the Spanish government may revoke Catalan Parliament and impose direct rule - which in turn could lead to violence either way. Regardless, the optics of the Miracle of the Sun took place over the Iberian peninsula and on its anniversary the Iberian peninsula may be about to lapse into chaos if urgent external mediation is not initiated.
- Cataluña 7: I have to admit to being very touched by the article/open letter I've appended below, from Laura Moreno de Lara
Spain:
I haven't mentioned this subject for quite a while. So, here's
something from the BBC, with a HT to Lenox of BusinessOver Tapas, on Corruption
– A subject which is receiving little attention in Spain - thanks,
perhaps, to the Catalonia crisis. The noise of which drowns out the
issue that has caused the greatest public concern in Catalonia and
the rest of Spain and which stains the parties that lead the two
governments bent on a collision course.
The
EU: Someone
has rightly bemoaned the lack of common sense on the part of Spain's
politicians. And it's true that politicians do sometimes display a
capacity for this, especially when times are troubled and the
situation desperate. The same can't be said for bureaucrats and
technocrats, who rarely – if ever – display the capacity for
common sense. And who are the people responsible for the creation and
progression of the EU project? Reviewing Brussels' decisions over
many years, can one really accuse the EU's grandes
legumes
of a surfeit of common sense? Something which, ironically, the
commercially-oriented Catalans are said to possess – sens
– more than other Spaniards. But it's currently conspicuous by its
absence there, at least among the politicians. BTW . . . WTF does
Ever
closer union
mean? That the EU project won't be finished until the end of time?
Infinity??
The USA: Back in
mid summer, Secretary of State, Rex
Tillerson, is said to have been close
to resigning and called Donald Trump a
moron. So, not everyone in the
administration is mad and/or incompetent. I'm sure the tissue-skinned
President will get this revenge one day, even if he needs Tillerson
right now. Seems a bit harsh on morons, though.
Galicia: Don't
run away with the idea that only the Catalans and the Basques wish to
unhook themselves from Spain. Improve your Gallego by reading this:
I enjoy reading the
Most Read lists in all the right and left-wing
papers I dip into. Today's Guardian has this as the second
most perused article: Che Guevara's legacy still contentious 50
years after his death in Bolivia. All those ex-hippies, Trots and
fellow-travellers, I guess.
Having travelled to the UK and back at least once a year for 17
years, I can say hand-on-heart that Brittany Ferries is one of the
better companies to deal with. Easily irritated as I might be, I
still can't recall any cause for complaint during any of these trips.
But I do think they might have a better loyalty scheme for folk like
me. Last time I looked, you really had to travel twice a year to get
any benefit, though I should look again. En passant, not their
fault but I woke up in the early hours of yesterday to find myself
rather cold. When I got up, I realised that the eskimos who'd had the
cabin before me had turned the thermostat down to sub-zero. It takes
all sorts. Reprise: 1. The
'Internet at Sea' was crap when I was on this boat – Pont-Aven
– back in February. And it wasn't much better this time. 2. The
cabins, despite being understandably tiny, cost more than a room in a
4 star hotel. Captive customer base, of course. Just part of the
price. Oh, and 3. Absolutely every dish and utensil is plastic . . .
Finally . . . Here's probably the most accurate sign in the entire world:-
Especially true if you get stopped and asked why you are visiting the UK from Spain etc., etc.
ARTICLE 1
By
Laura Moreno de Lara
‘No, honey,
you're not a Spaniard. To be Spanish is not to wave the flag, nor to
scream like a bore phrases of hatred that I hope you do not feel. Nor
is it to put a wristband on your wrist, or sing 'Cara al Sol' (the
fascist anthem). The concept of being Spanish is something totally
different, or at least should be, because at this point, I do not
know what else to tell you.
As a Spaniard, I’ll
tell you what it is for me to be Spanish:
To be Spanish is to
burn when Doñana burns or to tremble when the City of Lorca
trembled; it is to sit and listen to folk stories in Galicia and to
believe them; or to go to Valencia and not feel rage to read a poster
in Valencian, but rather that you are pleased with yourself to be
able to understand it. To be Spanish is to think that the Canaries
are as good as the Caribbean.
To feel Spanish is to
suffer for not having lived la movida madrileña; it’s to
fall in love with the sea when hearing Mediterraneo by
Serrat; it’s to ask while drunk if your Catalan friend would teach
you to dance sardanas, to want to go to Albacete to check if
their feria is better than the one in Málaga and to be
surprised to see just how beautiful Ceuta is.
For me to be Spanish is
to be proud that in Andalucía we have beach, desert and snow; to
feel almost as if it were my doing that a Alicantino is so close to
winning a Nobel, to ask an Asturian to teach me to pour cider
properly and to die of love seeing the beaches of the Basque Country
in ‘Game of Thrones’.
You know how Spanish
it is to drink a beer in the early afternoon: the Galician orujo,
the siesta, the calimotxo, the paella, the tarta
de Santiago, grandmother’s croquettes and the tortilla de
patatas. It is the desire to show you the best of your city to the
one who comes from outside and that you ask him about his; it is to
make friends with a Basque and ask him to teach you how to count up
to ten in euskera, just in case you return for 2 or 3
more pintxos; it is to be proud of being the leader of the world
in transplants, of being part of the land of a thousand cultures and
of being from the country of good cheer.
There is nothing more
Spanish that having the hairs on your neck stand on end with
a saeta or with a copla bien cantá (well-sung
flamenco verse); seeing the sunset on the beaches of Cádiz; to
discover almost without wanting to some fresh paradisiacal cove in
Mallorca; to walk the Camino de Santiago in September cursing the
cold or learning in Salamanca or Segovia that you do not have to be
big to be beautiful.
So, I think, my
love, miarma, honey, darling, my child ... that is to be
Spanish, the rest of it is politics.
But if you want to insist on
your view of politics, I also want to say that you are wrong: because
being Spanish is not wishing to break the face of anyone, but to
suffer the unemployment situation of your neighbour or those terrible
scenes of eviction that you have seen on the TV. Being Spanish is not
opposing the YES or NO supporters of an entire autonomous community,
but rather it is to be angry when they treat us like arseholes with
each new case of corruption. To be a good Spaniard is to wish that in
your country there is no more poverty, no more ignorance, no patients
being attended in hospital corridors and, Goddammit, to want to stay
here to work and contribute everything that, for so long, you have
learned.
That is to be Spanish,
or at least, I hope so.
ARTICLE 2
The EU shows its moral
character backing violence in Catalonia: Ambrose Evans Pritchard
The Bourbons remain
true to Talleyrand’s bon mot: they learn nothing, and forget
nothing.
King Felipe VI’s
fateful speech on Tuesday night prepares the way for full-blown
intervention to crush the Catalan insurrection by any means
necessary, with the unqualified backing of a European Union that has
lost its moral compass.
The rebel leader Carles
Puigdemont said King Felipe was “pouring petrol on the fire”. The
Catalan riposte is tragically predictable. Its parliament will
declare unilateral independence from Spain on Monday unless the
Catholic Church can mediate an eleventh-hour compromise.
As matters stand, the
Catalans are embarked on a course that will lead to their expulsion
from the euro and the closure of their economic borders, for that is
what the Spanish government has vowed to do – what the EU
has endorsed, thinking that its dangerous bluff will never be called.
The Jesuitical
casuistry of the Commission is revealing. I was The Daily
Telegraph’s EU correspondent in early 2000 when Brussels imposed
sanctions against Austria merely for admitting the right-wing Freedom
Party into its governing coalition.
The party had not
broken any laws. It was legitimately elected. The matter was an
internal Austrian affair. It was clear to many of us covering the
episode that much of the animus against the Freedom Party stemmed
from its Eurosceptic insolence.
We have seen a pattern
of asymmetry in the way Brussels intrudes into the internal affairs
of member states. It has repeatedly berated – and threatened
– the eurosceptic governments of Poland and Hungary over
the rule of law. “The double standard of the Commission leaps to
the eye,” said Polish MEP Ryszard Legutko.
Frans Timmermans, the
Commission’s vice-president, crossed the Rubicon by backing the
actions of Guardia Civil on Sunday. Speaking in the
European Parliament in a carefully-scripted message, he endorsed
a decision to storm voting centres and to
bludgeon Catalan citizens who were trying to vote – rightly or
wrongly, but peacefully and in good faith.
“None of us want to
see violence in our societies. However it is a duty for any
government to uphold the law, and this sometimes does require the
proportionate use of force,” he said.
This comment is
Orwellian. The actions were patently not proportionate. There was no
need to use any force. The vote could simply have been declared null
and void.
The violence almost
certainly breaches multiple clauses of the EU's Charter of
Fundamental Rights but as I always feared would happen, the EU uses
the Charter selectively, when it serves the interests of the European
Project. Be that as it may, Brussels now bears a high share of
responsibility for what happens next in Spain. If its iron-fist
apologia for violence causes the country to spin into
insurgency and counter-insurgency, the EU owns the outcome.
Spain’s authorities
and media talk about the crisis as if it were chiefly a financial
disaster for Catalonia, one that could be isolated. Much inks has
been spilt on a Credit Suisse report warning of a 20pc crash in
output – for the Catalans. Finance minister Luis de Guindos says
the secessionist state would suffer “brutal pauperisation”, a
collapse in GDP of 25pc to 30pc, and a devaluation of up to 50pc.
Spain would miraculously come through just fine.
To the extent that
Spain’s governing elites believe this fairy tale, they are less
likely to recoil from catastrophic error. Former vice-president
Alfonso Guerra (a Socialist) is already calling for the army to put
down the Catalan “coup d’etat”.
Markets are struggling
to navigate these complexities. Investors are fleeing Catalan debt,
driving up yields on 2018 bonds threefold since late June to 2.6pc,
but yields on equivalent Spanish bonds have scarcely moved.
The IBEX index of
equities fell 2.4pc on Wednesday in the worst drop since Brexit. Yet
much of the damage has been for Catalan lenders Sabadell and
Caixabank, on fears that they could lose access to ECB liquidity.
Oryzon Genomic leapt 27pc after announcing that it would relocate
from Barcelona to Madrid.
This all plays to the comforting narrative that economic
dangers are largely confined to the rebels. This is self-evidently
absurd. Catalonia makes of a fifth of Spanish GDP. It is a hub of
dynamism with a per capita income higher than the EU average. It is
structural net contributor to the Spanish treasury, even though its
finances are a mess.
It would be impossible
for the ECB to shore up the system through QE alone. The only way to
avoid a Spanish default would be to activate the bail-out mechanism
(OMT), but this would entail tough terms and a vote in the German
Bundestag. By then, a fresh eurozone crisis would be raging.
We all now watch with
horror as events unfold. One of the constitutional functions of the
Spanish monarchy is to act as national arbiter. King Felipe has
instead asserted himself as champion of the hardliners, denouncing
the Catalan leaders as Putschists, guilty of “inadmissible
disloyalty”, “totally beyond the boundaries of the law and
democracy”.
Barcelona’s mayor Ida
Colau, who opposes secession, said the speech was “irresponsible
and unworthy of a head of state ... There was no solution. No mention
of the wounded. No call for dialogue.”
On the surface of it,
King Felipe is of course correct to declare it the duty of the state
to uphold the “constitutional order” and to protect the rights of
law-abiding Catalans being dragged against their will into a
desperate adventure.
The trouble with this
rhetoric – and there has been a concerted attempt in Madrid to
ridicule last Sunday’s vote as “farce”, a non-event – is
that it willfully ignores the volcanic strength of Catalan
feeling.
It should be obvious
that matters have moved beyond "farce". Whether you blame
the headstrong Catalan leaders for charging ahead or blame the
guerrilla campaign by Spain’s Partido Popular to roll back
Catalonia's devolution settlement, the fact is that 2.26m Catalans
voted (and many more tried), with 90pc backing secession.
The eruption of
national feeling is a political fact. Common sense would suggest that
the only way in a modern democracy is a legal referendum as in
Scotland, or a negotiated deal along the lines of Basque autonomy
with full tax-raising powers.
Yes, the Catalans
leaders are in breach of Spain’s constitution but elemental
questions of national identity are always political. At a certain
point it becomes an evasion to fall back on legalisms.
Courts and
constitutions are by nature the tools of the status quo, and
constitutions can in any case be changed. Indeed, Spain's
constitution was changed on the orders of the ECB conveyed in a
secret letter to former premier Jose Luis Zapatero.
The repression of 2017
has begun. The police chiefs of Catalonia's Mossos d'Esquadra are
already charged with sedition. Madrid is preparing to launch direct
rule and a campaign of coercion.
Brussels has given a green light and
is totally complicit. Welcome to the Europe’s brave new world.
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