Human Development Index: "Catalonia will rank higher than Spain"

"In several regions of the world, independence movements exist or have existed (e.g. Quebec). Purely for the sake of comparison we have included them in the human development score table on page 8. Given the prevailing interest, we calcúlate the HDI scores for Catalonia, Flanders, Wallonia, Quebec and Scotland. Quebec would rank the highest among these regions/countries and 13th globally, compared to 11 th for Canadá. However, based on our calculations, both Catalonia and Scotland will rank higher than Spain and the UK, respectively. Catalonia would rank 20th globally, while Spain ranks currently 23rd and would slip to 26th ex-Catalonia." [Credit Suisse Research Institute (PDF)]

El editorial del Financial Times sobre "el asunto catalán"

El editorial del Financial Times, "Spain's next crisis" supuso el pasado día 15 de diciembre, una interesante y reivindicable opinión desde fuera sobre el conflicto existente entre Catalunya y España.

En primer lugar, la mera existencia del editorial supone un revés para el Gobierno del Estado, que intenta ningunear el conflicto, convirtiéndolo en un problema pasajero, un "calentón" de una "minoría ruidosa" catalana "adoctrinada" por la educación y los medios de comunicación "nacionalistas".

El subtítulo del artículo supone el segundo revés para las tesis unionistas: "No es demasiado tarde para que Madrid acomode a los catalanes". Fíjense, que el subtítulo pone la pelota en el tejado del Estado.

Es más, en el primer párrafo, el editorial dice literalmente: "[CiU, ERC i ICV] Han establecido una fecha para un plebiscito en noviembre próximo, que les planteará los catalanes dos preguntas: quieren que Cataluña sea un estado y, en caso afirmativo, quieren que ese estado se independence de España. En este "caramelo" se encuentran los ingredientes para una solución."

Aun hay más: "Pero [España] todavía no ha formado un hogar plurinacional lo suficientemente cómodo para sus pueblos culturalmente diferenciados.". Y después habla de "nacionalismo reduccionista" en el que incluye el "nacionalismo castellano": "Esto fomenta el nacionalismo reduccionista, en la España castellana y entre los catalanes y los vascos", una auténtica bofetada a los nacionalistas españoles que niegan serlo. Catalanes y vascos discutirremos si nuestro nacionalismo es o no "reduccionsita", la inmensa mayoría de los españoles niega la mera existencia de un "nacionalismo castellano"...

La cosa aun se pone más interesante: el editorial cita como chispa desencadenante de la situación actual, no el "adoctrinamiento de los niños catalanes en la escuela y de los adultos por parte de TV3", como intenta hacernos creer desde Madrid, sinó la sentencia del Tribunal Constitucional sobre el Estatut de Catalunya: "Había suficiente flexibilidad en el sistema cuasi-federal de España para dar cabida a los catalanes, hasta que fue saboteado en 2010 por el señor Rajoy  el Partido Popular, persuadiendo a sus propuestos [por el PP] en el Tribunal Constitucional para derogar aspectos sensibles del reformado estatuto de autonomía de Cataluña", acusando directamente al PP y a Rajoy de sabotear el sistema existente.
Y sigue: "Artículos idénticos fueron dejados intactos en los estatutos de la Comunidad Valenciana y las Islas Baleares, bajo el gobierno del PP."

Y concluye tajantemente: "Eso desató el separatismo catalán, hasta entonces un movimiento marginal". Además habla de "politización de la justicia" y de que se trata de "sólo una de las instituciones desvencijadas de España que necesita una reforma".

Otro golpe directo a las teorías unionistas: "En lugar de conducir a su pueblo, el señor Mas está siendo liderado por él", poniendo nuevamente la crítica en el papel de Rajoy: "y Rajoy le ha acorralado en una esquina, al insistir que la constitución post-Franco -que consagra la indisoluble unidad de España- es inmutable". Fíjense en la puntualización "constitución post-Franco"...

"Las encuestas dicen que los catalanes preferirían más autogobierno -incluyendo un grado de autonomía fiscal-, pero se irán por su propio camino si la única alternativa es un status quo, que el gobierno del Sr. Rajoy está erosionando." Es decir, afirma que el gobierno del PP está "erosionando el status-quo". Y justifica así, que los catalanes pidan más autogobiero e, incluso se puede deducir, que justifica la opción independentista, en caso de que el gobierno de Rajoy, no lo conceda.

"Este es un problema político que requiere una solución negociada -más federalismo dentro de la imperiosa necesidad de España de renovación institucional. No son sólo los catalanes sino  también los principales partidos españoles, el PP del señor Rajoy y los socialistas, que deben estar a la altura." Nuevamente, habla de necesidad de "renovación institucional" en España, de "más federalismo" y de que la pelota está en el tejado del Estado (PP y PSOE).

Me parece difícil desmontar más mitos unionistas en menos espacio. Personalmente sólo añadiría un comentario: teniendo en cuenta que el Estado no va a conceder más autogobiero a Catalunya, ni va a mejorar realmente su situación fiscal (aunque probablemente intente hacernos creer que lo hace - mentira a la que ya estamos habituados). ¿qué solución creen que plantea el editorial del Financial Times?

Political Prosecution in Spain

"Dear friends and colleagues,

It is with great regret that I inform you that my request to be reappointed to a second year as Prince of Asturias Distinguished Visiting Professor of Spanish Studies at Georgetown University, which BMW-CGES director Jeff Anderson conveyed with enthusiastic support to the Spanish Ministry of Education, has been denied.

The decision blocking my appointment comes after several episodes - documented from a variety of sources - in which the Spanish Ambassador in Washington expressed distress about my appearance in the media speaking about Catalonia. The Ministry spells their reasons in administrative terms. However, the fact that the chair will be left vacant next academic year speaks for itself.

That Spanish authorities interfere for political reasons in an academic appointment, with total disregard of freedom of speech and academic freedom, is alarming and can only be qualified as censorship. I am very disappointed at this outcome as I honestly feel that pressures of this sort should not be acceptable in a respected academic institution like Georgetown.

Please do no hesitate to contact me if you have questions or suggestions regarding this regrettable affair.

Sincerely yours,
Clara Ponsatí"

When Opinion Becomes Propaganda (CC Matthew Parris)

Please, before reading, consider my english is not so good as I would like.

Answer to Matthew Parris' "Catalonia is a bigger timebomb than Cyprus".

I can picture Matthew Parris in the airport of Barcelona (or maybe not even there) thinking how can I begin my article? I will write that I'm here (in the airport) and link it with the subject that I want to analyze (the independence of Catalonia); the fact that I have to invent the link between these two concepts (aiport-independence) didn't seem to bother him so much...

Because he writes that the new terminal of the airport and its emptiness, the T1, "was meant to be a showcase for Catalonia's future as an independent nation" despite there is absolutely not any foundation in that assert. Just say that this terminal was inaugurated by Zapatero (spanish PM), José Blanco (Transport Minister) and José Montilla (catalan PM); none of them suspicious of having separatists intentions, specially the catalan president, Montilla, who had been born in the south of Spain, Iznájar (Andalucia).

He has to admit then that the Airport of Madrid suffers from the same oversize problem, but, in his opinion, Barcelona's case is worse because "has been playing an anything-you-can-do-we-can-do-better catch-up game [with Madrid]". That kind of statement should be backed by some kind of data, but there isn't. We can oppose the project of Warner Park, that Madrid promoted after Barcelona succeeded with Port Aventura, from the past, or the project of the Olympic Games of  Madrid 2020, because Barcelona succeeded with the Olympic Games of 1992, in the future.

There is something really weird about this article by Matthew Parris: if you think farther on what he has written you realize that he is foundating why Europe would force Spain to accept the independence of Catalonia and it's membership in the EU.

He writes: "Forget cyprus: among Europe's small nations it is Catalonia that could bring the European project tumbling down. Nowhere depends on Cyprus, but the integrity of Spain and the credibility of Spanish economy depend on Catalonia: on wether Madrid and Barcelona can manage their differences."

He is admitting that Spanish economy depends of Catalonia, or if we put it the way catalan separatists say: the problem is not if an independent Catalonia is viable, the problem is if Spain without Catalonia is viable.

"A disorderly secession would devastate the whole Iberian peninsula, from Portugal to the Basque Country." And now he is writing the same that we have at the top of this blog: "Even so, Catalonia's economy is bigger than Greece is, and the risk of a greek exit of the single currency has caused chaos around the world. It's hard to believe that Europe would follow through on threats like these to Catalonia." James Mackintosh, Investment Editor at the Financial Times. [Financial Times]

So, unwillingly, Parris is giving reasons to those who belive that and independent Catalonia would be fastly and easily admitted in the EU.

Mr.Parris then writes about the rise in support to separatism shown by polls in the last decades, but opposes that "But the numbers have been levelling off. Wether this cooling is caused by the approach of a referendum, or by unease at the dysfunctionality of the "coalition from hell" that now governs Catalonia, it is possible to conclude that pushing the numbers much above 50 per cent may prove problematic.". Before any other consideration, let's make clear that nobody, not even separatists, belive it would be easy. Anyway, I find it astoundingly surprising to analyze the (tiny) descent in support of separatism in Catalonia, without saying absolutely anything about the manouvres of the Spanish Government, in Europe, for instance (leaving aside the dirty war carried by the spanish government).

There is another idea that Parris shares with spanish unionists: "One encounters a curious naivety about independence here" (idea that you can also read in the underline of the photo that goes with the text: "Catalans are curiously naive about the implications of independence"). This idea, that can be easily understood coming from spanish unionists (they simply can't/won't understand that there are foundated reasons for Catalans to desire not to be a part of Spain), surprises in somebody that should be able to see the facts with an independent view. This supposed naivety of the catalan separatists is discredited by the Wilson Collective, with members as naive as these ones, the studies of the Cercle Català de Negocis, the work of the Col·lectiu Emma, etc.

Mr.Parris tries to arguee his statement: "It has yet to dawn on many that Scotland (whose separatists many Catalans associate with) will probably vote no". Mr.Parris's origin is probably the reason of such distorted perception; he, as brittish citizen, may consider that Scotland is an importat issue, but it isn't at all for the vast majority of Catalan separatists.

He goes on saying that "They look surprised, even dismayed, when one points out that acceptance of a new, sovereign state by the international community would not be straightforward; that membership of the EU would not be automatic, that there would be huge resistance (especially from France and Belgium) to the precedent". Ignoring the mocking tone of the Mr.Parris' words, it shows that he absolutely ignores the debates that have been taking place about these issues in Catalonia (as an example, we can bring the many times we have written about this subject in this blog - We have even written about the "apportioning of Catatalonia's share of Spain's debt").

Mr.Parris goes on with his prejudices ("And arising perhaps from a small-nations resentment of a boss-nation's dominance [a language that would be signed by any proud facha], separatists do not skrike me as having understood the terrible vulnerabilibity to them of the rest of Spain", again I recommend him to read the works of the Col·lectiu Wilson. or, if he only has 50 minutes, to watch this interview to economist Jonathan Tepper.

In the end he's again confusing the effects of the independence of Catalonia with the effects of the non acceptance of the independence of Catalonia by Spain, which are two different things. And again, unwillingly, he is reasoning why the EU would force Spain to accept an independent Catalonia.

The next paragraphs are to hypothesize about what is the strategy followed by the Spanish Government and, at least here, Mr.Parris makes it clear he is writing about his own opinions. And to suggest a three answer referendum, only to make sure that in the end Catalans choose the option that Mr.Parris thinks they need: "greater autonomy", without making it clear if it should be real, or only on the paper; forever, or depending on the right party (PP) not winning under the rule of a more spanish nationalist president than Rajoy; etc.

It is sad to see that someone who has a home in Catalonia, hasn't been able to understand (practically) nothing about Catalan separatism (and hardly anything about Catalonia at all).

Financial Times: Catalonia, The Cost of Independence

"The worse case would be a nasty exit, with european spanish and british officials making good on warning that a new state wouldn't automatically be admitted in the EU and that Brittain and Spain could in fact block their entry. (...)
 

Even so, Catalonia's economy is bigger than Greece is, and the risk of a greek exit of the single currency has caused chaos around the world. It's hard to believe that Europe would follow through on threats like these to Catalonia." James Mackintosh, Investment Editor at the Financial Times.

[ANGLÈS] Les pressions espanyoles darrera la marxa enrera de Reding

SPANISH PRESSURES BEHIND VIVIANE REDING BACK DOWN:

"In a recent interview, Viviane Reding, the Luxembourgeois vice-president of the European Commission - who was on a visit to the Andalusian parliament - was asked whether international law meant that Catalonia would have to leave the EU in the event of the region achieving independence.

According to the journalist, Federico Durán Basallote, Ms Reding responded to his question by dismissing the suggestion, saying international law said no such thing.

Following the publication of Ms Reding's interview, the European Commission, through the office of its representative in Spain, Federico Fonseca Morillo, embarked on a media campaign to re-write Ms Reding's interview to expunge her comments on how international law might apply to Scottish or Catalan independence.

According to the journalist who carried out the original interview, the Madrid Government was furious at Ms Reding's remarks, which undermined the contention of the Spanish government that an independent Catalonia would be expelled from the EU and have to re-apply for membership.

The Spanish government then exerted pressure on the office of José Manuel Durão Barroso, the President of the European Commission, to force them to withdraw Ms Reding's comments about international law.

In a letter sent to the Diario de Sevilla on October 1, following publication of the interview, Mr Fonseca said it was "important to mention Vice-President Reding's exact words", and then gave a section of the interview, entirely omitting the key sentence in Ms Reding's reply to the question about international law.

However, when Newsnet Scotland contacted the journalist who conducted the interview and asked him to comment on the Commission’s denial, he said “That’s a lie”.

Federico Durán Basallote commented: “In my opinion, the European Comission has tried to change the words of Mrs Reding.”

He added: “The problem was that Madrid got really angry with Reding and pressed Durao Barroso [EC President] for a rectification on behalf of the European Commission.”

In support of his claim, the Spanish journalist has provided a full audio recording of his interview with Viviane Reding. Newsnet Scotland can reveal that, contrary to official EC denials, the EC Vice President did indeed dismiss suggestions that international law would mean the automatic expulsion from the EU of a newly independent Catalonia."

(...) In the audio recording, Mr Basallote is clearly heard putting to the EC Vice President the suggestion that a newly independent Catalonia would not continue as an EU member, to which Viviane Reding replies:

“Come on, Come on - it doesn't say anything like this. Please solve the internal political problems of Spain in Spain. I trust the European mindset of the Catalonian people.” [newsnetscotland]

Kenneth Rogoff sobre Catalunya

Kenneth Rogoff, ex-economista en jefe del Fondo Monetario Internacional, y actualmente profesor en Harvard:

"España, sin embargo, es un país con numerosas fortalezas y no se puede comparar con otros países. Tiene multinacionales que son excelentes, tiene regiones como Cataluña que, aislada, sería uno de los países más ricos del mundo… Pero, desde luego, sin crecimiento todos los planes de reestructuración de la deuda no serán sostenibles." [Capital]

#11s2012: Financial Times: Catalan Message

"The eurozone crisis is partly to blame. It has mercilessly exposed the fragility of Spain’s fiscal arrangements. In this case, the relatively rich Catalans are outraged that they have to contribute up to 9 per cent of annual economic output to the central pot in Madrid, but then go cap-in-hand for a bailout to meet their debt and payroll commitments. Catalonia wants fiscal autonomy: the right to collect its own taxes like the Basques, who contribute proportionally much less to Spanish coffers.

Yet Spain, where prime minister Mariano Rajoy is agonising over whether to seek a full eurozone bailout, needs Catalan fiscal transfers to meets its pensions and welfare liabilities. Mr Rajoy’s rightwing Partido Popular government, which is ideologically hostile to devolution, is trying to use the crisis to recentralise Spain, creating a dangerous cocktail of fiscal penury and national grievance." [Financial Times]

Diada & Finacial Times

"Alongside the eurozone crisis and Spain’s worsening public finances and chronic lack of economic growth and jobs, Madrid looks to be sleepwalking into a constitutional crisis that could lead to the break-up of Spain.

(...)

Next Tuesday, Catalans celebrate their national day, or Diada, in a year when the clamour for independence for the first time commands the support of more than half the population – including figures such as Jordi Pujol, the mainstream nationalist who ran the restored Catalan autonomous government from 1980 to 2003, and Pep Guardiola, the former manager of Barcelona’s football team.

(...)

The centre-right government of Mariano Rajoy evidently aims to use the present financial crisis not just to shrink the state but to recentralise it.

(...)

Using as its pretext the fiscal incontinence of several regions, it is threatening to take over their governments unless they adhere to unfeasibly tight budget targets.

(...)

The genteel nationalists who run the Catalan government are in a quandary. The Rajoy government is ideologically opposed to any extension of fiscal federalism. But any government in Madrid will need the Catalan subsidy to meet the health and pension liabilities of an ageing population. I la conclusió, claríssima: To keep the Catalans inside Spain, Madrid would need to offer them a similar deal. That looks most unlikely."

[Financial Times]

Crisis and Recentralization

Seems that the spanish-nationalist recentralization campaign against the spanish autonomous regions system is not so effective as it may seem in Madrid, or at least, is not having the desired effects:

"Nobody knows where the point of political revulsion lies but monetary and fiscal suffocation has already brought Barcelona and Madrid to the point of blows, since the Catalans have been forced by the perversities of Spain’s tax system to request a "rescue" even though they subsidize the rest of the country." [The Telegraph]

The Wall Street Journal afirma que Catalunya sufre expolio fiscal

"El resultado? Cataluña es la sede de la industria española y uno de los distritos industriales más importantes de Europa. Sin embargo, cada año desde 1986, un 9% del PIB del territorio catalán deja la región para ser redistribuida o pasar por Madrid. En España, sólo las Baleares aporta un mayor porcentaje anual. En ningún otro lugar de Europa o Norteamérica, tienen lugar transferencias intranacionales de este tamaño." [The Wall Street Journal]

Lies and omissions in "As Spain Acts to Cut Deficit, Regional Debts Add to Woe, "

"Excuses are, of course, already being prepared for this lamentable state of affairs, and in particular the argument is being run that in fact the responsibility here does not lie with Spain’s central government (which was entirely composed of choirboys and girls), but with a lamentable set of constitutional arrangements which give far too much spending power and control to the country’s regional governments. To some extent this is true, but as I say, it is important not to take everything here at face value, since as ever, all is not what it is made out to be.

This advice could, as it happens, have proved useful to New York Times reporter Suzanne Daly who advertently or inadvertently seems to have been taken for a complete ride with the article she wrote for the newspaper last Friday. The focus of the article was purportedly on regional extravagance in Spain, but in the event she seems to have allowed herself to be used to float a political agenda which primarily seeks to take the attention away from the country’s central government, and the responsibility it has for the current lamentable state of affairs. Naturally examples of regional extravagance certainly abound (hell, the entire country was living beyond its means), but I started to smell a rat when I saw the example she chose to highlight in her article – the prison at Puig de Les Bases, Figueres (which just happens to be located only a few kilometers from where I live).

What worried me is that the prison you can see in the photo above is NOT an example of something that isn’t needed, like a phantom airport, or a golf course where no one will ever play golf. The problem with Puig de Les Bases is not that there aren’t prisoners waiting to be moved there from the two outdated prisons which are scheduled to close (there are, 300 of them, to which can be added an additional 450 once the new one is open). No, the problem here is that there isn’t enough money to run the place after it opens.

(...)

The issue, however, goes deeper. The offending prison is in Catalonia, and Catalonia is a region which has long been seriously underfunded by the central government – indeed as was suggested by the regional minister of economics, Andreu Mas Colell, it looks suspiciously like the central government were not paying funds owing to some key regional governments to make the regional deficit look worse, and the central deficit look better.

(...)

It is also striking how the article also draws attention to spending issues in the community of Andalusia (which is the only community the socialist PSOE really controls now, and which the PP hope to win in elections in the spring) while there is no real mention of communities like Valencia, or Galicia, which are controlled by the PP and where there are plenty of examples which could be mentioned, like the phantom airport in Castellon, built under the eager eyes of former Valencian President Francisco Camps, who had to resign and is now facing corruption charges in a trial which is currently attracting a lot of media attention." Edward Hugh in EconoMonitor.

Is Decentralisation the Cause of All Problems of Spain?

"Much of this stems from Spain’s exaggerated decentralisation. The democratic constitution’s creation of 17 autonomous regions tried to reverse Franco’s heavy-handed centralisation, while keeping enough national control to satisfy the right, long nervous about self-government of Basques, Catalans and Galicians. In fact it has led to waste in public spending and to 17 sets of business regulations, fragmenting the national market and increasing costs. And it has failed to settle Spain’s historic quarrels: Basque and Catalan nationalists have exploited their status as coalition partners of the two main parties to demand ever more powers.

Mr Rajoy’s absolute majority in parliament plus his party’s control over many of Spain’s regions could allow him to start rolling back this trend. He should be cheered that a new centrist group which split from the Socialists in protest over Mr Zapatero’s toadying to the regions took almost 5% of the vote. Although Basque separatists, boosted by the end of ETA’s terrorism, and Catalan nationalists also did well, one lesson of the euro crisis applies also at home: too much splintering makes governing an economic union harder." [The Economist]


The key point is that there is not even one real reason or argument given in the article to prove why decentralisation is such a big problem for spanish economy. Only the vague suggestion that decentralisation causes implies lesser speed of reaction. Although the politics developed by the catalan nationalist administration prove the opposite.

Even more, given the fact that the article absolutely ignores the efforts made by Catalonia to restrain its economic spending (the toughest by far made by any admministration in Spain) it comes the suspicion that there could be an interested purpose in the article, and not a healthy journalist job.

Catalonia is Different

via @jordibosc

Catalunya és diferent

Catalunya, la regió més potent del Sud d'Europa, segons el Financial Times

Segons el Financial Times, Catalunya és la regió del Sud d'Europa amb més potencial econòmic. De fet és l'onzena regió de tota Europa en potencial econòmic, i l'única de l'estat espanyol entre les 25 primeres.

Font: fDi Intelligence A service from The Financial Times Ltd.

Why is the flag of the Kingdom of Aragon in America?

World Map by portuguese Domingos Teixeira from 1573.

As you can notice, the flag of the Kingdom of Aragon is present in almost all the territories discovered in America by that time.

Why?