Catalonia: The End of Artur Mas, but Hardly the End of the Independence Movement

(Updated after new developments late on January 9.)

Spain still has no government after the elections on December 20, only a caretaker cabinet awaiting a difficult coalition formation. That is nothing. Catalonia has not had a government since the regional elections on September 27, only a caretaker one led by Artur Mas, with 47% in his favor the presumptive winner of those elections. Three months after the elections Mr. Mas has been unable to find sufficient support for his investiture.  Parties supporting his pet cause of independence for Catalonia have won a majority of seats in the Catalonian assembly. So why has Mr. Mas not been installed as president?

The reason clearly is the person of Artur Mas himself, whose candidacy for another term (his third) as President of Catalonia is divisive, and not at all accepted by a small group of "independentistas" on the left, whose votes are needed to confirm him. Not to forget, Mas is not acceptable either to the remaining half of the Catalonian assembly, who also reject the goal of independence. Autonomy, yes, but not sovereignty.

The persistent failure of Mr. Mas to garner more convincing support for his independence project is visible in his election results. Not that 50% in 2010, or 47% in 2015, is trifling. But an earthshaking change like independence, to break loose from a democratic country like Spain, which has granted a wide range of autonomy privileges to Catalonia and other regions, would seem to require a much stronger basis than just 50% popular support. It might also require a wiser leader, one able to see that his own person has become a stumbling block for the broader political goal.

As you read this, on Sunday, January 10 the deadline arrived for presenting a candidate for President and a government for Catalonia. At the very last moment, on the eve of the deadline, Artur Mas finally stepped aside, so that - according to his statement - new elections would not have to be called. The replacement candidate for the office of President, Carles Puigdemont, mayor of Girona, was subsequently elected at the inaugural session on January 10.

At long last, a small sign of stabilization for Catalonia, whose future has also become a serious snag in the talks for a new national governing coalition. Still, not too much can be expected even with a new Catalonian president. The same push for Catalonian independence will continue. 

Its support is perniciously entrenched among the new socialists in Podemos, whose 69 representatives in the new national Congress of Deputies number more than 20 who are not elected on the pure Podemos ticket, but on regional joint lists between Podemos and local, smaller independentista parties, most of them in Catalonia, but several seats also in Valencia and Galicia. These splinter parties are literally "blackmailing" Podemos at the national level into supporting their demand for a Catalonian referendum. Implicitly the Galicians and Valencians also have independence for their own region as their goal. This way the secessionist movement in Spain is becoming like a network of cells spreading from a center in Catalonia to the national level where the demand for referenda on independence is currently choking every attempted coalition.

Spanish politics has seen trouble brewing over several years, though the absolute majority of the Partido Popular made the unrest seem inconsequential. Now stability suddenly seems far off. 

Catalonian Games

(This post is no longer relevant, since the Congress of Deputies in Madrid voted a resounding No to the Catalonian proposal on April 8, 2014. I leave it here nevertheless, for whatever interest the details of the proposal might have.)

The Spanish Constitution of 1978 explicitly declares the country is indivisible. That constitution was adopted in a referendum in which more than 80% voted yes, and Catalonians voted more than 90% yes. Times do change.

When I last wrote on Catalonia, its President Artur Mas had just declared that he would not do anything illegal in his quest for independence. Not long after that the Catalonian government made public its proposed questions for a referendum on independence, and announced that it would be held on the 9th of November 2014. The government in Madrid, however, made clear in no uncertain terms there would be no referendum. 

Then, in mid-January 2014, came the next rebellious step from Catalonia. The Parlament in Barcelona decided by a nearly two-thirds majority to ask the Spanish Congress for permission to hold a referendum. 

This request by the Catalonian Parlement has been widely interpreted as a plea to be allowed to vote on independence. But this is not what the proposal says. Anyone who reads the Spanish text will see that it is much more intricately worded than that. The request is framed within a constitutional provision (article 150.2) that enables delegation of extraordinary power to an autonomous community such as Catalonia to undertake exceptional measures for a limited time, in this case a referendum. In the proposal the word "independence" is not mentioned. The stated objective is to allow Catalonians to express their views in a consultative referendum on "the collective political future of Catalonia, taking as its point of departure terms to be agreed with the Government (of Spain)". 

Obviously, independence is not mentioned because it is prohibited by the Spanish Constitution. But then why ask permission for a referendum anyway? I can see a couple of reasons why. 

1. It is the civilized thing to do, what Europe would expect, and what Scotland already did in a similar situation. To refuse to allow a simple advisory expression of popular opinion will be very poorly received outside Spain, and the political battle over Catalonia's future has in large part become a contest over images in international media. Madrid would come out looking exceedingly bad if they refuse.

2. If the request is accepted - along with some kind of (miraculously) negotiated agreement - Catalonia and Madrid might actually come to terms in a way that saves face on both sides, provided the question to be voted upon does not refer to "independence". It is fairly certain that while a Catalonian vote could exceed 50% yes to something phrased akin to independence, it is unlikely to offer a political platform for secession. 

Regardless of all the rhetoric, secession even after a 60% yes vote would be a political non-starter, a project doomed to failure - with Catalonia left outside the EU and with Spain subsequently vetoing its application to become a member of the Union. In my judgment therefore, Artur Mas is already in a dead-end street. A referendum result of about 50% would let him bow out gracefully, and Catalonia could continue in its role as an intransigent region of Spain.

3. It is also possible that the request is simply a political trap, designed specifically to be rejected by Mr. Rajoy. Like practically everyone else, he may brush aside the objection that independence is not mentioned, because (as one can imagine him saying) "everyone knows what the Catalonians want, and this is how they have planned to wangle it out of us". So he and his party will deny the request with his absolute majority in the Congress of Deputies. From the perspective of the independence supporters in Barcelona, such an outcome would be just what they want, and to them politically, utterly insignificant. They would move ahead with their referendum in any case, and the whole thing would simply be a great publicity victory for Catalonia abroad.

But this last possibility will not change the political realities that come after a vote in favor of Catalonian independence. Either Mas gets off the bus at that point, and all will be reasonably well for the great majority of Catalonians - even those who saw their dream crushed. 

Or Artur Mas will charge ahead with an independent Catalonia into the great unknown, with or (if he is fortunate) without Spanish troops at his heels. 

Puzzle of Catalonia's Independence Elections Nov 25

Catalonia's extraordinary parliamentary elections on November 25 was a big let-down for the initiator, President Artur Mas. The point of having a snap election was to have his party benefit from a presumed new wave of support for independence from Spain. That has now proved a mirage. And Mr. Mas had really gone out on a limb during the campaign, promoting his scheme with bold words, raising unfounded prospects of immediate EU membership for an independent Catalonia and offending the Madrid government along the way with brazen statements – all of which now puts his failure in an even worse light.

As it turned out, his center-right party, CiU (Convergència i Unió), lost dramatically, dropping from 62 to 50 seats in the 135-seat parliament. At the same time the leftist republican independence party ERC (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya) had a very good election result, doubling their number of seats and recapturing the strength they had before 2010.

For two parties with the same main goal to come out with opposite results is, indeed,  strange. It becomes even stranger by the biases at work in the reporting. Many news headlines in Spain and around the world pronounce CiU the winner. Of course, CiU does come out way ahead of all other parties, twice as big as the next party. The only thing is, CiU was even bigger before.

What is remarkable in these election results is that CiU, the strongest independence party, finds itself rejected, while there is still a majority of seats won by parties in favor of independence. Actually, the proportion is almost exactly the same it was before the elections (independence parties CiU + ERC 72 seats until Nov 25, 71 seats after). The strength of independence opinion is also seen in the shares of votes cast: about 57% in favor of independence from Spain if you add in the smaller parties - ICV-EUiA (Greens) with 10% of the vote, and CUP (Candidatura Unitat Popular) 3,5%. Previously, during the election campaign the figure 57% in favor of independence from Spain was measured in polls conducted during November. (Hence, my previous blog on this subject was in error regarding this statistic.) There is, in other words, an undeniable sentiment favoring independence in Catalonia, and it has not become weaker. 

Nevertheless, given all the loud campaigning in favor of a push for a referendum, this election must be deemed a failure for that cause. No wonder Mas has called for a moment of reflection.

In the meantime Catalonia needs a government. There are three other parties that have enough seats to bring about a majority, but only one of those (ERC) is in favor of independence. That is, conservative CiU has no other potential partner to govern with than leftist ERC. The latter's leader, Oriol Junqueras, sounds like he is favorable to a collaboration with CiU, despite their ideological differences. The project of a referendum on independence is still one on which the two parties have the same view. They also have it within their power to bring it about, although such a coalition itself would be unprecedented.

However, the future for an independent Catalonia no longer seems as bright as before. EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso has said in no uncertain terms that a new state seceding from an existing EU member state will not automatically become an EU member. It will first have the status of «third country» with respect to the EU, and will have to apply for membership like any other non-member. New members will need the affirmative vote of all existing members, including Spain. Obviously, a runaway former province of Spain will not receive that crucial vote.

Wisely, by this announcement the EU has dampened the independence zeal of many a discontented province in its member countries, among which may currently be counted at least Scotland and the Flemish part of Belgium.