Margaret Thatcher once said that Europe was created by history -- a simple observation with consequences as profound as they are unpredictable.
Indeed, Spain is getting set for its most unpredictable election in a generation. But before the country goes to the polls later this year, the northeastern region of Catalonia will hold a vote of its own in September. It's a one-issue election: After the introduction of a roadmap for Catalonian independence, the government officially announced yesterday that the candidates will serve as stand-ins for a vote on the pursuit of Catalonian statehood. Under the heading "Junts Pel Si" ("Together for Yes" in Catalan), the leading pro-independence parties will sell the idea to the region of 7.5 million, promising if elected to unilaterally begin the process of pursuing independence from Spain -- in obvious defiance of Madrid.
The plebiscitary election is, mildly put, legally awkward. So much so that Catalan First Minister Artur Mas made no mention of the poll's peculiar nature as he signed the decree for regional elections, which will take place on Sept. 27:
"Mr. Mas said that Catalans "are a nation of free people", with "the right to decide our future", and with "a horizon of hope"; he also spoke of his desire "for a better country" but stopped short of mentioning independence, secession, referendums or plebiscite, lest the central government in Madrid choose to present another legal challenge at the Constitutional Court."
So what is this election about, exactly? To Lluis Bassets, the vote is a cynical legacy-grab by Mas -- along with an attempt to appropriate the statehood issue to save the flagging political fortunes of his Convergencia i Unio Party. Xavier Vidal-Folch goes further still, advancing the not uncommon idea that a plebiscitary election is tantamount to a coup d'etat, not just against Spain, but against Catalan law, and against Catalans themselves.
Surface politics aside, here's where we circle back to (half of) Thatcher's quote. In Europe, affronts to historical identity can stir primordial, fast-moving reactions. There's not enough space here to run through the episode-by-episode evolution of the Catalan independence movement in the last 10 years. But, spurned by the courts and by the center-right government in Madrid on matters of autonomy and taxation rights, what pushed Catalans over the edge were the pretensions of the central government -- eventually codified in a rewritten, watered-down autonomy statute in 2010 -- to tell Catalans that, regardless of how they may feel, they are not a nation. What had been a legal negotiation on levels of autonomy and subsidiarity took on a different character. Unlike the referendum seen in Scotland last September, where the ambitions and drive of Alex Salmond and the Scottish National Party culminated in a near-disaster for British unity, Mas found himself the recipient of a bottom-up call for independence -- one to which Madrid dares not give the legal sanction Westminster granted to the Scots.
Ham-fisted handling by the central government to be sure, and with the declaration of the Sept. 27 election, what was once a popular movement has become a clash of institutions within Spain. But the administration of Mariano Rajoy derives its own political benefits from countering the Catalans. With Rajoy's Partido Popular (PP) facing a potential collapse in support in the general election against Spain's political insurgents, it will bear watching whether the PP use the Catalan drive for autonomy to further their own agenda.
(AP photo)
