Catalans will cast their vote for a new regional assembly on Sunday
(25 November) in an election that could have considerable consequences
for Catalonia and the rest of Spain.
Catalan separatist parties wishing to split from Spain are set to win
most of the seats in the Catalan Parliament and current Catalan
President Artur Mas is expected to continue on his post. His
centre-right alliance party Convergència i Unió (CiU) will most likely
regain majority ahead of the left-wing independentist Esquerra party,
but short of the absolute majority they had hoped for.
The election campaign has been ugly with Mas accusing the conservative
Partido Popular government in Madrid of standing behind a personal
smear campaign and of scaremongering to dissuade Catalans from voting
for CiU.
Madrid, on the other hand, has said the Catalan government is unjustly
blaming Madrid for Catalonia's economic woes.
A recent convert to independence, Mas called for early elections last
September after Barcelona and Madrid failed to reach agreement on a
new fiscal pact. The Catalan government wanted the right to collect
and decide on the region's own taxes instead of passing them on to
Madrid, as it currently does.
Spanish President Mariano Rajoy opposed the move. This prompted Mas to
state that the Catalans would be better off creating "a state of their
own". If the new Catalan Parliament, as expected, has pro-separatist
parliamentarians making up two thirds of its ranks, this will pave the
way for a referendum on the independence of Catalonia – despite strong
resistance from Madrid.
One of Spain's 17 regions, Catalonia is responsible for a fifth of the
Spanish economy, which in turn is the 4th largest economy in the
eurozone. European capitals will therefore also take note of the
Catalan election results as Rajoy is trying to avoid a bailout from
Europe despite a severe recession in Spain.
Catalans have long complained that despite the Catalan region being
one of the biggest contributors to the Spanish budget, they get much
less back in funding for services and public works. The deficit lies
at around €15 billion, according to the Catalan government. The north
eastern region is also a heavily indebted region.
They also complain that the rest of Spain does not respect their
different Catalan identity and language. Catalans were outraged two
years ago when the Spanish Constitutional Court eliminated some
aspects of their autonomy in an updated regional statute despite it
being approved by the Spanish Parliament four years before.
The worsening economic situation and the high unemployment numbers in
Spain has only amplified the separatist feeling in Catalonia. This
came to a climax on Catalan national day on 11 September this year
when more than one million of Catalonia's 7.5 million citizens took to
the streets of Barcelona to call for independence.
Meanwhile, an eventual referendum on Catalonian independence would
raise many awkward questions in Brussels - not least whether the
would-be independent region would have to re-apply for EU membership.
http://euobserver.com/institutional/118310
No comments:
Post a Comment