Simon Harris's Blog, page 20

Keys to the Mas-Junqueras Agreement

The Mas-Junqueras Agreement reached last night comes as great relief as it allows the Catalan independence process to move forward with elections on September 27th 2015. However, the two leaders have agreed on other aspects that will hopefully allow Catalonia to become independent following the elections.

Elections – Elections will be held in autumn on September 27th. The election campaign will start on September 11th.
Lists – The pro-independence parties will present separate lists but with a shared programme regarding Catalan independence.
Electoral Administration – This will involve the passing of a law by which Catalonia can control its own elections.
Budget – The negotiations regarding the passing of this year’s Generalitat budget will start again.
Legislature Pact – All the original governability points that CiU and ERC agreed on at the beginning of this legislature in December 2012 will be recovered. This will allow the government to maintain the majority until the early elections in September.
Structures of State – Culminate the creation of the structures of state that were agreed upon in the original CiU-ERC pact and pass the necessary legislation. The principle structures to be created are the Catalan Treasury with the ability to collect taxes, a strengthening of Foreign Policy and a Social Security system. The government of the Generalitat will accept an expert proposed by ERC.
New Laws – A series of laws will be passed by the Parliament of Catalonia, including those relevant to Formació Professional, the reform of the Servei d’Ocupació de Catalunya and also a simplification of the administration.
Social Policy – There is an agreement to promote social programmes, particularly those involving poverty.
Municipal Elections – Agreements between CiU and ERC will be prioritised in order to guarantee the maximum number of pro-independence ajuntaments.

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English Radio Thursday on Catalan Independence

Following an interesting programme on English Radio Thursday on Catalan independence last week, Miquel Strubell, Joan Reverter and I have been invited back to continue the discussion tomorrow. The show is hosted by Virgil Simons and Ann Requa on Radio Kanal (106.9 fm) from 9 am to 10 am every Thursday morning.

Despite the fact that the independence process is going through avery difficult moment due to Artur Mas and Oriol Junqueras’ failure to reach an agreement on the format for plebiscitary elections, which should serve as a proxy referendum, the need for independence for Catalonia remains and will remain whoever governs in Madrid. So I also remain just as keen to explain what’s happening.

Here’s a link to last week’s show

http://yourlisten.com/theprostatenet/virgil-ann-discuss-the-issue-of-catalan-independence

Virgil sent me some ideas for topics for the week’s programme. I’ve laid out some basic answers here but I’m sure other interesting points will come up once all five of us are talking away in the studio.

1. A potential “Marshall Plan” for Spain to help stabilize after a break

Firstly, I think Spain’s problems after a break will be Spain’s problems not Catalonia’s but given the close economic ties, it is in Catalonia and Europe’s interest that Spain doesn’t suffer too much.

For this reason, international players will oblige Spain and Catalonia to come to the negotiating table and Catalonia will assume some of the Spanish debt. The question is, how much? 11% (the amount of the Spanish GDP that is invested in Catalonia each year, 16% (the proportion of the Spanish population that is Catalan) or 19% (the percentage of the Spanish GDP created/generated by Catalonia).

Furthermore, a break will mean that Spain will have to get its act together (corruption, transparency, efficiency etc) and might actually be of benefit in the long run. Current political movements like Podemos are aware that this needs to happen and many of Spain’s problems are down to its ruling elite (la casta or las élites extractivas).

I heard a Dutch economist make the point that after decades of aid Africa is still generally in a mess economically whilst with almost zero aid since WW2 large parts of Asia have gone through economic miracles. Pumping European and Catalan money into Andalusia and Extremadura may have been counter-productive. In Northern Castile a few years ago, we were driving field upon field of unharvested sunflowers. I asked why and one of our hosts said it was to collect EU subsidies. His wife angrily cut his explanation short saying we’d get a bad impression of them.

2. The success of Pais Vasco and viability (desirability) for Catalunya

The so-called fiscal pact (asking for tax sovereignty similar to the Basque Country and Navarre’s concert economic) was the objective in November 2010 when CiU and Artur Mas first came to power and was also the subject of a meeting between Artur Mas and Mariano Rajoy on September 20th 2012, a week after the first big Diada demonstration in Barcelona. A concession then might have deflated a large part of the pro-independence movement (especially recent converts) but Rajoy refused to give way on anything. Two years on, it’s too late. Anything less than independence for an increasingly large number of Catalans wouldn’t be satisfactory.

It’s quite possible in the short term that a result similar to Scotland might come about, in which the Yes-No vote won. Scotland voted No to independence in return for the promise of concessions on sovereignty and autonomy from the UK government. This could happen in the event of a referendum in Catalonia. However, as my book Catalonia Is Not Spain: A Historical Perspective shows, Spain is not Great Britain, it is lacking in democratic ‘cuture’ and is unlikely to keep its promises so now, with a bottom line of 1.9 million Catalans in favour of independence, the problem isn’t going to go away.

3. Regaining lost services resulting from central government mandates on financial areas that resulted in cuts to education and social services

This all depends on the political will of central government, which is limited. The fiscal deficit (the difference between how much Catalans pay in tax to central government and much is reinvested in Catalonia) has stood at around 8% of the Catalan GDP for the last 30 years. This is around €16,000,000,000 a year making Catalonia one of the most highly taxed regions in Europe and the position is unlikely to change.

In fact, these figures correspond to the amount that is budgeted to be spent on Catalonia but in practice, the work is often not completed and central government is actually in debt to Catalonia. Catalonia had to apply to the FLA (Fondo de Liquidez Autonómica – Autonomic Liquidity Fund) for bailouts of €6.664,8 million in 2012 and €10.050,6 million for which it is still paying interest. This is pretty unfair because if we could collect our own taxes, like the Basque Country and Navarre, we’d have a surplus so we’d still be able to contribute to poorer regions of Spain.

4. Impact on foreign residents: new NIE’s, citizenship, etc.

The impact of independence on foreigners is likely to be positive. I have heard that people who are empadronat here will have the chance to apply for dual nationality.

Obviously, if you don’t want dual nationality, a system of residence permits will have to be in place very quickly.

Normal tourist visits will depend on whether an independent Catalonia is recognised by the international community and remains a member of the EU.

5. Will Catalonia remain in the EU?

Even though, there is no precedent of an EU member state splitting into two, I think it’s likely that Catalonia will remain in the EU assuming there is a sufficient

democratic mandate because Europe doesn’t really want to expel citizens of a nation who are already EU members and a region, which is a net resources contributor rather than a receiver like the rest of Spain.

Furthermore, Spain will be forced to the negotiating table. The separation will be more amicable than has been predicted and if Catalonia has to reapply for EU membership, Spain won’t exercise its veto. The majority of Spain’s land exports to Europe go through Catalonia so it”s in Spain’s interest that there be a good relationship apart from anything else because Catalonia could impose customs duties if it wanted.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that membership of the EU consists of three parts 1. being part of the Eurozone 2. trade agreements 3. Schengen. Andorra is a member of the Euro without being an official EU member and there are trade agreements in place with Switzerland, for example, meaning that there are few disadvantages of it not being a member. The only competence requiring negotiation would be Schengen, which in itself is likely to be debated following last week’s terrorist attacks in France.

6. Recruiting foreign investment and stabilizing corporations to prevent relocations

Given Catalonia’s attractive location and Barcelona’s excellent international image there will be no problems with attracting foreign investment or fears of companies relocating assuming the transition is smooth, democratic and recognised by the international community.

Catalonia has taken care of its foreign relations and has a Secretariate of Foreign Affairs and the European Union with delegations in Brussels, New York, Berlin, Paris and London and I think has recently opened one in Rome. The Generalitat has just appointed former collaborator of EU VP Oli Rehn, Amadeu Altafaj, as its representative in the EU.

It also has ACC1Ó Business Promotion Centres in 34 countries as well as cultural and tourist offices all around the world.

7. Other Questions

Other questions that occurred to me were Payment and collection of Taxes and Social Security (so-called essential structures of state), the drafting of a new constitution and what will happen to laws during the interim period.

Whether elections are called for March or not, Artur Mas and the current Government of the Generalitat have a commitment to creating tax and social security bodies and these will hopefully be in place prior to plebiscitary elections probably for September.

A team led by judge Santiago Vidal is currently drawing up a draft constitution and they hope to have it online early this year so citizens can comment and suggest improvements.

What would happen to law was covered by Oriol Junqueras in his “Nou País” speech on December 2nd and he suggested that once independence was proclaimed, existing Spanish laws would remain in force until they were replaced by new laws passed by the Parliament of Catalonia.

Here’s the Audio for the Second Show!

http://yourlisten.com/theprostatenet/part-2-on-the-issue-on-catalan-independence

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Artur Mas: Two Reactions to 11-S 2012

Artur Mas’s immediate reactions to 11S 2012 were a press conference at the Palau de la Generalitat on Sep 12 and a business talk in Madrid in Sep 13. This post is the draft of what will chapter 3 of the Artur Mas book and clearly shows that the Catalan President was prepared for all eventualities. By the way, I’m thinking more along the lines of Artur Mas: The Process than Artur Mas: An Independent State of Mind at the moment. All comments gratefully received. Please bear in mind that it’s still in draft stage, though.

Two Reactions to 11S
Press Conference 12/9/2012

On the morning of September 12th, Artur Mas offered a short press conference from the Pati Gòtic of the Palau de la Generalitat in which, without actually mentioning the word independence, he assumed leadership of the process and, as he had said before the demonstration, made the demands of the Catalan people his own.

“We have offered the world the image of the best Catalonia” and “a powerful message of a desire for freedom and of wanting to be seen as a normal people amongst the countries and nations of the world … This helps the process to be seen as a project charged with optimism … Yesterday’s message was very clear and also very normal .. We are a people who, in order to continue being and continue progressing, are simply asking for a state.”

“Catalonia has spent 30 years dedicating a large part of its energy to improving Spain as a whole. The hope was that Spain would be more respectful towards Catalonia’s aspirations but recently there has been a change of direction, which at the beginning of my term of office I attempted to describe as national transition. Spain made its own transition towards democracy and Europe 35 years ago but now it’s Catalonia’s turn to go through its own transition. In this new period, we need to dedicate the majority of our energy to the Catalan process and the people of Catalonia and the political institutions need to do this together, hand in hand.”

“Catalonia had never been so close to national fulfilment in its desires, aspirations and objectives and after yesterday we are even closer. Yesterday wasn’t something of minimal importance, it was an important step forward.”

“Nothing will be easy but everything is possible. Nothing will be easy because at the present time, Catalonia doesn’t have the majority of structures of a normal state available to it. We have to create them and this can’t be done overnight. It won’t be easy because the Spanish state won’t make it easy. It won’t be easy because Catalonia will be the first sovereignty process to place within the European Union.”

“But even though there are obstacles, even though there are difficulties, even though there are few precedents for our situation, even though the Spanish state will view this process with hostility and strong opposition, everything is possible if there is the will, strong majorities and the capacity to resist.”

“Despite the difficulties we’re going through at the moment, yesterday’s demonstration wasn’t attended by people who were annoyed, hostile or rude. They were people with a great civic and patriotic sense. They were people who love their country, are prepared to defend it and simply want for Catalonia what so many other countries already have. So let me say that I feel profoundly proud to be president of this country in the moment we’re going through now.”

In his answers to the questions, Mas reiterated that the desire to arrive at a tax agreement with central government still remained the priority. The so-called fiscal pact, which had been ratified by the Catalan Parliament the previous July, was perfectly consistent with the demands of the previous day’s demonstration. It wasn’t a question of either continuing with the process or coming to an agreement on the fiscal pact.

Demands for fiscal sovereignty equivalent to the Basque Country and Navarre’s concert economic were perfectly consistent with the process that Catalonia was undertaking. “In this process of national transition and sovereignty, fiscal sovereignty is essential.” In fact the creation of a Catalan Treasury capable of collecting taxes was an essential step in the process.

Everything depended on his forthcoming meeting with Spanish President Mariano Rajoy on September 20th. He would only know how to move forward once he had received an answer. His advice to Mariano Rajoy would be “Don’t just listen to me, don’t just listen to Convergència i Unió, don’t just listen to the Catalan political parties, listen to the Catalan people.”

After about half an hour Mas was forced to cut the press conference short as he had official business in Tarragona and then would be taking the train to Madrid, where he was giving a talk to Spanish business leaders at the Fórum Europa the following morning.

Talk in Madrid 13/9/2012

Artur Mas was received politely by the businessmen at Fórum Europa and began his talk by pointing out that he was fully aware of the sensitivity moment. With a wry smile, he reminded the audience that it was a good idea to maintain normal relations and channels of dialogue. That was why he was here today, that was why he would be meeting with Rajoy on September 20th and that was why he would be participating in the meeting of Presidents of the Autonomous Communities, which was also going to be in Madrid at the start of October.

Mas began his talk with an overview of the economic situation from a Catalan point of view, which was an opportunity to mention some home truths to the Madrid business community. Despite the effects of the crisis, Mas affirmed his confidence in Catalonia’s capacity for recovery and stressed the importance of foreign projection with Catalan exports and tourism continuing to grow. He also said he was optimistic about Spain’s chances but essentially he had little control over the matter.

His central argument was that Catalonia comprised 6% of the Spanish territory, 16% of the population and produced 27% of exports so the Principality was one of Spain’s motors for economic growth. This, he argued, was where investment should be made if Spain wanted to get out of the crisis.

However, this was not the case. For example, the new container terminal in the Port of Barcelona funded by Chinese investors, who would be investing €500 million in two phases and which would turn Barcelona into the most important container port in southern Europe, was going ahead on the condition that central government would build a railway line connecting the new terminal with the freight lines going north into France. Work hadn’t even started and the Catalan government had had to build provisional lines to keep the Chinese investors happy.

The next topic was the Spain’s debt and as a member of the Eurozone, this meant Spain had to abide by the rules and apply austerity policies in order to bring the economy into line. He alluded to the new French government under François Hollande, who in the election campaign had promised a relaxation of measures but had applied austerity measures as soon as it got in power. He also mentioned the problems the cuts has created in Holland and pointed out that Spain has been given time to make adjustments.

However, the 1% conceded by Brussels to Spain, which meant €10,000,000,000, had been kept in its entirety by the central Spanish administration. This meant that the Autonomous Communities, who administer Health, Education, Social Services etc, had no extra resources with which to manage the crisis. “Central government asks for time and is given it but when central government is asked for time it doesn’t concede it.” He said that this situation would worsen in 2013, which will stretch the system of Autonomous Communities to the limit.

Similarly, Catalonia was placed in the incongruous situation of having fiscal deficit by which it paid €16 billion more in taxes to central government than it received in investment yet had to ask for a €5 billion bailout in order to maintain its health and education system. This is even more ridiculous when you consider that Spain was a net receiver of funding within the EU whilst Catalonia was a net contributor.

This naturally led him onto the Diada demonstration of two days earlier and the evident strain on the relationship between Catalonia and Spain. “Catalonia is tired of not being able to progress in the way it wants and Spain is tired of the way Catalonia behaves. Catalonia believes that it contributes a lot but doesn’t receive the respect with regard to how it is whilst Spain thinks that Catalonia is always demanding and always complaining.”

Mas listed instances such as the constitution, 23-F, the joining of the common market and even support against terrorism in which Catalonia had given its support to central government but in return the Generalitat’s competences had been invaded and both statutes of autonomy had been restricted.

As he was speaking to the business community, Mas talked economics. Catalonia had had to suffer a fiscal deficit of around 8% of its GDP for the last 30 years. At 11%, the amount of investment wasn’t just below the GDP of 19% but below the population of 16%. It had even been recognised by the previous Spanish government that investment in Catalonia equivalent to its GDP would be required for a few years to put the Principality on a par with the rest of Spain. However, promises hadn’t been fulfilled and central government was still in debt to Catalonia for investments included in the budget but never put into practice.

If you added to all these complaints the fact that Catalan language didn’t receive the respect it deserves from the rest of Spain and was under continual attack from the government and the Spanish media, it was no surprise that Catalans were a little tired of Spain. He advised Spain not to minimise what was happening in Catalonia. 1.5 million people in the streets of Barcelona would be equivalent to 9 million of the Spanish population.

To close, Mas mentioned his meeting with Rajoy the following week in which he planned to ask for fiscal sovereignty without breaking agreements on solidarity with Spain’s poorer regions. He complained that after 30 years of Catalan and European money certain regions still hadn’t created the means of producing their own wealth. He stressed that it didn’t make sense from a Catalan point of view to be responsible for part of the expenditure whilst not being responsible for part of the investment.

The mandate came not only from the Parliament of Catalonia but principally from the Catalan people, who should not be ignored. Mas reiterated that he identified with the Catalan people’s demands for the reasons stated. The intention of Catalonia throughout 30 years had always been to transform the Spanish state so that there was a place for Catalonia’s national, linguistic and economic aspirations but this hadn’t worked. Catalonia now needed a sovereign state of its own.

Interactions

Inevitably, the Madrid press and political and business communities had questions to ask. When questioned on the immediate future, Artur Mas said he couldn’t predict exactly how things would go because any process had its ups and downs. He once again defined the Catalan process as one of national transition and mentioned the bumpy ride of Spain’s own transition to democracy. The first objective was his meeting with Rajoy on the fiscal pact.

Regarding whether Catalonia would remain in the EU because it wouldn’t be recognised as a nation, Mas accepted that Spain had never recognised Catalonia as a nation and that this was the root of the problem. Catalonia had almost been recognised during the drawing up of the Constitution in 1978 and in the subsequent system of Autonomous Communities that distinguished between regions and nationalities but then the “café para todos” system was applied. His suggestion was to ask the Catalan people whether they considered themselves a nation or not. “Let’s try consultations authorised by the institutions of the Spanish state … What’s happening in Catalonia is like a river that has been diverted trying to return to its natural course.”

There had been no precedent of an EU member state going through a similar separation process but it was a situation that Europe would have to face at some point in the future. He made the point that in the 9th century, Catalonia as the Spanish March was the only part of the Iberian peninsula that formed part of the European Carolingian Empire. Catalonia’s European DNA goes back over a thousand years.

Unwilling to commit himself on whether he would call early elections, Mas said that with more than two years of the legislature remaining, he would only do so if he considered them necessary. This might be if the situation became ungovernable or the talks on the fiscal pact failed. In response to the threat of suspension of Catalan autonomy, Mas wondered whether this would solve the Catalan situation.

His answer on a possible federal solution was that the problem was that nobody in the rest of Spain believed in federalism. A great example is that in 35 years the Senate has never been converted into the territorial chamber. He compared Spain with the US and Germany and also put his faith in finding a democratic solution. He trusted that whatever happened the relationship between Catalonia and Spain would remain close apart from anything else because many Catalans have Spanish roots.

One of the most revealing moments was when he was asked how he would like to go down in history. Mas laughingly said that he didn’t want to end up like Lluís Companys, the President of the Generalitat, who had been executed by the Franco regime in 1940. “I’m brave but I don’t want to be a martyr,” he laughed.

Artur Mas’s ideal was a combination of Enric Prat de la Riba, President of the Mancomunitat in 1914, and Francesc Macià, first President of the restored Generalitat under the Spanish Republic just prior to the Civil War. “Enric Prat de la Riba was a builder of Catalonia with very few resources but a great deal of quality. What those people did with very few resources was an enormous job that still lasts to this day a hundred years later. So the constructor, and Francesc Macià, the man of ideas but most of all, of ideals. A combination of a good job and ideals and consequently a project, and ideals in capital letters.”

He also stressed that he was the 129th President of the Generalitat of Catalonia and reminded the audience of the importance of the position. Tarradellas was reinstated as President of the Generalitat in 1977 a year before the Spanish Constitution was passed and this should have been sufficient for Catalonia to have received the treatment it deserved over the last 35 years.

In their write ups the following day, the Catalan newspapers commented that no members of the Spanish government had been present, which was another indication of the breakdown of relations. In fact, the highest ranking Spanish official was Rafael Spottorno, head of protocol of the royal household. Obviously, the Spanish royal family were more in touch with Catalonia than central government.

***

This is Chapter Three of my Artur Mas/Catalan Independence Book Project

Click Here To Read The Rest Of The Chapters Written So Far

The post Artur Mas: Two Reactions to 11-S 2012 appeared first on Catalonia Is Not Spain.

Artur Mas Background

Set on the morning after the Diada, this is a draft chapter of the background to Artur Mas and will be Chapter 2 of Artur Mas: An Independent State of Mind. The truth is I knew relatively little about him until he took over the process. I don’t really want to go into too much detail, though, because I want to concentrate on Sep 11th 2012 to the present and will add details as necessary throughout the main text.

Background

The following morning the Catalan Diada was the first international news story in many of the main foreign newspapers and websites whereas interestingly it had only been deemed worth a cursory mention on the Spanish national news on the public TV channel TVE1. Inevitably, the massive demonstration occupied the front pages and most of the content of all the Catalan newspapers.

The front page of La Vanguardia led with the headline “Catalonia Says Enough”. A million and a half people call for independence in the biggest demonstration in history. The massive civilised march will mark future relations between Catalonia and Spain. The main photo showed a river of people covering every centimetre of Via Laietana. The main Barcelona street leading down to the port was awash with senyeras and esteladas. The editorial and article after article told the same story.

My eye fell on Toni Batllori’s Ninots cartoon. It showed a driverless train full of people with “Catalonia, New European State” written on the side. Artur Mas was standing on the platform and an enormous hand was pointing to the empty driver’s cabin. “Come on!” read the speech bubble. Artur Mas was being called to conduct the process.

He was quoted on the previous evening as saying “Today has been a great day. The success of the demonstration strengthens us as a country and registers the process of national transition that Catalonia has begun.”

In the Shadows

If the truth be known, I didn’t know too much about Artur Mas at the time. He had always been in the shadow of the legendary Catalan President Jordi Pujol, who had presided over Catalonia from 1980 to 2003, and I suppose that was one of the reasons why Mas never made much of an impression on me.

I vaguely remember Pujol naming him Conseller en Cap, effectively Deputy Prime Minister in 2001, and when he stood as President of the Generalitat in Pujol’s place in 2003, I was hoping he would fail more than anything else. After 23 years of Pujol’s conservatism and dominance of Catalan politics by his Convergència i Unió party, I felt it was time for a change. His main rival was former socialist Mayor of Barcelona Pasqual Maragall and given my left-wing leanings, it was pretty clear where my support would go.

There was also something rather unsubstantial about Artur Mas in comparison with the elder statesmen of Catalan politics. I’d always been something of an admirer of Pasqual Maragall, the crusty old socialist who had brought the Olympics to Barcelona and who also happened to be the grandson of the great Catalan poet Joan Maragall, author of works of the importance of the anthem Cant de la Senyera and the vitriolic Oda a Espanya. This was when the S and C in PSC seemed to carry equal weight and the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya was both a socialist and Catalanist party. It was the only political option that represented both the Catalan identity and the mainly Spanish-speaking working classes, who had migrated to the Barcelona Metropolitan Area since the 1950s.

Artur Mas also paled in comparison to Convergència founder and leader Jordi Pujol, who had been President of the Generalitat since 1980 and was already a Catalan institution when I arrived in Barcelona in 1988. His eccentric gnome-like looks, wild hair and finger-jabbing gestures didn’t make him the most attractive of politicians but Pujol typified an old eccentric deep Catalonia that certainly resonated with a large traditional section of the Catalan population.

Neither Maragall nor Pujol were in favour of independence for Catalonia, though, but at the time very few people were. Maragall is known for the phrase “I’m a Catalanist who is not a nationalist” and his Catalan socialist PSC was very much in line with the Spanish socialist PSOE party, first under Felipe González and then under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, particularly when it came to politics on a national level. As mayor of the Barcelona cosmopolitan melting pot, it made sense not to be too exclusively Catalan, so I was interested to see the contribution he’d make as President of the Generalitat.

Pujol, on the other hand, represented a much less tolerant version of Catalanism but despite his strange looks, he certainly wasn’t lacking in charisma. An early impression of him back in 1989 was seeing him on TV news report standing on a car bonnet berating Spanish-speakers at a Feria de Abril in one of the satellite towns on the outskirts of Barcelona. A Christian ex-doctor and founder not only of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya but also of the Banca Catalana, he seemed to sum up everything that was vaguely unpleasant but yet quite compelling about conservative Catalan culture.

I liked it when he said that “Anyone who spoke Catalan to their children could consider themselves a Catalan” because it opened a door to me and many other new arrivals with different origins. I didn’t like the CiU policy of pacting with whichever government was in power in Madrid in order to gain minor benefits for Catalonia, though. This practice was known as Peix al Cove, literally Fish in the Basket, but closer in meaning to Take the Money and Run! in standard English and revealed a degree of hypocrisy hard to stomach, particularly when in later years the ally in Madrid was the openly anti-Catalan Partido Popular under José Maria Aznar.

In comparison to these two towering figures of Catalan politics, Artur Mas just seemed too lightweight, too young and good-looking to be taken seriously, a pre-packaged product that wouldn’t be around for long. In fact, I heard rumours at the time that Mas was just keeping the CiU leadership seat warm for Jordi Pujol’s son, Oriol, the true heir to conservative Catalanism, who would inherit the throne after a perfunctory pause. One of the political skit programmes on Catalan TV portrayed Mas as an automaton, a faceless robotic technocrat. My view, as a casual observer on Catalan politics, was that Artur Mas didn’t have what it takes to leave a mark on Catalan politics.

Leader of the Opposition

This view looked like being confirmed during the election campaign in the autumn of 2003, which was marked by the vacuum left by Jordi Pujol. The PSC led by Pasqual Maragall were clear front runners and the left-wing Catalanists of Esquerra Republicana continued advancing in popularity and eating away at the traditional CiU vote.

When voting day came on November 16th, the results weren’t as damning for Artur Mas and CiU as expected. The PSC was the most voted party with 31.16% followed very closely by CiU with 30.94%. However, due to a quirk of parliamentary seat distribution throughout Catalonia, CiU ended up with 46 seats compared to PSC’s 42.

This was a respectable first result for Artur Mas but with 135 deputies in the Parliament of Catalonia, 46 seats was a long way from an absolute majority. After 23 years in power, CiU had no obvious allies and at the Pact of the Tinell, PSC came to an agreement with Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) and the eco-socialists of Inciativa per Catalunya-Verds (ICV) to form a Govern Catalanista i d’Esquerres, a Left-Wing Catalanist Government, with Pasqual Maragall as President of the Generalitat. Popularly known as the Tripartit, this seemed like a step in the right direction with the Government of the Generalitat reflecting the political and demographic make-up of cosmopolitan Barcelona rather than the archaic conservatism of rural Catalonia.

As Leader of the Opposition, for Artur Mas it meant being sidelined politically, at least as far as the general public were concerned. The two main media figures of the Tripartit were obviously President Pasqual Maragall and the always controversial leader of Esquerra Republicana, Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira. My impression at the time was that even ICV leader Joan Saura seemed to get more media coverage than Mas.

The main political issue of the first Tripartit legislature was the negotiation of Catalonia’s new Statute of Autonomy, known as the Estatut, with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s PSOE government in Madrid. Artur Mas was one of the three main Catalan negotiators along with PSC’s Manuela de Madre and ERC’s Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira. In January 2006, it was Artur Mas who, after a one-to-one meeting with Zapatero, came back to Catalonia with the definitive text of the Estatut that would be voted on that June.

The final version of the Estatut ceded on many key points and was a much gentler document than the one originally drafted by the Catalan Parliament. This, and the fact that Mas and Zapatero had also come to an agreement on future Peix-al-Cova-style collaborations between CiU and PSOE, provoked extreme annoyance amongst the ERC ranks and is probably the root of Esquerra’s almost obsessive mistrust of Mas.

To the casual observer, it was an early example of the pragmatic Artur Mas overcoming obstacles and just getting things done. I’ve also since learned that Artur Mas strongly resented Esquerra’s pact with PSC. They had chosen socialism over Catalanism and deprived Mas of a presidency, which he felt he had legitimately won.

ERC ended up recommending their supporters to vote against the Estatut in the referendum, which first led Maragall to expel them from his government and finally to call early elections for September 2006. The elections were held at the height of a vitriolic anti-Catalan campaign run by the Partido Popular, who had appealed against the Estatut through the Spanish Constitutional Court.

History Repeats Itself

The elections to Parliament of Catalonia of September 2006 were a case of history repeating itself. The CiU share of the votes increased slightly and although they were the most voted party with 48 seats, ERC decided to pact with PSC and ICV to form a Tripartit for the second time. Once again left-wing loyalties and an evident mistrust of Artur Mas and CiU obviously outweighed any temptation Esquerra might have had to take part in a Catalanist alliance.

The second Tripartit is better known for its in-fighting and failures than any political achievements. Maragall had been replaced by José Montilla from the Spanish PSOE wing of PSC, who increasingly distanced themselves from Catalanism. So Esquerra’s decision to exclude Mas from the presidency again was even more unforgivable.

However, for Artur Mas, the second Tripartit was a defining period during which time he began to stamp his own mark onto the leadership of CiU. His proposal of “refounding Catalanism” clearly came from personal conviction under what he termed the Casa Gran del Catalanisme also brought to light internal differences within the Convergència i Unió federation.

Until that point I’d always seen CiU as a single party rather than a federation of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC), presided by Artur Mas, and Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (UDC), whose general secretary was Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida. The idea behind the Casa Gran del Catalanisme, which was inspired by the anti-Catalan campaign that was still raging throughout Spain, was to form an alliance of Catalanist forces, including members of CiU as well as like-minded people in ERC, PSC, ICV and independents. Independence was still a long way from being on Artur Mas’s agenda but even so Duran i Lleida and Unió decided not to take part.

The 2008 General Elections to the Spanish Congress came and went without too much fuss. Zapatero continued as President of Spain and Duran i Lleida remained as leader of the CiU block in Madrid. Mas continued developing his concept of the plurinational Spanish state, whereby without being independent Catalonia would have a greater role to play. It is in this period when he first began using the expressing “The Right to Decide” with respect to Catalonia’s status as a sovereign nation.

In the summer of 2010, Spain dropped a cultural and political bomb on Catalonia. After a delay of four years, the Spanish Constitutional Court declared most of the Estatut unconstitutional and a schism opened in Catalan society. The main political difference was now clearly no longer between left and right but rather the divide between Catalanists and Spanish nationalists.

Two weeks after the ruling a massive demonstration under the slogan “Som una Nació. Nosaltres Decidim” – “We Are a Nation. We Decide” – was held in Barcelona and more than a million Catalans took to the streets of Barcelona. Whilst admitting to having been moved by the demonstration, Mas was typically prudent in his response and spoke of Catalan dignity rather than independence. Later that summer, Spain won the football 2010 World Cup in South Africa and Spanish football shirts were conspicuous by their absence on the streets of Catalonia.

Voices in favour of independence for Catalonia had been growing in strength since the first informal ballot on independence in the coastal town of Arenys de Munt in September 2009 but in the wake of the Constitutional Court ruling and with elections to the Parliament of Catalonia due in November 2010, they got louder. In August, Ara o Mai (Now or Never) was formed and was the first organisation to call for a single pro-independence candidacy with all the Catalanist parties standing together on one list. However, the distance between CiU and ERC remained as wide as ever.

During the campaign, many of the candidates appeared on the programme Tengo Una Pregunta Para Usted – I Have a Question For You – which was shown on Spanish national public television channel RTVE1 and involved the audience asking questions to the candidates. In the programme dedicated to Artur Mas, the questions covered the typical topics of social and welfare policy and solutions and although support for Catalan independence still only stood at around 25% at the time, the question was bound to come up.

A member of the audience directly asked Artur Mas whether or not he would vote in favour of independence for Catalonia in the case of a hypothetical referendum. After skirting around the issue by saying that he was standing as President of Catalonia and so had to represent the views not only of his own party Convergència i Unió but in the case of being elected of all Catalans, Mas openly admitted that if it was down to him personally he would definitely vote in favour of independence. However, he was clear that he would not initiate a process that might end up dividing Catalan society.

In answer to a later question in the same programme, Mas made reference to the adverse ruling on the Estatut and use stated very clearly that Catalonia was a nation with the right to decide its own political future. Once again he stated clearly that he didn’t want to create tension and so considered an improvement of the fiscal pact between Catalonia and central government the main objective for the time being. He also mentioned that he didn’t celebrate Spain’s football World Cup victory that summer and certainly didn’t go out onto the streets waving a Spanish flag.

Statements made around the same time in the biography La Màscara del Rei Artur, written by political commentator Pilar Rahola, confirmed Mas’s commitment to Catalan independence. “The idea of independence is not for the impatient, but is a question of perseverance.”

President of the Generalitat

The elections for the Parliament of Catalonia of November 2010 were third time lucky for Artur Mas. With 62 seats and over 38% of the votes, CiU were the clear winners and given that the Tripartit concept had burnt itself out, CiU were able to form a government. Artur Mas became President of the Generalitat of Catalonia for the first time.

However, 62 was still 6 seats short of the absolute majority of 68 and CiU would need the support of other parties in order to push through their policies. Unfortunately, given Esquerra’s unwillingness, this support came principally from the Partido Popular. Unaware of the rivalry within Catalanism, the impression to the casual observer was that we were back with a traditional conservative CiU government of old.

The crisis was a definite complication for Artur Mas’s first government, which like in the rest of Spain was forced to introduce severe cuts in social and health services. The situation wasn’t help by the Generalitat’s growing debt and it became increasingly difficult to pay civil servants’ salaries. In March 2011, after 100 days in government, Artur Mas made a speech blaming Catalonia’s woes on central government but for most people the left-right debate had taken centre stage again.

In May 2011, the 15-M or Indignats movement of peaceful protests against the cuts organised its first demonstrations throughout Spain and a revolutionary camp was set up in Plaça de Catalunya in Barcelona. The attempted eviction by the police on May 27th resulted in injuries to 84 protesters and 37 police officers. Convergència i Unió’s right-wing Catalanist government was definitely seen as the enemy, with Interior Minister Felip Puig being a particular object of hate. Things reached a head on June 15th when demonstrators tried to stop deputies entering a session of the Parliament of Catalonia and President of the Generalitat Artur Mas was only able to gain access by helicopter.

Not surprisingly, Mas’s first Diada on September 11th 2011 was a relatively low-key affair with a demonstration of only around 10,000 in Barcelona. Catalan independence was not the central point on the agenda with the main bone of contention being yet a Spanish Supreme Court obliging the use of Castilian Spanish in Catalan schools. In his Diada speech, Artur Mas said that “The national transition is happening. A greater feeling of sovereignty and freedom is setting in the minds of the Catalan people” but at the time a clear Catalanist project seemed a long way away.

In many respects the turning point was the Spanish General Elections of November 2011 in which, despite the economic crisis, Mariano Rajoy’s Partido Popular won a comfortable majority. Apart from the still socialist province of Seville and the nationalist Basque Country, almost the whole of Spain’s political map turned blue. In Catalonia, Convergència i Unió won in the provinces of Girona, Tarragona and Lleida whilst PSC retained control in the their traditional stronghold of Barcelona province.

With such a strong majority culled from the rest of Spain, it was clear that the Partido Popular didn’t need Catalan support in order to be able to form a government. Added to natural feelings of antipathy towards the Catalans, no concession needed to be made in order to win votes. Only three days after coming to power, Rajoy refused to release €1,450,000,000 to Catalonia from the competitivity fund. The same thing happened when Artur Mas asked for €5,000,000,000 from the FLA, the liquidity fund for the autonomous communities and to make matters worse central government refused to settle debts to Catalonia that it had accumulated over previous budgets.

Not only did Catalonia pay around 8% of its yearly GDP amounting to around €16,000,000,000 in taxes that it didn’t get back but central government refused to bail out a badly hit Catalan economy when requested. Artur Mas’s negotiations with Madrid would centre on gaining the more equitable tax-investment relationship known as the fiscal pact. Meanwhile, throughout 2012, the calls from Catalan society for independence began to get louder.

The post Artur Mas Background appeared first on Catalonia Is Not Spain.

Artur Mas Forum Europa Speech – 13/9/2012

Just two days after La Diada, Artur Mas gave a talk at the Fòrum Europa in Madrid, where he explained the situation in Catalonia. He began by covering the austerity cuts and this allowed him to talk about the unfair treatment that Catalonia received regarding financing and investment. Regarding the Catalan situation, he said that Catalans were tired of the treatment they received given the energy they’d put into making Spain a stable and prosperous democracy but Spain was also tired of the Catalans. However, Spain shouldn’t ignore the Catalans claims. He answered a number of questions and closed by saying he’d like to be remembered as a combination of Enric Prat de la Riba and Francesc Macià.

Artur Mas at Fórum Europa in Madrid on September 13th 2012

José Montilla was present but no members of the Spanish government. The only Spanish official present was Rafael Spottorno, the head of protocol of the royal household. During the questions, it was mentioned that Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida had not attended and Mas said this was because he was confined to a wheelchair.

 

Economy

Artur Mas began the talk fully aware of the sensitive moment by mentioning the present visit, the meeting with Rajoy on September 20th as well as a meeting of Presidents of the Autonomous Communities in Madrid at the start of October. He pointed out that it was a good idea to maintain normal relations and channels of dialogue.

He began with a review of the economic situation asking whether Spain had any chance of recovering economic growth. He affirmed his total confidence in Catalonia’s capacity for recovery and said that he had few doubts about Spain. He stressed the importance of foreign projection with exports and tourism growing in Catalonia despite the crisis.

His central argument was that as Catalonia is one of Spain’s motors for economic growth, with 6% of the territory, 16% of the population and 27% of exports, so this is where investment should be made. He then took the opportunity to mention the new container terminal in the Port of Barcelona funded by Chinese investors, who would be investing €500 million euros in two phases and which would turn Barcelona into the most important container port in southern Europe. However, railway access, which had been promised by central government remains provisional.

Furthermore, whilst Spain is one of the most important tourist destinations in the world, Catalonia is its most successful region.

The next topic was the Spain’s debt and how the only way it could be viewed was as a member of the Eurozone. This means abiding by the rules and applying austerity policies in order to bring the economy into line. He alluded to the French socialist government, who in the election campaign promised a relaxation of measures but have applied austerity measures once in power, and he also mentioned the problems this has created in Holland. He points out that Spain has been given time to make adjustments.

However, the 1% conceded by Brussels to Spain, which means €10,000,000,000, has been kept in its entirety by central administration, which means that the Autonomous Communities, who administer Health, Education, Social Services etc, have no extra resources. “Central government asks for time and is given it but when central government is asked for time it doesn’t concede it.” He said that this situation will worsen in 2013, which will stretch the system of Autonomous Communities to the limit.

He went on to mention the fiscal deficit of €16 billion and how incongruous it was that Catalonia should have to ask central government for a €5 billion bailout, especially when Spain was a net receiver of funding within the EU whilst Catalonia was a net donor.

Situation in Catalonia

He finally got onto talking about the Diada and the relationship between Catalonia and Spain and he said that they were mutually tired of each other. “Catalonia is tired of not being able to progress in the way it wants and Spain is tired of the way Catalonia behaves. Catalonia believes that it contributes a lot but doesn’t receive the respect with regard to how it is whilst Spain thinks that Catalonia is always demanding and always complaining.”

Mas listed instances such as the constitution, 23-F, the joining of the common market and even support against terrorism in which Catalonia had given its support to central government but in return the Generalitat’s competences had been invaded, both statutes of autonomy had been restricted and Catalonia had had to suffer a fiscal deficit of around 8% of its GDP for the last 30 years. At 11%, the amount of investment isn’t just below the GDP of 19% but below the population of 16%. It was even recognised that investment in Catalonia equivalent to its GDP was required but this hadn’t been fulfilled and central government hadn’t paid its debt to Catalonia. Furthermore, the Catalan language doesn’t receive the respect it deserves.

He advised Spain not to minimise what was happening in Catalonia. 1.5 million people in the streets of Barcelona would be equivalent to 9 million of the Spanish population.

To close the speech, he ment on to talk about his planned meeting with Rajoy in which he planned to ask for fiscal sovereignty without breaking agreements on solidarity with Spain’s poorer regions. However, he complained that after 30 years of Catalan and European money certain regions still hadn’t created the means of producing their own wealth. It doesn’t make sense from a Catalan point of view to be responsible for part of the expenditure whilst not being responsible for part of the investment.

The mandate comes from Parliament but principally from the Catalan people, which cannot be ignored. Mas reiterated that he identified with the Catalan people’s demands for the reasons stated. The intention of Catalonia throughout 30 years was always to transform the Spanish state so that there was a place for Catalonia’s national, linguistic and economic aspirations but as this hasn’t worked, Catalonia now needs its own state.

Durao Barroso had said a few days earlier that the future of Europe was of states that represent nations. Artur Mas asked whether Spain was capable of recognising that Catalonia is a nation. If it was, there may be a future together but if not, Catalan a nation with so much history was bound to want to resolve the situation within a European context.

Questions

When asked about the process aghead, Artur Mas said he couldn’t predict exactly how things would go because any process had its ups and downs. He once again defined the Catalan process as one of national transition, Mas mentioned the ups and downs of Spain’s transition to democracy. The first objective was his meeting with Rajoy on the fiscal pact.

When asked whether Catalonia would remain in the EU (because it wasn’t a nation), Mas accepted that Spain had never recognised Catalonia as a nation. It was almost recognised during the drawing up of the Constitution and the subsequent system of Autonomous Communities that distinguished between regions and nationalities but then the “café para todos” system was applied. His suggestion was to ask the Catalan people whether they considered themselves a nation or not. “Let’s try consultations authorised by the institutions of the Spanish state.” “What’s happening in Catalonia is like a river that has been diverted trying to return to its natural course.”

He repeated that so far there was no precedent of an EU member state going through a similar separation process but it was a situation that Europe would have to face at some point in the future. He made the point that in the 9th century, Catalonia as the Spanish March was the only part of the Iberian peninsula that formed part of Europe’s main empire, the Carolingian. Catalonia’s European DNA goes back over a thousand years.

When asked if he would call early elections, Mas said that with more than two years of the legislature remaining, he would only do so if he considered them necessary. This might be if the situation became ungovernable or the talks on the fiscal pact failed. In response to the threat of suspension of Catalan autonomy, Mas wondered whether this would solve the Catalan situation.

When asked if a federal Spain was the solution, he said that the problem was that nobody in the rest of Spain believed in federalism. A great example is that in 35 years the Senate has never been converted into the territorial chamber. He compared Spain with the US and Germany.

He also put his faith in finding a democratic solution and trusted that whatever happened the relationship between Catalonia and Spain would remain close apart from anything else because many Catalans have Spanish roots.

When asked how he would like to go down in history, Mas laughingly said that he didn’t want to end up like Companys “I behave with courage but I don’t want to be a martyr.” He said that he would like to be remembered as a combination of Enric Prat de la Riba and Francesc Macià. “Enric Prat de la Riba was a builder of Catalonia with very few resources but a great deal of quality. What those people did with very few resources was an enormous job that still lasts to this day a hundred years later. So the constructor, and Francesc Macià, the man of ideas but most of all, of ideals. A combination of a good job and ideals and consequently a project, and ideals in capital letters.”

He also stressed that he was the 129th President of the Generalitat of Catalonia and reminded the audience of the importance of the position. Tarradellas was reinstated as President of the Generalitat before the Spanish Constitution was passed and this should have been sufficient for Catalonia to have received the treatment it deserved over the last 35 years.

The post Artur Mas Forum Europa Speech – 13/9/2012 appeared first on Catalonia Is Not Spain.

Artur Mas Forum Europa Speech – 14/9/2012

Just two days after La Diada, Artur Mas gave a talk at the Fòrum Europa in Madrid, where he explained the situation in Catalonia. He began by covering the austerity cuts and this allowed him to talk about the unfair treatment that Catalonia received regarding financing and investment. Regarding the Catalan situation, he said that Catalans were tired of the treatment they received given the energy they’d put into making Spain a stable and prosperous democracy but Spain was also tired of the Catalans. However, Spain shouldn’t ignore the Catalans claims. He answered a number of questions and closed by saying he’d like to be remembered as a combination of Enric Prat de la Riba and Francesc Macià.

Artur Mas at Fórum Europa in Madrid on September 14th 2012

José Montilla was present but no members of the Spanish government. The only Spanish official present was Rafael Spottorno, the head of protocol of the royal household. During the questions, it was mentioned that Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida had not attended and Mas said this was because he was confined to a wheelchair.

 

Economy

Artur Mas began the talk fully aware of the sensitive moment by mentioning the present visit, the meeting with Rajoy on September 20th as well as a meeting of Presidents of the Autonomous Communities in Madrid at the start of October. He pointed out that it was a good idea to maintain normal relations and channels of dialogue.

He began with a review of the economic situation asking whether Spain had any chance of recovering economic growth. He affirmed his total confidence in Catalonia’s capacity for recovery and said that he had few doubts about Spain. He stressed the importance of foreign projection with exports and tourism growing in Catalonia despite the crisis.

His central argument was that as Catalonia is one of Spain’s motors for economic growth, with 6% of the territory, 16% of the population and 27% of exports, so this is where investment should be made. He then took the opportunity to mention the new container terminal in the Port of Barcelona funded by Chinese investors, who would be investing €500 million euros in two phases and which would turn Barcelona into the most important container port in southern Europe. However, railway access, which had been promised by central government remains provisional.

Furthermore, whilst Spain is one of the most important tourist destinations in the world, Catalonia is its most successful region.

The next topic was the Spain’s debt and how the only way it could be viewed was as a member of the Eurozone. This means abiding by the rules and applying austerity policies in order to bring the economy into line. He alluded to the French socialist government, who in the election campaign promised a relaxation of measures but have applied austerity measures once in power, and he also mentioned the problems this has created in Holland. He points out that Spain has been given time to make adjustments.

However, the 1% conceded by Brussels to Spain, which means €10,000,000,000, has been kept in its entirety by central administration, which means that the Autonomous Communities, who administer Health, Education, Social Services etc, have no extra resources. “Central government asks for time and is given it but when central government is asked for time it doesn’t concede it.” He said that this situation will worsen in 2013, which will stretch the system of Autonomous Communities to the limit.

He went on to mention the fiscal deficit of €16 billion and how incongruous it was that Catalonia should have to ask central government for a €5 billion bailout, especially when Spain was a net receiver of funding within the EU whilst Catalonia was a net donor.

Situation in Catalonia

He finally got onto talking about the Diada and the relationship between Catalonia and Spain and he said that they were mutually tired of each other. “Catalonia is tired of not being able to progress in the way it wants and Spain is tired of the way Catalonia behaves. Catalonia believes that it contributes a lot but doesn’t receive the respect with regard to how it is whilst Spain thinks that Catalonia is always demanding and always complaining.”

Mas listed instances such as the constitution, 23-F, the joining of the common market and even support against terrorism in which Catalonia had given its support to central government but in return the Generalitat’s competences had been invaded, both statutes of autonomy had been restricted and Catalonia had had to suffer a fiscal deficit of around 8% of its GDP for the last 30 years. At 11%, the amount of investment isn’t just below the GDP of 19% but below the population of 16%. It was even recognised that investment in Catalonia equivalent to its GDP was required but this hadn’t been fulfilled and central government hadn’t paid its debt to Catalonia. Furthermore, the Catalan language doesn’t receive the respect it deserves.

He advised Spain not to minimise what was happening in Catalonia. 1.5 million people in the streets of Barcelona would be equivalent to 9 million of the Spanish population.

To close the speech, he ment on to talk about his planned meeting with Rajoy in which he planned to ask for fiscal sovereignty without breaking agreements on solidarity with Spain’s poorer regions. However, he complained that after 30 years of Catalan and European money certain regions still hadn’t created the means of producing their own wealth. It doesn’t make sense from a Catalan point of view to be responsible for part of the expenditure whilst not being responsible for part of the investment.

The mandate comes from Parliament but principally from the Catalan people, which cannot be ignored. Mas reiterated that he identified with the Catalan people’s demands for the reasons stated. The intention of Catalonia throughout 30 years was always to transform the Spanish state so that there was a place for Catalonia’s national, linguistic and economic aspirations but as this hasn’t worked, Catalonia now needs its own state.

Durao Barroso had said a few days earlier that the future of Europe was of states that represent nations. Artur Mas asked whether Spain was capable of recognising that Catalonia is a nation. If it was, there may be a future together but if not, Catalan a nation with so much history was bound to want to resolve the situation within a European context.

Questions

When asked about the process aghead, Artur Mas said he couldn’t predict exactly how things would go because any process had its ups and downs. He once again defined the Catalan process as one of national transition, Mas mentioned the ups and downs of Spain’s transition to democracy. The first objective was his meeting with Rajoy on the fiscal pact.

When asked whether Catalonia would remain in the EU (because it wasn’t a nation), Mas accepted that Spain had never recognised Catalonia as a nation. It was almost recognised during the drawing up of the Constitution and the subsequent system of Autonomous Communities that distinguished between regions and nationalities but then the “café para todos” system was applied. His suggestion was to ask the Catalan people whether they considered themselves a nation or not. “Let’s try consultations authorised by the institutions of the Spanish state.” “What’s happening in Catalonia is like a river that has been diverted trying to return to its natural course.”

He repeated that so far there was no precedent of an EU member state going through a similar separation process but it was a situation that Europe would have to face at some point in the future. He made the point that in the 9th century, Catalonia as the Spanish March was the only part of the Iberian peninsula that formed part of Europe’s main empire, the Carolingian. Catalonia’s European DNA goes back over a thousand years.

When asked if he would call early elections, Mas said that with more than two years of the legislature remaining, he would only do so if he considered them necessary. This might be if the situation became ungovernable or the talks on the fiscal pact failed. In response to the threat of suspension of Catalan autonomy, Mas wondered whether this would solve the Catalan situation.

When asked if a federal Spain was the solution, he said that the problem was that nobody in the rest of Spain believed in federalism. A great example is that in 35 years the Senate has never been converted into the territorial chamber. He compared Spain with the US and Germany.

He also put his faith in finding a democratic solution and trusted that whatever happened the relationship between Catalonia and Spain would remain close apart from anything else because many Catalans have Spanish roots.

When asked how he would like to go down in history, Mas laughingly said that he didn’t want to end up like Companys “I behave with courage but I don’t want to be a martyr.” He said that he would like to be remembered as a combination of Enric Prat de la Riba and Francesc Macià. “Enric Prat de la Riba was a builder of Catalonia with very few resources but a great deal of quality. What those people did with very few resources was an enormous job that still lasts to this day a hundred years later. So the constructor, and Francesc Macià, the man of ideas but most of all, of ideals. A combination of a good job and ideals and consequently a project, and ideals in capital letters.”

He also stressed that he was the 129th President of the Generalitat of Catalonia and reminded the audience of the importance of the position. Tarradellas was reinstated as President of the Generalitat before the Spanish Constitution was passed and this should have been sufficient for Catalonia to have received the treatment it deserved over the last 35 years.

The post Artur Mas Forum Europa Speech – 14/9/2012 appeared first on Catalonia Is Not Spain.

Artur Mas Press Conference – Day After the Diada 2012

In the press conference Artur Mas gave on the morning after the Diada on September 12th 2012, the Catalan President gave his first reaction to the extraordinary success of the demonstration and gave some clues as how he would proceed. The press conference was brief because he was attending some official acts in Tarragona later that day and then going to Madrid to give a talk to Madrid businessmen at the Forum Europa the following day (September 13th).

He emphasised the success of the Diada and said how pleased he was that Catalonia had offered such a positive and civilised image to the rest of the world. He was particularly pleased that the demonstration had not been anti-Spanish but simply in favour of Catalan aspirations of creating its own sovereign state.

The key term was national transition, which he had used in the election came that had brought him to the Presidency of the Generalitat in 2010. He was clear that Catalonia had done its utmost to help Spain since the transition to democracy after Franco’s death in 1975. However, 35 years later with democracy in Spain firmly established, it was now time for Catalonia to concentrate on its own aspirations and go through its own transition into a sovereign state.

He didn’t underestimate the difficulty of the process that lay ahead and was fully aware that Spanish central government would do little to help the Catalans achieve their aspirations and would try to obstruct the process. He also pointed out that there was as yet no precedent for such a separation process from within the European Union and that this was another difficulty.

However, a combination of the will of the people and support from Catalonia’s political institutions would mean that the process would move forward in logical steps. The first of these was clearly the creation of structures of state that would allow Catalonia to collect its own taxes so the first priority was to see what could be achieved regarding the fiscal pact in his meeting with Mariano Rajoy the following week on September 20th.

Press conference given by Artur Mas on the morning following the Diada (September 12th 2012)

 

Artur Mas celebrated “the enormous success of the demonstration on the previous day’s Diada” which “cannot be questioned or minimised”

He also emphasised the civilised way in which the demonstration had taken place “we have offered the world the image of the best Catalonia” and “a powerful message of desire for freedom and of wanting to be a normal people amongst the countries and nations of the world”. “This helps the process to be seen as a project charged with optimism”. “Yesterday’s message was very clear and also very normal. A people who, in order to continue being and continue progressing, is simply asking for a state, which means an instrument. Without reducing its importance, we need to remove some dramatism”

“Catalonia has spent 30 years dedicating a large part of its energy to improving Spain as a whole. The hope was that Spain would be more respectful towards Catalonia’s aspirations but recently there has been a change of direction, which at the beginning of my term of office I attempted to describe as national transition. Spain made its own transition towards democracy and Europe 35 years ago but now it’s Catalonia’s turn to go through its own transition. In this new period, we need to dedicate the majority of our energy to the Catalan process and the people of Catalonia and the political institutions need to do this together, hand in hand.”

He reminded the press that in his message prior to Diada he had said that the voices, desires and protests of the people who had attended the demonstration were his own voice, desires and protests and “we will act in accordance with yesterday and with coherence regarding this process of national transition. He also said that “Catalonia had never been so close to national fulfilment in its desires, aspirations and objectives and after yesterday we are even closer. Yesterday wasn’t something of minimal importance , it was an important step forward.”

“Nothing will be easy but everything is possible. Nothing will be easy because at the present time, Catalonia doesn’t have the majority of structures of a normal state available to it. We have to create them and this can’t be done overnight. It won’t be easy because the Spanish state won’t make it easy. It won’t be easy because Catalonia will be the first sovereignty process to place within the European Union.

“But even though there are obstacles, even though there are difficulties, even though there are few precedents for our situation, even though the Spanish state will view this process with hostility and strong opposition, everything is possible if there is the will, strong majorities and the capacity to resist.”

“Despite the difficulties we’re going through at the moment, yesterday’s demonstration wasn’t attended by people who were annoyed, hostile or rude. They were people with a great civic and patriotic sense. They were people who love their country, are prepared to defend it and simply want for Catalonia what so many other countries already have. So let me say that I feel profoundly proud to be president of this country in the moment we’re going through now.”

In his answers to the questions, he reiterated that the desire to arrive at a tax agreement with central government, the so-called fiscal pact that had been ratified by the Catalan Parliament the previous July, was perfectly consistent with the demands of the previous day’s demonstration. It wasn’t a question of either or but rather whether Catalonia’s demands for fiscal sovereignty equivalent to the Basque Country and Navarre’s concert economic would be accepted by central government or not. He also repeated that Catalonia didn’t have elementary structures of state in place, namely a system by which to collect taxes. “In this process of national transition and sovereignty, fiscal sovereignty is essential.”

He also commented on the change of focus of the majority of Catalan society and the main of political parties that represent it from hoping to gain more respect for Catalan culture, language and aspirations by supporting the Spanish project to focusing on its own concerns. (Historical note: This is very similar to the change that took place after the Bases de Manresa were drafted in 1892 – http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bases_de...) He continues to refer to this change as National Transition, which implies a process of change that needs to be undertaken with a certain premeditated pace ie. a series of logical steps one after the other.

When asked if the previous day’s demonstration would affect the tone of his forthcoming interview with Mariano Rajoy on September 20th, he replied that it wouldn’t because he hadn’t been surprised by the success of the Diada and once again commented on how important it was that Catalan society and political institutions went through this together. He also commented on the fact that the demonstration had been pro-Catalan and not anti-Spanish because this was much more positive. In his meeting with Rajoy he hoped that the Spanish president would this advice “Don’t just listen to me, don’t just listen to Convergència i Unió, don’t just listen to the Catalan political parties, listen to the Catalan people.

When asked if a negative answer on the question of the fiscal pact and the creation of a Catalan Treasury would mean that he would call early elections he refused to commit himself because he didn’t know the answer he would get.

The post Artur Mas Press Conference – Day After the Diada 2012 appeared first on Catalonia Is Not Spain.

La Diada 2012 – When It All Began

As I continue with my new writing project, here I look back on the first Diada 2012, when for most of us the independence movement kicked off in earnest. I thought the project was going to be about Artur Mas but this looks like an ideal first/introductory chapter to me. Actually, if I think back to Catalonia is not Spain, it took me about five log posts until I really knew what the book was going to be about, so here’s another working title The Process: Catalonia’s Journey to Independence, but as I’ve said before nothing is written in stone.

La Diada 2012 – When It All Began

Black upon white, the silhouetted forearms of the bastoners banged out the rhythm of the traditional Catalan stick dance. Over the percussion, famous Catalan actors and musicians recited the central section of Salvador Espriu’s emblematic poem The Bull’s Hide. “We will try to build in the sand the dangerous palace of our dreams. Dreams. Dreams.”

Amongst the famous faces, there were others as yet still completely unknown to me. “And we will learn this humble lesson throughout the whole tiring time.”

In effect, it was the presentation of Carme Forcadell, Muriel Casals, Joan Rigol and Ferran Requejo to a wider public. “Because only then are we free from fighting. Fighting.”

These people were soon to become the leaders of a popular movement that was about to burst into life. “For the final victory over fear. Listen, Sepharad. Listen.”

The message was clearly addressed to the Catalan people, the Sepharad of the poem. “For humans cannot be unless they are free. Free. Free.”

This was a direct call to action to the Catalans to return from the wilderness and reclaim their identity. “Understand Sepharad that we will never be unless we are free. Free. Free.”

The poem had acted as a rallying cry for the Catalans under the oppression of Franco’s dictatorship. “Let the voice of all the people shout.”

And now the ghost of Espriu was rallying the Catalans to call for independence from Spain. “Amen.”

The poem finished. The percussion stopped. Silence. The words “Independence is Freedom” came up on the screen. White on black. In capital letters. “We March on Barcelona on September 11th”.

September 11th was the Catalan National Day known as La Diada. This commemorated the abolition of all Catalan rights and freedoms when, after a fifteen-month siege Barcelona fell to the troops of the King of Castile, Felipe V, on September 11th 1714. For most of the time I’d been in Barcelona, La Diada had been little more than an excuse to wave Catalan senyera flags from the balcony and watch TV coverage of slightly tedious ceremonial events and sentimental patriotic speeches by local dignitaries.

The March towards Independence spot on TV in early September clearly announced that something was in the air, but thinking back to the summer of 2012, the subject of independence had been on everybody’s lips for some time.

The Indignats movement of peaceful demonstrations against the economic crisis had fizzled out a year earlier and then Mariano Rajoy’s anti-Catalan Partido Popular had won a comfortable majority in Congress in the Spanish General Elections of November 2011. Badly hit by the crisis, Catalans began looking around for ways to improve the situation without permission from Madrid.

Unbeknown to most of us, in early March 2012, an organisation had been created to coordinate and promote the growing calls for independence for Catalonia. Its name, Assemblea Nacional Catalana, was chosen to echo the Assemblea de Catalunya, the organisation that had coordinated protests against Franco at the end of the dictatorship, and like its predecessor ANC members came from all shades of the political spectrum.

Alongside the Assemblea stood Òmnium Cultural, the organisation founded to defend Catalan culture and language at the height of Francoist repression. Two of the unknown faces in The Bull’s Hide video were Carme Forcadell and Muriel Casals, presidents of the Assemblea Nacional Catalana and Òmnium Cultural respectively. Social, economic, cultural and linguistic reasons for independence from Spain were well-covered by the incipient movement.

As the big day approached the sense of expectation increased. By the evening of September 10th everyone knew that the Diada would be a historic event no one could predict quite how historic and emotional the day would turn out to be.

I live about 15 minutes walk from Plaça de Catalunya, the centre of Barcelona. On the morning of September 11th, the streets of the Eixample, were bright and sunny. Catalan flags fluttered from the balconies along Carrer Mallorca. There were plenty of traditional senyeras with their four red stripes on a yellow background. In fact, I’d spent part of the previous evening struggling to attach a 15-metre-long Catalan senyera to the outside of our building.

This year there were many more esteladas, though. This senyera with a blue triangle and a white star at one end harks back to the independence flag of the former Spanish colony of Cuba and is a symbolic call for Catalan independence from Spain.

Occasional tourists were making their way along Mallorca in the direction of Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia but even this early in the morning, they had been joined by another kind of visitor – out of town Catalans, who had come to Barcelona for the big event. A little after nine, I went down to the bar for breakfast and there were already a couple of coaches parked along the street.

A group of country Catalans had already occupied the tables on the terrace so I went inside and sat down with a copy of La Vanguardia newspaper. The headline read “A Diada That Looks Towards Europe”, echoing the demonstration’s slogan Catalunya, Nou Estat d’Europa – Catalonia, New European State. Six months ahead of schedule, FC Barcelona had announced that the 2013-14 season’s away kit would be the red and yellow stripes of the senyera. It seemed everyone was jumping on the Catalanist bandwagon.

In typically relaxed Mediterranean style, the march was planned to start sometime after lunch and would work its way from La Diagonal down Passeig de Gràcia. Rather than stopping at Plaça de Catalunya as most Barcelona demonstrations do, it would veer off to the left along Gran Via before it got to the main square and then make its way down Via Laietana along Marquès de l’Argentera. The end point would be a rally at 6 pm outside the Catalan Parliament in Parc de la Ciutadella, the site of the hated citadel built by Castilian military engineers in order to subjugate the Catalan people following the fall of Barcelona in 1714, a fittingly symbolic end point.

The main article briefly gave the background to the pro-independence aspirations of the Assemblea Nacional Catalana and mentioned that many Catalan politicians who were definitely not in favour of independence for Catalonia felt obliged to attend the demonstration. The principal discussion point, though, was Catalan President Artur Mas’s official Diada speech that he had given the previous evening.

As President of all Catalans, not just those in favour of independence, Artur Mas would not be attending the demonstration but reminded the Catalan people that “Your protests are mine”. Diplomatically, he avoided use of the word independence, preferring expressions such as sovereignty and fulfilment of national ambitions whilst reiterating that his government’s main objective was to reach an agreement with the Spanish central government, known as the fiscal pact, whereby Catalonia would have control of his own taxes in the same way as Navarre and the Basque Country do.

“It is totally clear that Catalonia’s legitimate national aspirations are inseparable from the wellbeing of its citizens. For this reason, fiscal sovereignty is at the same time an act of national affirmation and social affirmation to the extent that those who suffer through not having it are individual and specific people with Christian names and surnames. We aspire to more as a nation because we aspire to more as a society.”

I closed the paper and paid up. As I left another group of Catalans with estelada flags draped around their shoulders entered the bar. By now the street was lined with coaches and the pavements were beginning to fill up with people in festive spirit.

Back at the flat, the television was on and the official Diada ceremonies in Parc de la Ciutadella. Muriel Casals, the President of Òmnium Cultural, who alongside the Christian charity Caritas had been awarded a Medal of Honour by the Parliament of Catalonia was being interviewed on the importance of the day’s events for Catalonia, a country in the process of being built. Cameras cut to the traditional floral offerings at the Monument of Rafael Casanova, the First Minister of the Generalitat during the Siege of Barcelona in 1714.

Back in the Parc, Catalan politicians and dignitaries began to arrive for the ceremony on the main stage, which backed on to the lake. Representatives of the central Spanish government, who normally made an appearance out of courtesy, were conspicuous by their absence. A Sardana cobla band played traditional Catalan music as the local police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, paraded in 18th century uniform. In proper countries, the army go on parade on the national day. In Catalonia, it’s the police and choirs and people reading poetry rounded off with the building of some human castles. It’s a strange place, Catalonia.

The morning moved on and the streets outside filled up with people, young, old and in-between. I put chickens in the oven to roast and potatoes in to bake. Given our proximity to the city centre, our flat is always a meeting and stopping off point for friends and acquaintances. The troops needed feeding. I just hoped they’d bring enough liquid refreshment.

By the time our friends arrived sometime after 2 o’clock the street outside was a sea of yellow and red. Shouts of “In-inde-independència” drifted in through the open window. Groups of teenagers banged drums and I could hear the reedy strains of traditional Catalan gralla wind instruments playing ‘We Are The Champions’ in the distance.

About ten of us sat down to a picnic lunch and the mood was exuberant. We talked of independence as if would happen like magic the next day. Somebody commented that Catalan independence used to be the subject of family dinners on New Year’s Day. It was brought out, dusted, briefly discussed and then put away until the following year. This time the subject wasn’t going to go away so easily.

We made our way down to street at around four thirty. The idea was to try to get to the main procession about 10 minutes away on Passeig de Gràcia but there were so many people that it was impossible to even think about turning right into Mallorca. Shuffling along at a snail’s pace, we tried to make our way down Carrer Bruc.

Parents, grandparents, children, aunts and uncles, people of all ages moved along like a slow-flowing human river. Catalan flags of all sizes, esteladas and senyeras, were waved above our heads. A group of teenagers improvised a castell, a Catalan human castle, off to our right. “Molt bé, nen” came the shouts of approval in Catalan. “Olé, chiquillo” came the shouts of approval in Spanish.

After about an hour and a half, we were still only down as far as Carrer Aragó. Most of the group were set on get to the front of the procession. I just wanted to enjoy the celebration.

I was wearing my UE Sant Andreu first team football shirt with its senyera design emblazoned on my chest and was getting plenty of slaps on the back and shouts of “Sant Andreu! Oe! Oe!” I was befriended by a group of CE Europa fans from nearby Gràcia and we made a beeline for the nearest bar. Packed in shoulder to shoulder, we drank and sang until the beer ran out a couple of hours later. I made my way back up the street making another beer stop on the way.

I got back home around 9.30 and the flat was full of revellers. The TV was blasting out the end of demonstration rally. A soul singer sang “We Shall Overcome” in Catalan. Independence messages were read out in different languages. The massive crowd outside the Parc de la Ciutadella shouted “In-inde-independència!”

The coverage cut to inside the Parliament of Catalonia building, where the leaders of the Assemblea Nacional Catalana, Òmnium Cultural and the Associació de Municipis per la Independència were being officially received. Carme Forcadell insisted that the President of the Generalitat should “begin secession from a state that doesn’t accept us how we are or how we want to be”. She demanded “the first firm steps be taken on the road to independence because the Catalan people cannot wait”.

Figures came in that 1.5 million people had attended the biggest demonstration in the history of Europe. Catalonia would never be the same again.

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The First Diada – September 11th 2012 – Catalonia New European State!

Continuing with my writing project centred on Artur Mas and the Catalan Independence Process, I go back to the First Massive Diada on September 11th 2012, when 1.5 million demonstrators marched through Barcelona under the slogan “Catalonia New European State!” I’ve included the TV3 news coverage in Catalan and a La Vanguardia news article translated into English. Two and a half years later with the process blocked due to lack of political agreement between ERC and CiU, the two main political parties, on how to proceed, politicians and intransigent supporters would do well to remind themselves how it all began.

TV3 News Coverage

La Vanguardia Newspaper Report in English

Everyone said it would be historic and it was. A human tide the like of which had never been seen in Barcelona – it was calculated that a 3-kilometre-long river of people occupied Passeig de Gràcia and Via Laietana – collapsed the central streets of the Catalan capital this September 11th with varying Catalanist complaints, the majority of which called directly for the independence of Catalonia. Not in vain had the demonstration been called with this objective and the banner at the front read “Catalonia, New European State”. The local police and the Catalan Ministry of the Interior estimated attendance at one and a half million whilst the Spanish government delegation brought the figure down to 600,000 people.

Two hours before the official start of the march, which due at six in the afternoon, hundreds of thousands of people began filling the streets of the city. The head stopped at the crossing of Pau Claris and Plaça Urquinaona realising they couldn’t advance to the official starting point at the crossing of Passeig de Gràcia and Gran Via.

At the start of the demonstration, thousands of people were walking up Via Laietana and the Department of the Interior asked citizens to join the march from its tail via Carrer d’Aragó and Avinguda Diagonal. However, the requests fell on deaf ears and the crowd that filled Via Laietana stopped the front from advancing easily. In fact, the march could hardly move in any direction. For this reason, the members of the Assemblea Nacional Catalana (ANC), who called the demonstration, decided that the demonstration should become a rally and a small group took a shortcut in order to get to the Parliament of Catalonia, where the manifesto was read and they were received by Núria de Gispert. The President of the ANC, Carme Forcadell, explained to journalists that the group was “totally overwhelmed by the situation” and that the demonstration had “exceeded all expectations”.

At the front of the march were the ex-Presidents of Parliament, Joan Rigol and Ernest Benach, and various mayors from Catalan towns, such as Vic, Josep Maria Vila d’Abadal, or Girona, Carles Puigdemont, both from CiU and leaders of the Associació de Municipis per la Independència.

The ex-President Jordi Pujol, who was also on the march, interpreted it as a declaration of “rejection of the treatment” that Spain has been handing out to Catalonia in recent years. “We need the economic, administrative and political means that we thought we were going to have and after the Constitutional Court’s ruling against the Estatut have been refused”, he declared. Pujol stated that the rest of Spain “needs to have an answer to this and mustn’t give the impression that nothing’s happening in Catalonia”.

It was impossible to count the number of Senyeras and Esteladas (Catalan independence flags) that filled the march with colour. The march was completely peaceful without incidents. In fact, the march had a notably family atmosphere. People from villages and towns all over Catalonia travelled to the capital – more than 1,000 buses were hired – and the shouts and songs in favour of independence were the real centre of attention. Many banners reminded President of the Generalitat, Artur Mas, of the protest behind the day and rejected the government plan, the fiscal pact, in favour of an unmistakable secession from Spain.

Broad Political Representation

The politicians remained in the background during the demonstration. However, many of them wanted to accompany the demonstrators. As many as 6 parties with representation in the Parliament of Catalonia officially attended the march: CDC, UDC, ERC, ICV, EUiA and SI. PSC decided not to attend officially. However, members of the so-called Catalanist wing of the Catalan socialists have dissociated themselves from the official party line and attended the mobilisation: amongst them, ex-ministers Ernest Maragall, Antoni Castells or Marina Geli or executive members, Angel Ros or Joan Ignasi Elena. In fact, Ernest Maragall challenged the government to go further than the proposal for a fiscal pact and propose a “confederation of Catalonia and Spain” to central government in the light of the success of the march

Given that the President of the Generalitat, Artur Mas, was not present – he excused himself due to his institutional role in his Diada message – the highest ranking government member was Vice-President, Joana Ortega, who declared that “no one could make the Catalan people be quiet” and said she was impressed by the mass participation. She stated that September 20th, the day when Artur Mas will meet Mariano Rajoy in Madrid, “wasn’t the end of the journey” and also said that the Diada marked a turning point.

The Vice-President of the Generalitat led the CiU delegation on the demonstration along with five other ministers and Helena Rakosnik, Mas’s wife. The mimisters of Economy, Andreu Mas-Colell, Welfare and Family, Josep Lluís Cleries, Health, Boi Ruiz, Education, Irene Rigau and Agriculture, Livestock, Fishing, Food and Environment, Josep Maria Pelegrí attended. Alongside them were the first Vice-President of the Parliament, Lluís Corominas, the Secretary of the Autonomous Government, Germà Gordó, and the Third Secretarty of the Mesa del Parliament, Josep Rull. Another figure who didn’t want to miss the historic day was Mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias.

The leader of Unió, Josep Antoni Duran Lleida, who due to an injury arrived at the CiU delegation a little later, warned the Spanish politicians and institutions that “if they don’t understand the outcry of the Catalan people, we’re going to have serious problems”. Walking on crutches due to a knee injury, Duran said that what was important wasn’t his presence on the march but rather that “the people of Catalonia are demonstrating against the financial asphixiation and the recentralisation”. “If Mariano Rajoy, Alfredo Pérez-Rubalcaba or any other Spanish politicians are intelligent statesmen and don’t think just about elections, they should understand what this outcry from the Catalan people means”, warned Duran.

Green Tide and Guardiola

The final act of the demonstration, in front of the Parc de la Ciutadella, concluded with speeches by two members of the Assemblea, the actress Txe Arana and the RAC1 radio presenter, Jordi Margarit. Both proclaimed the demonstration “an outcry of freedom and democracy”. After the declaration, there was a performance by an American singer who sang a Catalan version of the classic protest song, We Shall Overcome, which she translated as Tots Junts Vencerem.

Immediately after, the two presenters asked questions to the demonstrators regarding self-determination and the independence of Catalonia. The participants answered all questions affirmatively by raising green placards in what was a symbolic act of an eventual referendum. The event continued with speeches in different languages directed at the international community with proclamations asking for Catalonia to become a new state based on the declarations of independence of different countries.

An exceptional guest joined the demonstration virtually by video from New York. The ex-coach of FC Barcelona Pep Guardiola “From New York, here you have another one”, said Guardiola showing a green paper in his hand on the video and his words were received with an ovation.

Only a few privileged people managed to finish the demonstration at the expected place. In fact, the majority couldn’t move from where they were but in spite of the crowd, the march was an example of civism and lack of incidents. The only regret was that at an alternative demonstration by the so-called independentist left, a group of hooded demonstrators burned three flags, the Spanish, French and European ones. An isolated moment on a historic day that opens up a new scenario in Catalan politics.

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Artur Mas: An Independent State of Mind

This post gives the background to Artur Mas and will form part of my forthcoming book which is going under the working title of of Artur Mas: An Independent State of Mind, although this might change to Artur Mas: The Road to Catalan Independence or Catalan Independence: What Went Wrong? depending on how things pan out over the next few weeks. Whatever, I think President Mas is interesting enough for a period of study and much as I did with Catalonia Is Not Spain: A Historical Perspective, I will be posting draft chapters as I write them. All comments, criticisms and corrections are welcome!

An Independent State of Mind

Given my left-wing background, it is always difficult to admit that I am placing my trust in a politician I consider to be a conservative, so it’s taken a long time for Artur Mas to convince me of his sincerity regarding the independence of Catalonia. When asked my opinion on the Catalan president, I’d generally avoid admitting that I had genuinely grown to like him by saying that he wouldn’t let the pro-independence cause down because of narcissism. I’d say he wanted to go down in history as one of the great Presidents of the Generalitat … Macià, Companys, Mas, heroes of the Catalan nation. This argument became even more convincing when the Jordi Pujol scandal broke over the summer and the legend of the most important Catalan politician since the transition bit the dust.

In The Shadows

Artur Mas had always been in the shadow of Jordi Pujol and I suppose that was one of the reasons why he never made much of an impression on me. I vaguely remember Pujol naming him Conseller en Cap, effectively Deputy Prime Minister in 2001, and when he stood as President of the Generalitat in Pujol’s place in 2003, I was hoping he would fail more than anything else. His main rival was former socialist Mayor of Barcelona Pasqual Maragall and after 23 years of Pujol presidency and CiU dominance of Catalan politics, I felt it was time for a change.

There was also something rather unsubstantial about Artur Mas in comparison with the elder statesmen of Catalan politics. I’d always been something of an admirer of Pasqual Maragall, the crusty old socialist who had brought the Olympics to Barcelona and who also happened to be the grandson of the great Catalan poet Joan Maragall, author of works of the importance of the anthem Cant de la Senyera and the vitriolic Oda a Espanya. This was when the S and C in PSC seemed to carry equal weight and the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya was both a socialist and Catalanist party and the only political option that represented both the Catalan identity and the mainly Spanish-speaking working classes, who had migrated to the Barcelona Metropolitan Area since the 1950s.

Artur Mas also paled in comparison to Convergència founder and leader Jordi Pujol, who had been President of the Generalitat since 1980 and was already a Catalan institution when I arrived in Barcelona in 1988. His eccentric gnome-like looks, wild hair and finger-jabbing gestures didn’t make him the most attractive of politicians but Pujol typified an old eccentric deep Catalonia that certainly resonated with a large traditional section of the population.

Neither Maragall nor Pujol were in favour of independence for Catalonia, though, but at the time very few people were. Maragall is known for the phrase “I’m a Catalanist who is not a nationalist” and his Catalan socialist PSC was very much in line with the Spanish socialist PSOE party, first under Felipe González and then under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, particularly when it came to politics on a national level. As mayor of the Barcelona cosmopolitan melting pot, it made sense not to be too exclusively Catalan, so I was interested to see the contribution he’d make as President of the Generalitat.

Pujol, on the other hand, represented a much less tolerant version of Catalanism but despite his strange looks, he certainly wasn’t lacking in charisma. An early impression of him back in 1989 was seeing him on TV news report standing on a car bonnet berating Spanish-speakers at a Feria de Abril in one of the satellite towns on the outskirts of Barcelona. A Christian ex-doctor and founder not only of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya but also of the Banca Catalana, he seemed to sum up everything that was vaguely unpleasant but yet quite compelling about conservative Catalan culture.

I liked it when he said that “Anyone who spoke Catalan to their children could consider themselves a Catalan” because it opened a door to me and many other new arrivals with different origins. I didn’t like the CiU policy of pacting with whichever government was in power in Madrid in order to gain minor benefits for Catalonia, though. This practice was known as Peix al Cove, literally Fish in the Basket, but closer in meaning to Take the Money and Run! in standard English and revealed a degree of hypocrisy hard to stomach, particularly when in later years the ally in Madrid was the openly anti-Catalan Partido Popular under José Maria Aznar.

In comparison to these two towering figures of Catalan politics, Artur Mas just seemed too lightweight, too young and good-looking to be taken seriously, a pre-packaged product that wouldn’t be around for long. In fact, I heard rumours at the time that in fact Mas was just keeping the CiU leadership seat warm for Jordi Pujol’s son, Oriol, the true heir to conservative Catalanism, who would inherit the throne after a perfunctory pause. One of the political skit programmes on Catalan TV portrayed Mas as an automaton, a faceless robotic technocrat. My view, as a casual observer on Catalan politics, was that Artur Mas wouldn’t be around for long.

Leader of the Opposition

This view looked like being confirmed during the election campaign in the autumn of 2003, which were marked by the vacuum left by Jordi Pujol. The PSC led by Pasqual Maragall were clear front runners and the left-wing Catalanists of Esquerra Republicana continued advancing in popularity and eating away at the traditional CiU vote.

When voting day came on November 16th, the results weren’t as damning for Artur Mas and CiU as expected. The PSC was the most voted party with 31.16% followed very closely by CiU with 30.94%. However, due to a quirk of parliamentary seat distribution throughout Catalonia, CiU ended up with 46 seats compared to PSC’s 42.

This was a respectable first result for Artur Mas but with 135 deputies in the Parliament of Catalonia, 42 seats was a long way from an absolute majority. After 23 years in power, CiU had no obvious allies and at the Pact of the Tinell, PSC came to an agreement with Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) and the eco-socialists of Inciativa per Catalunya-Verds (ICV) to form a Govern Catalanista i d’Esquerres, a Left-Wing Catalanist Government, with Pasqual Maragall as President of the Generalitat. Popularly known as the Tripartit, this seemed like a step in the right direction with the Government of the Generalitat reflecting the political and demographic make-up of cosmopolitan Barcelona rather than the archaic conservatism of rural Catalonia.

As Leader of the Opposition, for Artur Mas it meant being sidelined politically, at least as far as the general public were concerned. The two main media figures of the Tripartit were obviously President Pasqual Maragall and the always controversial leader of Esquerra Republicana, Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira. My impression at the time was that even ICV leader Joan Saura seemed to get more media coverage than Mas.

The main political issue of the first Tripartit legislature was the negotiation of Catalonia’s new Statute of Autonomy, known as the Estatut, with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s PSOE government in Madrid. Artur Mas was one of the three main Catalan negotiators along with PSC’s Manuela de Madre and ERC’s Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira. In January 2006, it was Artur Mas who, after a one-to-one meeting with Zapatero, came back to Catalonia with the definitive text of the Estatut that would be voted on that June.

The final version of the Estatut ceded on many points and was a much gentler document than the one originally drafted by the Catalan Parliament. This, and the fact that Mas and Zapatero had also come to an agreement on future Peix-al-Cova-style collaborations between CiU and PSOE, provoked extreme annoyance amongst the ERC ranks and is probably the root of Esquerra’s almost obsessive mistrust of Mas. However, to the casual observer, it was an early example of the pragmatic Artur Mas overcoming obstacles and just getting things done.

ERC ended up recommending their supporters to vote against the Estatut in the referendum, which first led Maragall to expel them from his government and finally to call early elections for September 2006. The elections were held at the height of a vitriolic anti-Catalan campaign run by the Partido Popular, who had appealed against the Estatut through the Spanish Constitutional Court.

History Repeats Itself

The elections to Parliament of Catalonia of September 2006 were a case of history repeating itself. The CiU share of the votes increased slightly and although they were once again the most voted party, ERC decided to pact with PSC and ICV to form a Tripartit for the second time. Left-wing loyalties and an evident mistrust of Artur Mas and CiU obviously outweighed any temptation Esquerra might have had to take part in a Catalanist alliance.

The second Tripartit under President José Montilla is better known for its in-fighting and failures than its political achievements but for Artur Mas it was a defining period during which time he began to stamp his own mark onto the leadership of CiU. His proposal of “refounding Catalanism” clearly came from personal conviction under what he termed the Casa Gran del Catalanisme also brought to light internal differences within the Convergència i Unió federation.

Until that point I’d always seen CiU as a single party rather than a federation of Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC), presided by Artur Mas, and Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (UDC), whose general secretary was Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida. The idea behind the Casa Gran del Catalanisme, which was inspired by the anti-Catalan campaign that was still raging throughout Spain, was to form an alliance of Catalanist forces, including members of CiU as well as like-minded people in ERC, PSC, ICV and independents. Independence was still a long way from being on Artur Mas’s agenda but even so Duran i Lleida and Unió decided not to take part.

The 2008 General Elections to the Spanish Congress came and went without too much fuss. Zapatero continued as President of Spain and Duran i Lleida remained as leader of the CiU block in Madrid. Mas continued developing his concept of the plurinational state, whereby without being independent Catalonia would have a greater role to play. It is in this period when he first began using the expressing “The Right to Decide” with respect to Catalonia’s status as a sovereign nation.

In the summer of 2010, Spain dropped a cultural and political bomb on Catalonia. After a delay of four years, the Spanish Constitutional Court declared most of the Estatut unconstitutional and a schism opened in Catalan society. The main political difference was no longer left and right but rather the divide between Catalanists and Spanish nationalists.

Two weeks after the ruling a massive demonstration under the slogan “Som una Nació. Nosaltres Decidim” – “We Are a Nation. We Decide” – was held in Barcelona and more than a million Catalans took to the streets of Barcelona. Whilst admitting to having been moved by the demonstration, Mas was typically prudent in his response and spoke of Catalan dignity rather than independence. Later that summer, Spain won the football 2010 World Cup in South Africa and Spanish football shirts were conspicuous by their absence on the streets of Catalonia.

Voices in favour of independence for Catalonia had been growing in strength since the first informal ballot on independence in Arenys de Munt in September 2009 but in the wake of the Constitutional Court ruling and with elections to the Parliament of Catalonia due in November 2010, they got louder. In August, Ara o Mai (Now or Never) was formed and was the first organisation to call for a single pro-independence candidacy with all the Catalanist parties standing together on one list. However, the distance between CiU and ERC remained as wide as ever.

President of the Generalitat

During the campaign, many of the candidates appeared on the programme Tengo Una Pregunta Para Usted – I Have a Question For You – which was shown on Spanish national public television channel RTVE1 and involved the audience asking questions to the candidates. In the programme dedicated to Artur Mas, the questions covered the typical topics of social and welfare policy and solutions and although support for Catalan independence still only stood at around 25% at the time, the question was bound to come up.

A member of the audience directly asked Artur Mas whether or not he would vote in favour of independence for Catalonia in the case of a hypothetical referendum. After skirting around the issue by saying that he was standing as President of Catalonia and so had to represent the views not only of his own party Convergència i Unió but in the case of being elected of all Catalans, Mas openly admitted that if it was down to him personally he would definitely vote in favour of independence. However, he was clear that he would not initiate a process that might end up dividing Catalan society.

In answer to a later question in the same programme, Mas made reference to the adverse ruling on the Estatut and use stated very clearly that Catalonia was a nation with the right to decide its own political future. Once again he stated clearly that he didn’t want to create tension and so considered an improvement of the fiscal pact between Catalonia and central government the main objective for the time being. He also mentioned that he didn’t celebrate Spain’s football World Cup victory that summer and certainly didn’t go out onto the streets waving a Spanish flag.

The elections for the Parliament of Catalonia of November 2010 were third time lucky for Artur Mas. With 62 seats and over 38% of the votes, CiU were the clear winners and given that the Tripartit concept had burnt itself out, CiU were able to form a government and Artur Mas became President of the Generalitat for the first time.

However, 62 was still 6 seats short of the absolute majority of 68 and CiU would need the support of other parties in order to push through their policies. Unfortunately, this support came principally from the Partido Popular and the impression was that we were back with a traditional CiU government of old.

The crisis was a definite complication for Artur Mas’s first government, which like in the rest of Spain was forced to introduce severe cuts in social and health services. The situation wasn’t help by the Generalitat’s growing debt and it became increasingly difficult to pay civil servants’ salaries. In March 2011, after 100 days in government, Artur Mas made a speech blaming Catalonia’s woes on central government but for most people the left-right debate had taken centre stage again.

In May 2011, the 15-M or Indignats movement of peaceful protests against the cuts organised its first demonstrations throughout Spain and a revolutionary camp was set up in Plaça de Catalunya in Barcelona. The attempted eviction by the police on May 27th resulted in injuries to 84 protesters and 37 police officers. Convergència i Unió’s right-wing Catalanist government was definitely seen as the enemy, with Interior Minister Felip Puig being a particular object of hate. Things reached a head on June 15th when demonstrators tried to stop deputies entering a session of the Parliament of Catalonia and President of the Generalitat Artur Mas was only able to gain access by helicopter.

Not surprisingly, Mas’s first Diada on September 11th 2011 was a relatively low-key affair with a demonstration of only around 10,000 in Barcelona. Catalan independence was not the central point on the agenda with the main bone of contention being yet a Spanish Supreme Court obliging the use of Castilian Spanish in Catalan schools. In his Diada speech, Artur Mas said that “The national transition is happening. A greater feeling of sovereignty and freedom is setting in the minds of the Catalan people” but at the time a clear Catalanist project seemed a long way away.

In many respects the turning point was the Spanish General Elections of November 2011 in which, despite the economic crisis, Mariano Rajoy’s Partido Popular won a comfortable majority. Apart from the still socialist province of Seville and the nationalist Basque Country, almost the whole of Spain’s political map turned blue. In Catalonia, Convergència i Unió won in the provinces of Girona, Tarragona and Lleida whilst PSC retained control in the their traditional stronghold of Barcelona province.

With such a strong majority culled from the rest of Spain, it was clear that the Partido Popular didn’t need Catalan support in order to be able to form a government. Added to natural feelings of antipathy towards the Catalans, no concession needed to be made in order to win votes. Only three days after coming to power, Rajoy refused to release €1,450,000,000 to Catalonia from the competitivity fund. The same thing happened when Artur Mas asked for €5,000,000,000 from the FLA, the liquidity fund for the autonomous communities and to make matters worse central government refused to settle debts to Catalonia that it had accumulated over previous budgets.

Not only did Catalonia pay around 8% of its yearly GDP amounting to around €16,000,000,000 in taxes that it didn’t get back but central government refused to bail out a badly hit Catalan economy when requested. Artur Mas’s negotiations with Madrid would centre on gaining the more equitable tax-investment relationship known as the fiscal pact. Meanwhile, throughout 2012, the calls from Catalan society for independence began to get louder.

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