As someone who for personal and professional reasons includes regular visits to Catalonia as part of his year, it is with some relief that I have managed to experience the region over Christmas and into the New Year in relative peace, and among friends from a wide political spectrum.
But then those of us familiar with the local scene have grown accustomed to valleys of relative calm prior to resurgent peaks of crisis, a veritable political helter-skelter which baffles most ordinary mortals struggling to catch up.
Currently we are back in the arena of unpredictability, with Catalans divided as to what kind of regional parliament they want reconstructed.
Politicians are shooting in the dark over terms of reference of administrative and political control, with no consensus as to who should be the president of the regional government,let alone any certainty as how the judiciary might continue to impose itself. There is a key question mark over when the Spanish government will lift its exceptional powers of intervention under Article 155 of the Constitution, and, once lifted, under what circumstances it might re-impose them.
The December results have consolidated the polarization between two powerful nationalist forces-one pro-unionist, the other pro-independence – each claiming victory of a kind, and very far from finding from showing they can finding any common ground on any matters of substance.
If we keep to the facts, Ciudadanos came out as the most voted single party. The independence parties got enough votes to give them the majority of deputies in the Catalan parliament but their overall share of the vote-47 per cent from a more than 80 per cent turn-out – is far from an endorsement for a unilateral declaration of independence.
Whether this leaves any room for manoever remains to be seen. There is ongoing and unresolved debate within the independent movement as to whether the outlawed former president of the Catalan regional government Carlos Puigdemont should be restored to office. .
What is certain is Puigdemont will be arrested if and when he returns to Spanish soil, and the alternative of him ruling from his temporary exile in Brussels would not be recognized by the government or unionist parties and also subject to legalistic obstruction.
Which is not say that there are not radical pro-independence supporters who see Puigdemont as their legitimate president . Many of these supporters relish the prospect of Puigdemont’s ‘arrest’ refueling international sentiment for their cause on human rights grounds, while also keeping alive the Catalan nationalist ‘cause’ viewed by them as inseparable and irreconcilable with the Spanish state.
To call their attitude irrational and self-deluded may be an understatement .Thankfully there are more pragmatic anti-unionist and Republicans voices who are hoping that Catalonia can take a necessary first step towards having its autonomous government restored and a period of relative stability .
Nontheless I find the idea of a pro-independence pragmatic government a contradiction in terms –not just because we have Catalan nationalist politicians who feel under pressure from their grass roots to pursue the cause without compromise, but because the current Spanish government will make every effort-alongside the courts-to block any act of government that can be interpreted as counter to the unity of the Spanish state as defined by the Constitution.
What we now have after the elections, is a more complex and unpredictable political dynamic. Rajoy’s short-termism and lack of statesmanlike vision on Catalan matters is mirrored by the irrationality of Catalan nationalism as expressed by its current leadership.
The most voted party Ciudadanos sees no room for compromise or dialogue with the pro-independence movement and is happy to back continuing emergency powers if exreme Catalan nationalists once again hijack the Catalan parliament and proceed to vote in measures aimed at breaking with the Spanish state unilaterally.
There is a worrying repetitive nature to Catalan politics. An expatriate friend of mine, of no political party, called it Groundhog politics , with Catalans entrenched in their positions and doomed to suffer the consequence over and over again. Catalonia is not like Scotland , my friend suggested, it is more like Northern Ireland before the peace accord -unionist vs republicans, only without the violence-yet.
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Under current electoral law, Catalan politicians are expected this wednesday (January 17th) to initiate the new regional parliament with the election of an administrative political council-charged with approving the legislative programme and regulating the tone of its debate and the scope of policy implementation . The ‘Mesa’ or table, as the council is called looks, likely to be dominated again by pro-independence deputies setting a radical tone and spirit in the new parliament. The Catalan parliament has until the 27th January to confirm in office the new Catalan president .
How Catalan separatists intend to make use of the majority they achieved at the December 21 elections largely depend on what happens in ongoing talks being held between Puigdemont and party executives.
Until recently the talks were focused on agreeing on how Puigdemont can effectively become Catalan president again, maintaining the unity and momentum of the independence movement .
But Puigdemont is under some pressure within the Catalan nationalists to cede the presidency and go for a soft landing. Thus he is being urged by his opponents and some Catalan nationalista to put aside for now any push towards independence and focus instead on helping restore the political and socio-economic stability that a practically insolvent Catalonia desperately needs.
The option that has Puigdemont backing off and backing down has adherents across the pro-impendence community although far from unanimous support. It has in the frame, some believe, Elsa Artadi, a Catalan born and educated economist with a postgraduate degree from Harvard University and experience working for the World Bank .
She is a close and trusted ally of Puigdemont, credited with having run a very successful campaign for him in Catalonia in the December elections making the party Junts para Catalunya a surprise winner over its main pro-independence rival Esquerra.
While Artadi has openly declared her strong support for Catalan independence sources across the political divide see her emergence as favoring a potentially less volatile political landscape in the coming months. Despite her pro-independence sympathies she is credited even by her political opponents for her pragmatism and managements skills which have contributed to ensuring the peaceful way that the administration of Catalonia has continued during the application of Article 155 .
Artadi is a protégée of her one-time university professor , and the former Catalan economy Andreu Mas-Colell who recently called for a Catalan government that had ‘a technical profile without political implications.”
The Puigdemont only option is favored by the more radical elements in the independence movement which continue to try and wag the tail and leading the separatist movement.
By contrast Artadi is considered in Catalan political and business circles as a woman with a strong professional and campaigning record who would prove a potentially strong counterweight to the popularity of the unionist Ines Arrimadas , is neither in jail nor exile or facing prosecution, and appeals to younger voters as well as old, with strong support among female voters.
Whether Artadi can alone bring a measure of stability to Catalonia or indeed wants tow a moderate line if picked by Puigdemont as his successor however remains open to question.
Neutral observers caution against typecasting Artadi as either a moderate or a radical and see her as yet another element contributing to an overall uncertain and unpredictable political landscape.
After all ,the Catalan independence movement has developed a tradition in modern times of leaders handing on to successors who some thought might turn out to be more moderate but ended up proving more radical-as when Pujol handed over to Arturo Mas and Arturo Mas handed over to Puigdemont.
What is clear is that while politicians argue among themselves, Catalonia is decaying economically. This once self-confident and in many ways exemplary region of Spain, has become one of the European Union’s nagging headaches, its push for independence finding no supporters in major European capitals and provoking instead a dramatic withdrawal of investment with a continuing stream of companies moving the legal headquarters elsewhere in Spain, declining tourist revenues, increasing indebtedness of public finances, and growing unemployment.
Having travelled in recent days from Barcelona and the coastal region to the radical interior , where Catalan republican flags dominate the village and townscapes, I can report that the grass roots of the independence movement is still being led and supported by people who seem to belong another planet.
They are in a bubble all of their own making, oblivious and impervious to the mess they’ve made of Catalonia . This is matched by a lack of statesmanship in Madrid so far incapable of compromise, building consensus, making peace offerings, winning hearts and minds.
In Madrid the PP government remains convinced that it cannot cede to Catalan nationalist pressure because to do so would risk the undermining of the state , nor will it negotiate , and has no problem with the judiciary continuing to take a tough line against the pro-independence movement. It is a position unlikely to change as long as Rayoy is prime-minister and for now he intends seeing out his term the next general election in the summer of 2020.
The Ciudadanos strategy appears to be that of using its own reinforced power in opposition to counter all moves within the Catalan parliament towards independence, while reinforcing its hold on national politics with opinion polls showing a significant shift in allegiance by defecting PP supporters who have been impressed by the strong result achieved by Arrimadas in Catalonia.
The rise of Ciudadanos as a younger party untainted by allegations of corruption suggests nonetheless that more votes stand to be gained from a firmly unionist policy than any one aimed at making concessions to Catalans independence. This view is shared by Ciudadanos insiders who say the party is quite prepared to support a restoration of Article 155 if the Catalan government proceeds on a path of disengagement with the Spanish state.
Nonetheless Ciudadanos is ready to press for of an acceleration of Constitutional reform tougher anti-corruption laws, and improved financing for all regions in Spain including Catalonia while pitching its hopes on making huge strides in next year’s municipal and European elections as a platform to gain power in the 2020 general elections.
In the short-term the current likelihood is of growing political unrest in Catalonia with the Spanish government and judiciary continuing to take a hardline against rebellious Catalan politicians , and the prospect of the Catalan parliament and government being dissolved again in the not too distant future.
