The Catalan Affair

Article from the February issue of Le Monde Diplomatique

The Catalan Affair

THE intensity of the debate in Spain about the Catalan statute of autonomy had been a cause of concern over the past few weeks. Especially since General José Mena Aguado’s statement in Seville on 6 January: “It is our duty to warn of the serious consequences that the approval of the Catalan statute, in the terms in which it is drafted, could bring, both for the armed forces as an institution and for the people who make up the armed forces.” He pointed out that, under article 8 of the Spanish constitution, the mission of the armed forces was to guarantee the sovereignty and independence of Spain, to defend its territorial integrity and the constitutional order.

This intervention by a high-ranking officer in a politically tense situation had a painful resonance for democrats. The timing was unfortunate: 20 November 2005 was the 30th anniversary of Franco’s death; soon it will be the 25th anniversary of Colonel Tejero’s attempted coup of 23 February 1981; and in a few months it will be the 70th anniversary of the uprising of 18 July 1936, the start of the civil war. Spain thought it was done with pronouncements by the military, which were a familiar feature of national political life through the 19th and 20th centuries, ending only with the adoption of the present constitution in 1978.

Times have changed, democracy has taken root, and it is now unthinkable that a small band of officers could be a substantial threat. Gen Mena’s statement simply showed that a few military men still uphold the interventionist tradition. The tradition had also been revived recently by the systematic hate campaign by the rightwing Popular party against José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero’s socialist government. Zapatero had taken various steps that aroused the wrath of the most conservative elements.

Take his decision, after his election in March 2004, to withdraw the troops rashly sent to Iraq by the former head of government, José María Aznar, even though 80% of Spaniards had been against it. Other measures were even more controversial, notably the decision to return Catalan archives looted by Franco’s troops in 1938 and held in Salamanca. For weeks the rightwing media bombarded the public with alarmist messages about the danger to the unity of Spain if the archives were returned. The Popular party organised huge demonstrations against such an act of vandalism.

Then came the legalisation of gay marriages. Most Spaniards accepted the measure, but it raised an outcry in reactionary circles that seemed to belong to a different age. The Catholic church even went so far as to threaten that mayors who performed such marriages would be excommunicated.

And there was the question of the new Catalan statute. Catalonia, like the Basque Country and Galicia, has its own language and culture. The 1932 statute defined it as “an autonomous region within the Spanish state”. It lost that status in 1939 but recovered it in 1979 when it was one of 17 autonomous communities established in Spain. Under the terms of this constitutionally recognised statute, the Catalan government (the Generalitat) is empowered to establish an independent police force and has devolved responsibilities for education, health, social security, language and culture, and regional development.

Since November 2003, for the first time since the end of the Franco regime, Catalonia has had a leftwing government, a coalition of socialists, leftwing nationalists and Greens, which promised to adopt a new statute.

This statute did not propose any break with Spain, was firmly embedded in the federal tradition and demanded recognition of Catalonia as a nation. It was approved in September 2005 by 90% of the members of the Catalan parliament and is under discussion in the parliament in Madrid.

The right and the church conducted a disgraceful anti-Catalan campaign. They committed the full force of their media, which still wields considerable influence, and brought out the cannon and boarding parties: shock and awe, the clatter of boots on barrack floors.

But despite all this, on 21 January the prime minister reached an agreement with the leader of the Catalan nationalist party, and the new Catalan statute is to be adopted, with a few amendments to bring it into line with the Spanish constitution.