The Ancien Regime 1

Life in 21^st Century Spain (though you wouldn’t know it)

1) Society - It ain’t watcha know, it’s who ya know

It is always the aim of this writer to look positively at what can be changed in the present society rather than dwell on historical grievances or time-worn dialectics of the deaf, like the classic Madrid versus Barcelona vendetta that gains its expression in everything from football to casino tourism schemes.


Nevertheless, if we’re talking about restructuring Spain and its relation to Catalonia, it’s best to know what we are saying when we talk about Spain, both politically and socially. Hence this week’s series of articles on contemporary Spain, and contemporary Catalonia. We’ll leave the Franco-era stuff to the history buffs.

Spain at present is the Ancien Regime, the Old Guard of the PIIGS. Excessive bureaucratic control along with a corrupt and discredited political class and a fossilised trade union leadership strangle all attempt at business growth. Oh yeah, there are success stories in entrepreneurship and big business, powerhouses like Zara-Inditex, Santander, BBVA, La Caixa and Hola magazine. But these tend to thrive despite, not because of, the prevailing socio-economic model of Spain. Representing the old guard, meet Bankia or the Lleida-Alguaire Airport.

I’d like to discuss an article by John Carlin published in The Guardian online last week, and entitled ”Behind Spain's turmoil lies a cronyism that stifles the young and ambitious”.

”Cronyism” is later revealed in the article to be the Spanish amiguismo – “looking after your friends”, a universal practice no doubt, but much more prevalent in the Catholic Latin-Celtic- Mediterranean periphery of Europe – the PIIGS of Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain.

Carlin’s article is subtitled “The country needs more than a bailout. It needs a revolutionary change in its hidebound social structures”. It’s almost redundant to read the rest of the piece. We have the essence of the ancien regime right here. Cronyism, hidebound social structures. This is precisely the heart of the problem of being Spanish. This is the old guard in its most common form – deadly, stultifying, incompetent, traditional, unyielding, yet surviving.

I have a large Spanish family, with 25 first cousins on my Madrileña mother's side alone. About 15 years ago, when the Spanish economy was buzzing, a male cousin came to visit me in Washington, where I then worked. I told him one night at a bar that I enjoyed my job. He said nothing in reply but, as I discovered two days later, he'd been mulling over what I said, deeply troubled. "What you told me the other night," he said, "about enjoying your job… you weren't serious, were you?"

Here was an employed, friendly, middle-class 36-year-old Spaniard and he had never, ever had wind of the notion that someone might feel enthusiasm for what he did for a living. For my cousin, as for so many Spaniards, work is a necessary evil, a nuisance to be dispensed with as briskly as possible before turning to the serious business of life – drinking, nibbling tapas, hanging out with friends until the small hours.

By contrast, Carlin tells the stories of two young entrepreneurs who left Spain to succeed at founding new businesses, and generating employment, in the UK. The exiles pour scorn on the Spanish way of doing business as an extended form of family favours: "To have got ahead the way I have in London I'd need an uncle with good connections. I didn't, so I left."

The lessons from these two stories, entirely typical of Spaniards abroad, are clear: the Spanish are not inherently idle; the labour market in Spain does not sufficiently reward talent and hard work. The Spanish disease that both these young men said they had fled was "amiguismo" –"friendism" – a system where one gets ahead by who one knows.

Reams of opinion columns in the Spanish press in recent months have pointed to amiguismo in the political classes. Which is no doubt largely true but fails to acknowledge that corrupt or lazy or incompetent politicians do not inhabit a closed ecosystem but behave in a manner in keeping with the way society operates at large…

It is dangerously infantile in the present circumstances… The brightest, the boldest or the most restless young people go abroad for money and fulfilment; the rest, half of whom are unemployed, stay at home – baffled, desperate, increasingly angry, kicking out at government and being kicked back.

The government does carry its share of the blame. But it is a symptom – a big, glaring symptom, for sure – and not the root cause… There is much talk now of a huge financial rescue plan from the north. Good. It will bring much-needed relief. But it will be no more than a passing cure so long as the corruption of amiguismo continues to stain Spain's otherwise warm and delightful soul, hampering the country's capacity to compete in the grown-up world.

In passing, our author compares Spain with Catalonia but finds all far from perfect in the latter:

Catalonia is a much more productive region than Andalucía, as the independentists will never cease to remind you, but the difference as far as amiguismo goes is only one of degree.

I would subscribe to everything that Mr Carlin says in his piece. I also know young people from Spain and Catalonia who have gone to the UK, Ireland, France, or Canada and thrived on a society more open to meritocracy and independent entrepreneurship. More are going every day. People have told me of new ventures killed stone dead by a lack of connections with the right political department in Barcelona or Madrid.

Enough cases of amiguismo in the local press could convince you that Catalonia is far from clean – Felix Millet, who allegedly skimmed millions off the top of the Palau de la Música Catalana and passed a part of it on to the CiU foundation Trias Fargas, the “Three Percent” allegations that CiU routinely skimmed 3% off local government contracts controlled by them, the alleged involvement of young Oriol Pujol in the “ITV” cases of “commissions” paid to CiU in return for vehicle inspection concessions (ITV – Inspección Técnica de Vehículo, the MOT test of Spain). That’s just one party, Mr Mas’s CiU party, in one region, Catalonia. Phew. The list goes on…

Across Spain, crooked local pols, cunning Mr Fixits and dodgy bankers are going down in a hellish wreck of trials, media allegations and prison sentences. The Balearic Islands and Valencia, governed by the PP, and Andalucía, governed by PSOE, though with PP enclaves like Málaga/Costa del Sol, are all badly scarred by widespead corruption scandals

This wave of court action extends of course even to the royal family, in which one Iñaki Urdangarin from uptown Barcelona is married to Princess Cristina, younger daughter of King Juan Carlos. He is accused of skimming millions off Balearic and Valencian regional PP governments through his Noós Foundation, along with his partner and his partner’s wife. Unlike this unfortunate lady, Mrs Urdangarin, the Princess Cristina, is not called to trial even as a witness although she allegedly received a €20,000 payment from the foundation.

Strangely, the only places in Spain where local amiguismo seems not to be commonplace or at any rate are not widely reported, are the autonomous communities of the Basque Country and Navarre, both of which have their own devolved tax-collecting power based on medieval fiefdom rights or fueros.

Could it be that the way to greater social and economic agility, and political transparency and accountability is to separate, as much as possible, from the “hidebound” and “corrupt” (Carlin’s words) practices of Spain?

Chinese Fun on Sunday

Here's the Taiwanese animation company NMA's take on Spain's predicament with Catalonia

How do you say "Estat Propi" in English?

Part 2: Devolution and the Devolved State

In Scotland it’s called “Devomax” – politico-speak for “fully devolved state” – and Alex Salmond’s SNP government of Scotland has provided us with a handy guide to the difference between full devolution and full independence:





FULL DEVOLUTION

Under full devolution… Scotland would remain within the United Kingdom. The UK Government and institutions would continue to have responsibility for many matters, for example the currency and monetary policy, and decisions on peace and war. Full devolution would give Scotland more responsibility for domestic matters, and would extend the range of measures the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament could take to encourage greater sustainable economic growth.

INDEPENDENCE

The Scottish Government's favoured policy is independence, which would bring all the possibilities of full devolution with the additional responsibilities that could not be devolved within the United Kingdom, such as foreign affairs and defence. Under independence Scotland would be responsible for:

• ·    the economy, the currency and the macroeconomic framework
• ·    education, enterprise, infrastructure including transport and housing
• ·    the environment, energy and climate change
• ·    the taxation and benefits system
• ·    the full range of public services, including benefits and health
• ·    foreign affairs, defence and security matters
• ·    equality legislation and human rights
• ·    the constitution and government of Scotland, Parliament, the courts, local government

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/11/26155932/4


Right now, the UK and Scottish governments are negotiating a final form for the 2014 referendum in Scotland, and the big question is whether independence or full devolution (Devomax) will be on the referendum ballot paper. The fact that the UK government is negotiating these issues with Salmond shows that politically, we’re in a different world from Spain and its relations with Catalonia. It would of course never occur to Mariano Rajoy to negotiate any such thing.

Incidentally, Queen Elizabeth II has chosen not to pronounce about “chimeras” or ghosties in any of the three referendums staged in Scotland during her reign. In her view, a constitutional monarch leaves politics to the elected representatives. Wise lady. You can see why some monarchic dynasties go on and on while others get booted off the throne every so often. 

Will the 2014 Scottish referendum ballot be about independence or devomax? We’ve already seen that independence is the “Scottish government’s favoured policy”, and London wants this question on the ballot too, so why shouldn’t it be about independence?

Two reasons: first, the Scottish public are not that crazy about independence; second, the EU has made it clear that independence for them means a “year zero” reset – an independent Scotland must be considered outside the EU, and apply for membership with the consequent years, or decades, of waiting out in the cold.

1) Scottish independence not popular with the public

 An independent YouGov poll of Scotland in August 2012 found only 27% of Scots in favour of independence and 60% opposed. The “Olympic Effect” of seeing Scottish athletes competing and winning for the Great Britain team in London was clearly in play; but polls taken just before the Olympics in July saw just 35% for independence and 55% against.

We can see now why the UK government is happy to put (nay, insists on putting) independence on the 2014 referendum ballot – it’s clearly a losing proposition. 

When it comes to independence, Scots are most put off by the economic effect of having a new and separate currency. The pound sterling is, as they say, “sound as a pound”; a hypothetical new Scottish currency, not tied to the Euro or the UK pound, would be a fragile and vulnerable newcomer on international currency markets. And it would not be tied to the Euro because…

2) An independent Scotland would be cast out of the EU

Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the EU Commission, leaves us in no doubt:

"I am not going to speculate now about possible secessions, it is not my job. But I can tell you that to join the European Union, yes, we have a procedure. It is a procedure of international law," he said.

"A state has to be a democracy first of all, and that state has to apply to become a member of the European Union and all the other member states have to give their consent."

Pressed on whether all new countries were regarded as new states by the EU, Barroso said: "A new state, if it wants to join the European Union, has to apply to become a member like any state. In fact, I see no country leaving and I see many countries wanting to join."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/sep/12/barroso-doubt-scotland-eu-membership

This is, of course, why Artur Mas refuses to discuss his “Estat Propi” plan in terms of “independence”. Independence implies a new sovereign nation-state; this new state would have to start from zero in terms of international law, recognition, and most importantly, EU membership.

So by implication, Mas is proposing in his Estat Propi plan a form of fully-devolved state or “devomax”, still connected to the sovereign state of Spain and thereby to the EU/Euro system, but with full powers over domestic policy. Whether or not the Scottish referendum carries independence or devomax as the question to be answered, Mas and the CiU party have already rejected full independence as an option.

History lesson 2

• Independence is a word; control over your own taxes, budget and services is another thing
• That thing is known as devolution
• Independence rocks institutional boats; devolution just makes a few ripples
• The EU is cool with devolution, but hates independence

Conclusion

The Estat Propi proposal favoured by Mas looks like devolution, smells like devolution and is carefully differentiated from independence in the same way. Therefore the Estat Propi is the “Devolved State”. But that type of terminology is scarcely known outside the UK, and completely unknown inside Spain and the EU.

So instead we could propose “Self-Governing State” to convey the same idea. Roll it off the tongue, it seems to fit – Estat Propi, Self-Governing State.

And Jose Barroso could even hear that phrase "Self-Governing State" without a shudder. You could say it passes the "Barroso Squirm Test".

Source for YouGov polls
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/salmond-to-select-timing-of-scottish-referendum-8061668.html

How do you say “Estat Propi” in English?

Liam Neeson as Collins with British official, Michael Collins , 1996

Part 1: Free State and Dominion

Artur Mas avoids clarity and embraces ambiguity. He talks of his “Estat Propi” proposal for Catalonia, speaks of self-determination, and rejects terms like “independence” “break” or “secession” in relation to Spain as incompatible with his key policy of continung to remain within the EU and the Euro.

It is a realistic, wise and flexible policy to avoid these terms. Some of course say his posture is disingenuous, cunning and sneaky, but this is politics on the edge of possibility, so ambiguity helps us avoid going too close to the brink. 

We’ll begin with a little historical anecdote that should have been included in Hollywood historical epic Michael Collins, with Liam Neeson as Irish rebel Michael Collins negotiating with Winston Churchill for the British government.

In fact Collins was the deputy chief negotiator in the Irish Republican group, boss being Sinn Fein leader Arthur Griffith. Churchill never appeared in the original movie. It’s 1921 so Churchill is younger, let’s say he should be played by Daniel Craig or Michael Sheen.

Back to the new scene in the movie, London 1921 - Treaty talks.
The rebels have all along called for the Republic, a word translated in Irish Gaelic as saorstát. The Brits abhor the suggestion of separation from the King's Empire that comes with being a Republic. When the Brits ask the Republicans what is the literal translation of saorstát, they are told it is “free state”.

Splendid, says the UK government, in the cigar-smoking form of Winston Churchill.
We already have South Africa in the Empire as a Free State. You’ll accept the King as your sovereign and head of state? Sure, say the Irish.
You’ll swear an oath to him?  Whatever . . . [Shrug]
Very well, we’ll call you the Free State. Agreed?
Yeah, says Collins, yeah, why not?

The Irish Free State was passed into UK law soon after and existed from 1922 to 1937. The (Catholic Republican) Irish saw it as a nascent Republic, which it indeed turned out to be, as from 1937 the Free State by unilateral declaration became Eire, the Republic of Ireland. The British for the time being classified it as a Dominion, a self-governing state within the British Empire accepting the British crown as sovereign authority.

Meanwhile in Ireland, both Ulster “opted out” of the new state and decided to side with the UK according to treaty conditions, and in the Free State the new Republican rebels, called "Irregulars" who refused to accept treaty partition of the island and oaths to the King, fought against the new Free State government in the Irish Civil War.

In this short but nasty conflict, as shown in the movie, Free State army commander-in-chief Collins was killed in an ambush on the orders of rebel leader Eamonn De Valera, who later accepted partition to become the first President of Ireland's 1937 Republic.

But the violent rebellion part of the Irish story is not the part I want to compare to the present situation of Catalonia. I repeat, the bloody uprising and subsequent division of Ireland does not come into the picture, because I cannot see this type of violent dynamic coming into play in Spain/Catalonia in the 21st century. Apart from anything else, this lacks a religious sectarian background as exists in Ireland. No blood will be spilled here, no armoured cars rolling onto playing fields and gunning down kids, no rebel death squads. 

The Catalan self-determination process will certainly be the kind of process they make earnest documentaries about, like the 'Velvet Divorce' of the Czech Republic with Slovakia, only much slower and more tedious, rather than spectacular Hollywood action epics of tyrannical repression and revolutionary action. I want instead to look at a much more boring picture than that… negotiated compromise.

I want to look at the diplomatic side of the picture, the type of accommodation that was seen as necessary by both hardened rebels like Griffith and Collins and a staunch Conservative unionist like Churchill. It was an accommodation partially based on a compromise of linguistic ambiguity: the Saorstát which for Republicans was (naturally) the Republic, was for the British a “Free State”, if the Irish wanted to call it that, but in fact and in the constitutional text of the new state, a Dominion like Canada, Australia or New Zealand.

"Free State", like "Dominion", and later "Sovereign State with the Commonwealth" were formulas that Great Britain found to save itself from another outright Empire rebellion as happened in the United States of America.

Saving face

This diplomatic-linguistic fiction saved face on both sides and made a negotiated peace between rebel Ireland and the British Empire possible. For fifteen years thereafter, the Free State was an ambiguous constitutional entity, both Catholic Gaelic “Republic” and Empire Dominion. From 1937 to the end of the century Ireland claimed Northern Ireland/Ulster in a pair of clauses in the Republic’s constitution, a type of claim which is known in international law as “irredentist”.

Finally in 1998, as part of the Good Friday Peace Accords between the UK government, the Irish government and representatives of all sides in Ulster (with the exception of the intransigent Ian Paisley) the Republic of Ireland with the 19th Amendment removed the constitutional claims on Northern Ireland and promised to respect the wishes of the people expressed in votes on self-determination.

This constitutional amendment was approved by a 94 percent vote in favour in the referendum held in the Republic. Peace came to Ireland at last – despite some rioting and an occasional splinter-group terrorist attack - and normality was resumed, just in time for the Republic to enjoy its day in the sun as Celtic Tiger, then crash into a catastrophic debt crisis. But all that’s another story.

History Lesson 1

• Spain/Catalonia isn’t violent like Ireland, and is very unlikely to become so
• Some compromise and accommodation is always possible, and sometimes linguistic ambiguity helps compromise
• There are historical entities like “Dominions” and “Free States” that exist between autonomous regional government and sovereign nation-state, and are defined as such in order to preserve cultural and trade relations
• Hardliners don’t take kindly to basic principles being violated, but even they have to become reasonable in the end

Conclusion

Neither “Free State” nor “Dominion” make the grade as translations for Mas’s Estat Propi concept, though we’re on the right track looking for face-saving formulas. There are too many creepy associations of violent rebellion from the British Empire. We need to find another term…

Next time : Devolved State and Self-governing State

Sources

Irish Free State
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_state_(government)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Irish_Free_State
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Free_State_Constitution_Act_1922
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Collins_(Irish_leader)
Velvet Divorce
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_divorce
Irredentist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irredentist
Good Friday Peace Accords and change to Irish constitution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteenth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Irelandhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_constitutional_referendum,_1998

Reality Shock

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into attack.”

 Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, 4 March 1933 [Listen to it here]

"There will be insults, provocations, and threats of all kinds… language and geographic origin will be manipulated in order to pit people against each other”.

Artur Mas, Catalan Parliament, 25 September 2012 [Source]

In recent days in Catalonia there’s been a general comedown from the euphoric highs of the massive rally on 11 September. I have spoken to many people who attended the march – all with their own ideas of what they were demanding, from more respect, through fiscal autonomy, to full independence – who are now feeling a little depressed.

This feeling is reflected in the figure of Jordi Pujol, who throughout his political career, including more than two decades as Catalan president, defended the existing structure of the Spanish state. In 2010, following the Tribunal Constitucional ruling which stripped the new Statute of Catalonia of key clauses, Pujol changed his mind. By the time the unofficial referendum on independence rolled round to Barcelona in April 2011 he publicly stated that he would vote in favour of independence, and attended the September 11 rally this year in support of the same cause. But just days afterwards he declared that, while the existing Spanish state made coexistence of Catalonia within Spain “unfeasible”, achieving independence would be “almost impossible”.

What’s happening here is Reality Shock: for decades the idea of Catalan independence was a fantasy, a romantic concept that didn’t have to be detailed because it simply wasn’t going to happen. Now, in a relatively short time, it has moved into the realm of political reality.

The Catalan public has woken up to find that the heroic ideal has arrived in the centre of the political agenda, and that now it has to exist, no longer in the world of flags and slogans, but rather in the prosaic world of institutional, economic and diplomatic praxis. Unused to thinking in these pragmatic terms and inexperienced in the ways of the world outside the Barcelona-Madrid dialectic, for many Catalans the heroic has become a headache.

Reality shock could be compared to that moment we all come to in our youth when we realise that we are not going to become an astronaut, a ballerina, a rock star or a princess. Following a period of painful adjustment, we learn to live a life in accord with our talents and possibilities, and with luck we come to feel satisfied with that life.

Well, my Catalan friends, I’m here to reassure you. I have been to Scotland, Quebec, Czecho/slovakia, Croatia, yes, even Massachussets and Ithaca, and I am a citizen of the Republic of Ireland as well as a subject of Her Britannic Majesty. In my experience in all these real-world places I have seen both tremendous achievements in self-determination and embarrassing failures. For me this debate has always been a reality. Take my hand and together we’ll look at a pragmatic vision of the struggle ahead.

 “Independence” is in fact possible, but it won’t be the kind of independence you have in mind if you imagine a sovereign nation-state completely at liberty to decide its own destiny. That kind of state doesn’t even exist any more. Update your software.

Some of the states that exist, and have existed, in the real world, have been categorized in the following ways:

• An associated state is the minor partner in a formal, free relationship between a political territory with a degree of statehood and a (usually larger) nation
  
• A free state is a term occasionally used in the official titles of some states. In principle the title asserts and emphasises the freedom of the state in question, but what this actually means varies greatly in different contexts: Sometimes it asserts sovereignty or independence (and with that, lack of foreign domination). Sometimes it asserts autonomy within a larger nation-state.
  
• A federacy is a form of government where one or several substate units enjoy considerably more independence than the majority of the substate units.
  
• Dominions were autonomous polities that were nominally under British sovereignty, constituting the British Empire, beginning in the latter part of the 19th century
  
• Devolved State (known as "Devomax" in Scotland) -  Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. 

As we go on, I intend to explore in much more depth what kind of state can result from the process of self-determination currently under way.

The question to be addressed next will be: How do you translate “Estat Propi” into English?

Believe me, this is much more than an obscure linguistic issue. There have been surprising results from the translation of a political term into another language throughout history, and much depends on how the term is understood in Catalonia, Spain and the world outside.