Breaking News: Separatists Triumph in Catalonia Election

Mas’s Coalition Slips in Catalan Vote, but Leftist Separatists Gain; Referendum Now Likely.

The landmark elections to Catalonia’s regional parliament on November 25th left the separatist ruling coalition, Convergència i Unió (CiU, or Convergence and Union), with 12 fewer seats—now only 50 out of 135—meaning its leader, Artur Mas i Gavarró, will now have to join with other parties to push through his promised referendum on independence from Spain.

A likely partner is the leftist pro-independence party, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (E.R.C., or Republican Left of Catalonia), which came in second with 21 seats, up from a previous 10.

That combination would give separatists a strong majority.  Spain’s ruling People’s Party (P.P.) gained only one seat and now has 19.

[Also, for those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with a forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  Look for it in spring 2013.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.]

Basques Elect Separatists, Catalans Appeal to E.U. Fearing Civil War, Juan Carlos’s Paternity Suits: Spanish Separatism Update, 21-27 October 2012

Rajoy’s Party Keeps Power in Galicia, but Separatists Surge in Basque Country.  Elections to two regional autonomous parliaments within the Kingdom of Spain on October 21st provided good news and bad news for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy Brey, whose austerity measures in the face of the European financial crisis has already pushed one autonomous region, Catalonia, to the brink of secession.  In Galicia, Rajoy’s home region, in the northwest, his ruling People’s Party (P.P.) retained power, with 41 out 75 seats in the Galician parliament, but in the Basque Country, in north-central Spain, a new separatist coalition called Euskal Herria Bildu (E.H.B.) (translated as “Basque Country Gather” (is that an imperative, or a bad translation?)) has come in second behind the gradualist but still pro-independence Basque Nationalist Party (E.A.J.).  E.H.B., with a quarter of the votes, now controls 21 of the Basque parliament’s 75 seats, while E.A.J. holds 27, putting separatists in the majority.  [Related article: “The World’s 21 Sexiest Separatists,” featuring a profile of the Basque warrior Idoia López Riaño, a.k.a. la Tigresa.]

... Meanwhile, Is the Real Heir to the Spanish Throne a Catalan Bastard?  Two courts in Spain this week rejected cases brought before them requesting permission to pursue paternity claims on the country’s monarch, King Juan Carlos I.  The two claimants are Alberto Solà Jiménez, a waiter from northeastern Spain, and Ingrid Sartiau, a housewife from Ghent, in Belgium.  (Ironically, both live in separatist regions—Catalonia and Flanders.)  Solà is adopted but claims evidence that his birth mother had an affair with Juan Carlos, while Sartiau says she was conceived in Luxembourg in 1966 in a rendezvous between her mother and the future king, during Francisco Franco’s dictatorship—and also—ahem!—during Juan Carlos’s marriage to the current Queen Sofía (also true of Solà’s conception).  Sartiau told reporters, “My mother told me who my father was while we were watching television.  An image of Juan Carlos flashed up and she said, ‘That man’s your father.’”  Genetic tests comparing the DNA of Solà and Sartiau concluded that there is a 91% chance they share one parent.  The royal family has not commented on the matter, but the court this week cited a Spanish constitutional provision that “The person of the King is inviolable, and not subject to responsibility.”  Solà is 56 years old and thus 12 years older than Juan Carlos’s only son, Felipe, Prince of Asturias, who is 44 years old and next in line to the throne.  But a paternity test could not knock Felipe down a rung in the line of succession: illegitimate children are barred from the throne.  Oh, well ... but there might be some money in it, no?

Sartiau and Solà: spawn of royal Spanish seed?

Catalan M.E.P.s Ask E.U. to Intervene If Spain Uses Force to Keep Catalonia Spanish.  Four members of the European Parliament (M.E.P.s) representing Catalonia wrote to Vivian Reding, European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights, and Citizenship, on October 22nd requesting European Union (E.U.) intervention should the Kingdom of Spain carry out threats to use military force if necessary to prevent a unilateral declaration of independence by Catalonia taking effect.  (Read the letter here.)  Rosa Díez González, a former centrist M.E.P. from the Basque Country called the letter an insult to Spanish democracy.

Spanish Police Nab Basque Police-Attack Suspect on French Extradition Order.  Police in Irún, in north-central Spain near the French border, on October 19th arrested a suspected member of the disarmed and mostly disbanded Basque separatist army ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatusana, “Basque Homeland and Freedom”), in accordance with a 1995 extradition order from France.  The suspect, José Ignacio Pérez Aramburu, was given a three-year prison sentence by a French court in absentia, for injuring several in a Molotov-cocktail attack on a police van.

ETA, in more militant times.  Love the berets, no?
One thing you have to say about Basque terrorists, they can accessorize.

[Also, for those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with a forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  Look for it in spring 2013.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.]

Catalans Must Decide: EU or Not EU? Unilateral or Negotiated? Include Valencia and Balearics?

As Catalan leaders plan a referendum in 2014 on independence from Spain, they are debating questions such as whether they ought to make a unilateral declaration of independence “à la Kosovo” and whether this would prevent Catalonia from seamlessly remaining in the European Union (E.U.) after a split.  The E.U.’s 2007 Lisbon Treaty clearly says it would, but it’s not clear that the Catalan president Arturo Mas’s plan for a referendum question asking, “Do you wish for Catalonia to become a new state of the European Union?” will get around that if Madrid refuses to play ball.  (See my blog article analyzing this question in detail with respect to Scotland.)

Moreover, media are reporting that some (perhaps most?) Catalonian separatists also envision the Autonomous Community of Valencia, the region to Catalonia’s south, as well as the Balearic Islands off the coast, as part of a “Greater Catalonia.”

The flag of Valencia

Valencia, the Balearics, and Aragon are three regions headed by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy Brey’s People’s Party (P.P.) which have begun rebelling against austerity measures in the P.P.’s 2013 budget.  Valencia and Catalonia are Spain’s two most indebted regions, and prosperous, productive regions feeling that poorer, less productive Spanish regions are pushing them into indebtedness is the main economic factor fueling the secessionist crises in Spain.

Valencia, the Balearics, and Catalonia—along with Aragon, Andalusia, the Basque Country, the Canary Islands, and Galicia—are all constitutionally recognized as distinct “nationalities” within Spain, and Valencia and the Balearics are among those with their own devolved parliaments, like Catalonia’s.

There are differences of opinion as to whether Valencia and the Balearics are culturally and linguistically part of Catalonia: the Balearics use Catalan as an official language alongside Spanish, but the Valencians call their local official language Valencian, not Catalan, though the two are mutually intelligible.

The flag of the Balearic Islands

Separatist sentiment in Valencia, which was its own kingdom until 1707, has never been as strong as in Catalonia, the Basque Country, or Galicia, but Communists in the Balearics briefly agitated for independence in 1978 in the political disorganization following the dictator Francisco Franco’s death.

The flag of Galicia

Expect the exact boundaries of an independent Catalonia to be the source of conflict in the months ahead.  (At least Scotland has Hadrian’s Wall to keep things simple, eh?)

Basque graffiti.  (Boy, they sure make Catalonia look small in this map, don’t they?)

[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with my forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar.  (That is shorter than the previous working title.)  The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), will be on shelves and available on Amazon on March 1, 2015.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even though you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook and see this special announcement for more information on the book.]