Catalan president steps up
breakaway plan
The Financial Times
Catalan leaders will take their campaign for independence
from Spain to a new level, with a plan to establish the region’s own diplomatic
service, central bank, tax authority — and possibly even its armed forces.
The plan could be put into practice as soon as next
month, provided that voters in the prosperous northern region hand a
sufficiently large majority to pro-independence parties in a regional election
on September 27. “This is not about declaring independence immediately. This is
about starting a process that leads to an independent Catalan state,” Artur
Mas, the Catalan president, said in an interview with the Financial Times.
“One crucial task for the next government will be to
create the state structures that will succeed those of the Spanish state: the
tax authority, for example, which we have already worked on for the past year
and a half, or social security or the central bank,” he added.
The idea of building a state within the Spanish state —
sure to infuriate Madrid — comes after the central government has repeatedly
rejected pleas from Mr Mas and others to allow a formal referendum on Catalan
independence.
The pro-independence camp has responded by styling the
regional election, less than three weeks away, as a quasi-referendum on
independence. If their parties win an outright majority, they have vowed to
establish a government lasting no longer than 18 months to carry out the
institutional spadework that would lead the region towards independence.
Such a government would include, for the first time, a
minister in charge of external affairs, tasked with setting up a Catalan
diplomatic service. “We currently have commercial offices, and offices abroad
that deal with tourism and culture. But we don’t yet have a network of external
services like a state has. All that will have to be designed by the future
government in the next 18 months,” Mr Mas said. Aside from building the
institutions of a future independent state, the legislature would also initiate
the process of drafting a separate Catalan constitution.
The most sensitive task, he added, would be to prepare
“the design” for a future Catalan military. “Defence is the most delicate of
all these aspects, and there is no consensus about this in Catalonia,” Mr Mas
said. “But my party and I personally believe that Catalonia has to remain part
of Nato. And as a member of Nato we have to pay our dues . . . It would be impossible for
Catalonia not to have its own defence structure, even though it would be a
light one.”
Spain’s conservative government, which also faces
re-election this year, insists that regions have no right to determine their
own political future — let alone to secede from the Spanish state.
In recent years, however, Catalonia’s pro-independence
movement has tested that stance to the limit. Independence rallies have drawn
hundreds of thousands of protesters on to the streets of the prosperous region
— a spectacle that is due to be repeated on Friday, when Catalans mark their
national day. Last November, Mr Mas and the regional government also organised
an informal independence poll in which 2.3m Catalans took part. Though the vote
had no legal consequence, it was widely seen as another sign of Catalan
disaffection with Spain, which has heightened in recent years by disputes over
financial burden-sharing and demands for greater regional autonomy.
“In the past three years we have made more progress than
in the previous three centuries,” Mr Mas said, speaking in the sumptuous
medieval palace in the centre of Barcelona that is the seat of the Catalan
presidency.
This month’s regional election is intended to mark the
beginning of the Catalan endgame — by delivering a genuine popular mandate for
a break with Spain. To that end, Mr Mas’s conservative Convergencia Democratica
party has formed a common electoral list with the left-wing Esquerra
Republicana movement — the first time the two main pro-independence parties
have joined forces. Together with a smaller, far-left pro-independence party
known as CUP, the list hopes to secure an absolute majority in parliament —
with the power to press ahead with the statehood plan.
“If we have a majority in parliament on the night of
September 27 we will continue with the process. If we don’t have a majority, it
is evident that the process cannot continue,” Mr Mas said.
Critics argue that Mr Mas and his allies are putting the
electoral bar too low. They note that the region’s electoral system will allow
the pro-independence bloc to win an absolute majority in parliament with as
little as 45 per cent of the vote — much less than would be needed in a
straight in/out referendum along the lines of the Scottish plebiscite last
year.
Mr Mas acknowledged that an absolute majority of votes
would give even more “strength and legitimacy” to the independence push than a
majority of seats in parliament. But he insisted that the result would be valid
all the same: “In a parliamentary election you count seats not votes.”