SPAIN: Demands for new powers put region on a collision course with Spain, writes Paddy Woodworth
The Catalan parliament yesterday approved a new autonomy statute which radically rewrites the region's relationship with Spain. But no one can predict the rest of the script if, as is likely, the Madrid government rejects its most significant clauses when it is debated in the Spanish parliament later this month.
"The statute is the first step towards a free Catalan state," Luis Carod Rovira, leader of the pro-independence Catalan Republican Left, declared in Barcelona yesterday.
Carod's comments are highly embarrassing for his allies in the regional coalition government. This is led by the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), with the charismatic Pasqual Maragall, mayor of Barcelona during the 1992 Olympics, as first minister.
The PSC is the local equivalent of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), which is in power in Madrid, under the premiership of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Maragall prefers to see the statute as a move towards a "plurinational federal state", with a "new concept of territorial solidarity".
But even that may be a step too far for the PSOE as a whole. Government sources in Madrid yesterday insisted that the statute would have to be severely amended if it is to pass into Spanish law.
Plurinational federalism is anathema to the deeply conservative main opposition party, the Partido Popular (PP). Its general secretary Ángel Acebes told a press conference in Madrid yesterday that the statute marked "the beginning of a process of political separation".
Acebes demanded that the Spanish parliament should treat the statute as a reform to the constitution, which would require a two-thirds majority in Madrid, and which the PP can block.
As it stands, the new statute greatly extends the significant powers of devolved government which the region has enjoyed under a statute approved in 1979.
The document's preamble redefines Catalonia as a "nation" (rather than a "nationality").
Its financial clauses claim unprecedented fiscal powers. All taxes would be raised by the Catalan government, and their allocation would be decided on a bilateral basis, with equal representation for Barcelona and Madrid.
The powers of the Catalan judiciary would also be significantly strengthened.
The new statute won the support of 120 Catalan deputies yesterday, an impressive show of unity. Only the 15 PP deputies voted against.
In Madrid, however, there was grave anxiety among senior members of Zapatero's cabinet, who believe that the statute probably violates the Spanish constitution, and that it is certainly unacceptable to a majority of Spaniards.
Zapatero now finds himself in a very delicate situation. Taking the red pencil to a text which has won such convincing support in Catalonia would radicalise the region, and put him at odds with his own party and its allies there.
On the other hand, allowing the statute to pass through the Spanish parliament untrimmed would stimulate other regions to demand similar powers.
That could open fissures elsewhere in the PSOE, especially if the PP is able to capitalise on fears of the "break-up of Spain", and, wrapping the Spanish flag around itself, takes a crusade for national unity onto the streets.