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Should Spain Forcefully Supress the Catalan Independence Referendum?

SirGareth said:
Those with the biggest guns win; the universal truth
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SirGareth:

Those with the biggest guns may win the battle. Those with the best logistics will likely win the war and those with the biggest ideas (and deep pockets to back those ideas up) often win the peace. Guns give a tactical advantage. Logistics give an operational and strategic advantage. But both are all but useless unless you can win the peace once the shooting has stopped.

The use of force breeds enmity and often radicalises political opponents to the point where they adopt armed insurrgency and violence to change their condition by rejecting an intolerable status quo. In a civil society, violence is not an option. If it becomes the only option available, then that society is no longer civil. The heavy-handed actions of the Spanish Government in Catalonia just before the October Referendum likely made matters worse and both fortified and focused the resolve of the separatist cause, while increasing the popularity of what had hither to been a largely disorganised and impotent separatist movement. Guns are not the answer to reshaping a human society. Napoleon's French armies had the biggest guns and they lost and failed. Germans had the biggest guns in WWI and they lost and failed. Germans had the biggest guns around Leningrad and Sevastopol and they lost and failed. America had the biggest guns in Vietnam and they lost and failed. The biggest guns are, in the final analysis, useless in the face of iron will and determined purpose in a people grimly willing to change their condition at any cost. Sure you may kill more of them with the biggest guns before they win, but they will eventually win.

Empires often have the biggest guns. They still go bankrupt and fall when multitudes of common folk turn against them in sufficient numbers. Like Assyria, Egypt, Macedonian Greece, Rome, the Mayans, the Incas, Spain, and Britain, all empires eventually crumble under the accumulated burden of paying for more and bigger guns/weapons and continuous military commitments. The "cult of the gun" and militarism is a dead-end for human civilisations. Ideas, myths, masonry, statuary, durable art and some writings endure when all the weapons have rusted away or been recycled for better use. Your howls of gun-toting supremacy ring hollow, sort of like an enraged apex carnosaur roaring defiantly as a giant comet streaked towards Earth 65 million years ago. What you fail to understand is that you alone have no control over events going on around you. Only through cooperation, union and as part of a collective body can you even hope to weather the turbulence of history.

Spain screwed up and now it has to deal with the consequences of that screw-up. Hopefully it eventually will without further recourse to coercive force. The Franco years are not that far in the past that Spaniards no longer fear the biggest guns and the hardest men who stand behind them. Civil society, not armed society, is the best path forward.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
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Re: Should Spain Forcefully Suppress the Catalan Independence Referendum?

The Spanish Supreme Court has ordered the arrest and incarceration of at least five separatist politicians from Catalonian previously out on bail, one is in Swiss exile (Marta Rovira, Esquerra's Secretary General). The Court apparently has reconsidered and finds their flight risk too great. One of the arrested (Turrul) was the third choice of the prevailing separatist coalition for regional president (after they discarded Puigdemont as unelectable due to absence). About 20 protesters have been arrested in Barcelona in clashes with riot police.
 
Re: Should Spain Forcefully Suppress the Catalan Independence Referendum?

So, for anyone wondering quite how the plucky Catalans landed themselves in the soup, here are the relevant bits from a separatist political analyst and Barcelona mayoral candidate in how it came about.

https://www.elnacional.cat/en/opinion/jordi-graupera-joint-list-immense-error_211602_102.html

tl/dr ... the 'referendum' ... ' it was a game of chicken' ...

during the whole spring of 2017, the members of the government of both parties were sure that the Spanish government wouldn't allow the celebration of a referendum, not even as a second "consultation" a la 9th November 2014. As such, the key was that neither ERC (Catalan Republican Left) nor PDeCAT (Catalan European Democratic Party) had to express their opinions about what had to be done if the referendum was held and they won.

The important thing was that the other party in the coalition couldn't blame you for having done nothing.

That explains why some departments did nothing, "because they didn't see the play", or why in some of the departments that did do things, like the Economy department, their leaders admitted in private calls facts now public that they weren't ready to declare independence.

it was a game of chicken, like those scenes in American films where two cars accelerate towards a cliff and the loser is the first driver to jump out of their seat and roll on the floor. The departments controlled by vice-president Junqueras, perhaps the most active ones in organising the referendum, were sure that the driver of PDeCAT would jump out of their car before they reached the cliff, and the driver of PDeCAT was convinced that the incompetence of ERC would mean their car would break down in front of everyone before reaching the abyss, because the Spanish state would set up enough dead-end streets to show everyone that a referendum was impossible with a state against it.

The political and psychological framework of the independence movement over these years has been that everyone had to move forwards together as one, with no cracks and, as such, whoever publicly suggested that the strategy might be incorrect, the final intentions unclear, or the specific tactics wrong immediately created a problem that had to be solved as it would hurt this unity. The incentive for everyone was to say that everything was planned, whether they knew it or not, that everything was going well, although they weren't discussing things that had to be discussed, and that everyone trusted we'd go there together, even if privately they had doubts.


File under: collective hallucination.
 
Re: Should Spain Forcefully Suppress the Catalan Independence Referendum?

Sven Karma said:
So, for anyone wondering quite how the plucky Catalans landed themselves in the soup, here are the relevant bits from a separatist political analyst and Barcelona mayoral candidate in how it came about.

https://www.elnacional.cat/en/opinion/jordi-graupera-joint-list-immense-error_211602_102.html

tl/dr ... the 'referendum' ... ' it was a game of chicken' ...

during the whole spring of 2017, the members of the government of both parties were sure that the Spanish government wouldn't allow the celebration of a referendum, not even as a second "consultation" a la 9th November 2014. As such, the key was that neither ERC (Catalan Republican Left) nor PDeCAT (Catalan European Democratic Party) had to express their opinions about what had to be done if the referendum was held and they won.

The important thing was that the other party in the coalition couldn't blame you for having done nothing.

That explains why some departments did nothing, "because they didn't see the play", or why in some of the departments that did do things, like the Economy department, their leaders admitted in private calls facts now public that they weren't ready to declare independence.

it was a game of chicken, like those scenes in American films where two cars accelerate towards a cliff and the loser is the first driver to jump out of their seat and roll on the floor. The departments controlled by vice-president Junqueras, perhaps the most active ones in organising the referendum, were sure that the driver of PDeCAT would jump out of their car before they reached the cliff, and the driver of PDeCAT was convinced that the incompetence of ERC would mean their car would break down in front of everyone before reaching the abyss, because the Spanish state would set up enough dead-end streets to show everyone that a referendum was impossible with a state against it.

The political and psychological framework of the independence movement over these years has been that everyone had to move forwards together as one, with no cracks and, as such, whoever publicly suggested that the strategy might be incorrect, the final intentions unclear, or the specific tactics wrong immediately created a problem that had to be solved as it would hurt this unity. The incentive for everyone was to say that everything was planned, whether they knew it or not, that everything was going well, although they weren't discussing things that had to be discussed, and that everyone trusted we'd go there together, even if privately they had doubts.


File under: collective hallucination.
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"Will pursue bad policy in order to maintain consensus or at least the illusion of thus, and 100% YES votes" long being the motto of the EU so we can guess where they got the idea.

One sure does not want the Little People getting a whiff of how poorly operations are getting run.
 
Re: Should Spain Forcefully Suppress the Catalan Independence Referendum?

Hawkeye10 said:
"Will pursue bad policy in order to maintain consensus or at least the illusion of thus, and 100% YES votes" long being the motto of the EU so we can guess where they got the idea.
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The EU dreams of getting 100% votes, that's the way the Soviet Union worked, so no. The lesson is the sadly universal one of 'don't believe the hype'. Also, as in playing pool, it helps to have all your ducks in a row rather than hitting and hoping.

Hawkeye10 said:
One sure does not want the Little People getting a whiff of how poorly operations are getting run.
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Yeah, well, unfortunately Catalan ex-President Puigdemont is really rubbing their noses in the dogsh*t of ineptitude.

I lived in/around Catalunya for 5 years and I've twice been stopped by the German police shortly after crossing the border (both times with hilarious, far too long to go into here consequences) so I really kind of have been there with Puigdemont as the STOP! POLIZEI! lights flashed up in his rearview mirror.

I'm no ex-President of anywhere with an international arrest warrant hanging over my head but if I were, I think I would have the car I was being driven about in regularly checked for tracking devices, but apparently not. And #Facebook101, I probably would not want driver and assistant tooling about different countries in northern Europe with phones already GPS-triangulated by Spanish security services. Also clearly no-one advised the ex-President that the German police do not mess about when it comes to the enforcement of the law.
 
Re: Should Spain Forcefully Suppress the Catalan Independence Referendum?

Sven Karma said:
The EU dreams of getting 100% votes, that's the way the Soviet Union worked, so no. The lesson is the sadly universal one of 'don't believe the hype'. Also, as in playing pool, it helps to have all your ducks in a row rather than hitting and hoping.



Yeah, well, unfortunately Catalan ex-President Puigdemont is really rubbing their noses in the dogsh*t of ineptitude.

I lived in/around Catalunya for 5 years and I've twice been stopped by the German police shortly after crossing the border (both times with hilarious, far too long to go into here consequences) so I really kind of have been there with Puigdemont as the STOP! POLIZEI! lights flashed up in his rearview mirror.

I'm no ex-President of anywhere with an international arrest warrant hanging over my head but if I were, I think I would have the car I was being driven about in regularly checked for tracking devices, but apparently not. And #Facebook101, I probably would not want driver and assistant tooling about different countries in northern Europe with phones already GPS-triangulated by Spanish security services. Also clearly no-one advised the ex-President that the German police do not mess about when it comes to the enforcement of the law.
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My Aunt (68 or so smart liberal) who has a sort of BF in Barcelona whom she sees with regularity claims that the whole separatist drive is powered by a few wealthy families fueled with hubris, matched with an overly emotional and overly ignorant population who tend to be easily manipulated......

Sound Right?
 
Re: Should Spain Forcefully Suppress the Catalan Independence Referendum?

Hawkeye10 said:
My Aunt (68 or so smart liberal) who has a sort of BF in Barcelona whom she sees with regularity claims that the whole separatist drive is powered by a few wealthy families fueled with hubris, matched with an overly emotional and overly ignorant population who tend to be easily manipulated......

Sound Right?
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Would not surprise me one bit. Traditionally in Spain every region and major city had at least one family that historical were the nobility or biggest land owners and hence political controlling the area. Democracy kinda makes that harder.

Sendt fra min SM-N9005 med Tapatalk
 
Re: Should Spain Forcefully Suppress the Catalan Independence Referendum?

PeteEU said:
Would not surprise me one bit. Traditionally in Spain every region and major city had at least one family that historical were the nobility or biggest land owners and hence political controlling the area. Democracy kinda makes that harder.

Sendt fra min SM-N9005 med Tapatalk
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She also points to the "Illegal vote" where the turnout was very poor because according to her there are many who dont agree, but that they were afraid to vote.

If she is even slightly right this is very bad.
 
Re: Should Spain Forcefully Suppress the Catalan Independence Referendum?

Hawkeye10 said:
She also points to the "Illegal vote" where the turnout was very poor because according to her there are many who dont agree, but that they were afraid to vote.

If she is even slightly right this is very bad.
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I don't know if they were afraid so much as disinclined to participate in a self-evident charade - I think the Catalans observed the Scottish referendum and decided to rig the odds in their favour - but your aunt's pretty much on the money.

The medieval Barcelonese swore an oath of allegiance to the Kingdom of Aragon that sums up their spirit of charm and co-operation:

We, who are as good as you, swear to you who are no better than we, to accept you as our king and sovereign lord, providing you observe all our liberties and laws; but, if not, not.
 
Evilroddy said:
The Spanish Government is moving to seize the electronic media infrastructure which Catlans are using to hold and count their intended referendum vote tomorrow. Spanish authorities are also set to seize public schools and keep them sealed and closed, schools which are under local Catlan jurisdiction, where the voting will take place. Catlan families with children are moving into these schools to pre-empt Spanish authorities from closing the schools. The Spanish government has threatened Catlan organisers and referendum volunteers with astronomical fines and jail time if they participate in the running of the referendum. Finally Spain is preparing to use force if the Catlan population comes out into the streets tomorrow.

Is this a wise course to thwart Catlan nationalism or will it only force such nationalists to operate under-ground? Further will such overt suppression radicalise Catlan separatists, creating a new long-term security problem for Spain not unlike the traditional Basque insurgency? Negotiation or confrontation, which is the wisest strategy?

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
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They aren't well armed in Catalan (the populace) so there's really little they could do about it (resist) anyway...
 
MrMike said:
They aren't well armed in Catalan (the populace) so there's really little they could do about it (resist) anyway...
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So you are saying that the minority population should rise up against a democratically elected government, 70 years after one of the worst civil wars in human history? That the people of Catalonia are living such bad lives, that they would want to risk that in an all out war? Seriously?
 
PeteEU said:
So you are saying that the minority population should rise up against a democratically elected government, 70 years after one of the worst civil wars in human history? That the people of Catalonia are living such bad lives, that they would want to risk that in an all out war? Seriously?
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Nope...

I spend time there each year. I'm speaking of the folly of the whole thing. It just makes no sense.
 
In an interview with two Swiss periodicals, Esquerra Secretary General Marta Rovira said she had reported to the Swiss authorities and is considering seeking political asylum in Switzerland (on March 23 Judge Llarena issued an international extradition request for her –charging rebellion).

Rovira, who was served a summons to appear in court, fled Spain on the date she was to appear and said in her interview this was “to protect myself and my family from political persecution”. Rovira said “had I remained in Spain, I’d be behind bars. I’ve seen what happened to Oriol Junqueras who has been in jail for 4 months.” She said she did not think she could get a fair trial in Spain and denies her flight had any adverse effect on her alleged co-conspirators.

“We each made our own personal decision, I could not risk 20-30 years in jail with a 7 year-old daughter.” She described her last few days in Barcelona like “an internal prison” with “continuous police presence in the streets” adding how “she was unable to freely express her political views without risking criminal prosecution without basis.” She said she was following with great interest the developments surrounding Puigdemont, whom she described as “a fighter”. Marta Rovira rompe su silencio tras su huida y contempla pedir asilo político en Suiza | Cataluña
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Ms Rovira evidently has a perspective, I suppose her flight did not have an adverse effect on her alleged co-conspirators since she fled after others and before those who remained were arrested, but it should be noted the incarceration of those arrested in Spain (including Oriol Junqueras) was due to Judge Llarena’s sensible appreciation they posed a significant flight risk –precisely because Puigdemont and others had already fled.

I disagree with Rovira’s claim public advocacy for secession entails criminal prosecution in Spain, if anyone can cite a statute or regulation showing so please do. I know advocacy for communism hasn’t been criminal since Franco’s demise (it was when he was alive). Rovira and her co-conspirators have not been charged with “public advocacy for secession”, they’re all charged with sedition, rebellion and misappropriation of public funds.

I expect former members of the regional government will be prosecuted this summer, that they probably won’t be held responsible for both sedition and rebellion since the former is a lesser included offense of the latter, and that in any case these two charges are of subjective regard. Moreover, given the difficulties in securing the extradition of those who’ve fled, the Spanish judiciary may be advised not to seek prosecution on these charges. I think it just depends on how the Constitucion is interpreted.

They’ll also face the charge of misappropriation of public funds and this will be more difficult to overcome as it requires specific evidence I presume Madrid has been able to gather from the regional institutions involved. No doubt spending public funds for an unlawful purpose is misappropriation, the prosecution can expect the court to take judicial notice of the outlawing of the referendum, any public funds spent on this effort after the Constitutional Court determined a secessionist referendum would be illegal necessarily entails a conviction (there is evidence secessionist leaders in the regional government instructed payments from regional institutions in support of the unlawful referendum).
 
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The German constitution (Article 79, section 3) forbids all acts of sedition against the federal German government, territorial unity is inviolate. For this reason Germany’s Constitutional Court rejected an appeal brought in 2016 by the Bavarian Party (separatists without representation in the national government) to hold a referendum on Bavaria’s secession. The same happened when the fascitoid and Europhobic AfD party (now the second most powerful in the Saxony-Anhalt regional parliament) expressed it’s separatist formulations. More recently, the German Federal Office of Intelligence has placed under surveillance the activities of the so-called "Citizens of the Reich" (violent Nazis who don’t recognize the German government).

This all matches perfectly with the determinations made by Spain’s Constitutional Court in September 2017 over two Catalonian government separatist laws and it’s call for a referendum, just as Puigdemont’s unilateral declaration of independence on October 10th last year was. All of this constituted a coup against the democratic and legal order established in Spain under it’s constitution. Anything like this would be absolutely intolerable in Germany and it’s federal government would have to intervene under Article 37 of their constitution (which, incidentally, was the text that inspired the drafters of Spain’s constitutional Article 155).

Spanish and German criminal law on sedition or rebellion is not that different either. In Germany, Article 81 of their Penal Code describes “High Treason against the State” which is severely punished, as are any acts against national unity (see Article 92). So sedition or rebellion are evidently not fantastic concepts developed by repressive Spanish fascists, even in Germany there are laws forbidding separatism. Nonetheless, the German laws require a measure of violence that is shown to have actually weakened their federal government, which is absurd since any court finding this had in fact resulted would need to recognize their capacity to adjudicate the matter had also weakened.
 
Adenauer Foundation: “The situation was misunderstood”
Wilhelm Hofmeister, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation director in Spain, on Thursday said that in Germany “the situation in Catalonia was misunderstood” and that he expects the prosecutors will clarify the matter.

When asked about possible “German sympathy in public opinion towards Catalonian separatism” in a radio interview, Hofmeister said “it’s nothing against Spain, just a misunderstanding over the situation in Catalonia.”

The German director stated the “romanticism” and “communications” of the separatists, who presented themselves as “repressed by an authoritarian Spanish state” are the two reasons German public opinion has certain sympathy towards Catalonian nationalists.

“Catalonia has considerable autonomy, this is a matter for Spaniards to debate, but the separatists don’t want autonomy, they want sovereignty” Hofmeister concluded, who the day before indicated the court in Schleswig-Holstein had exceeded it’s authority with Spain’s extradition request for Puigdemont. Empieza la reunión entre fiscales alemanes y españoles sobre el 'caso Puigdemont' | España
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The prosecutors Hofmeister mentions are those from Spain and Germany which are meeting at “Eurojust” (the European agency for judicial cooperation) headquarters in The Hague to discuss the application of Spain’s extradition requests. This meeting is not open to the public and both German and Spanish authorities have been quite secretive about it, it is not expected they will make any announcements on it’s outcome, but will make pertinent adjustments in their respective jurisdictions.

My guess is that Puigdemont will need to pack his bags again, but I'm not sure if he will do this for a trip to Spain or flee eastwards.
 
Miserable kids in Catalonian public schools (if they speak Spanish):
According to the EU Parliament’s Petitions Committee’s president Cecilia Wikström from Sweden, the Committee will send an official note to the Catalonian authorities reminding them it is mandatory they guarantee 25% of classes in public schools must be taught in Spanish, and that those authorities are responsible for making sure this happens.

As Wikström noted: Spain’s Supreme Court decreed in 2015 that 25% of public school instruction in Catalonia had to be in Spanish, and this is still not happening. La Eurocámara preguntará a la Generalitat por la discriminación lingüística en las escuelas | Cataluña
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Worse if their parents are in the police force:
The Prosecutor’s office in Martorell has brought an indictment against nine teachers at a school there for discrimination against students who are the children of Spanish police officers after the referendum.

The Hate Crimes and Discrimination Department of the Barcelona prosecutor found the indicted teachers may have perpetrated crimes that caused injury to the dignity of others though discrimination based on national origin.

The indictment states one teacher called on students in her classroom to indicate whether their parents worked for the police with the aim to identify them, cause them to feel guilty and humiliate them in front of their classmates in the hostile environment that arose immediately following the referendum.

Another teacher asked her students, which she knew had parents in the police force, whether they were happy with what their parents did on the day of the referendum, one child broke down in tears.

Numerous similar incidents are described with the teachers referring to the student’s parents in the police force as “savages” and “rabid dogs”. La Fiscalía denuncia a 9 profesores de un instituto por señalar a hijos de guardias civiles tras el 1-O | Cataluña
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This is awful.
 
To be fair, this isn't a specifically Catalan problem, human nature suggests there are people in staff rooms everywhere who are only there because they liked being bullies when they were first at school.

When I did my teaching qualification in Wales we were set a group project on racial discrimination in the schools we were working in and the consistent result we got was that the worst problem was between Welsh-speaking teachers and English-speaking pupils.

Which went down well, not, when we had to do our presentation back at the University; but since we'd been told at the start that the marking of the project would count towards our final qualification we'd come up with a pretty bullet-proof set of questions. They didn't run group projects again lol
 
A post-election survey in Catalonia made public today, showed independence was not a priority for most. Unemployment was the top or second most important concern for 43%, the economy was tops for 37%, healthcare the most important for 34.1%, while self-determination was most important for only 26.1% of those polled.

Asked about their national identity, 38.2% said they felt equally Spanish and Catalonian, 24.4% felt more Catalonian than Spanish, 21.5% felt exclusively Catalonian, 6.3% felt more Spanish than Catalonian and 5.5% felt exclusively Spanish.

When asked how they would prefer Spain organize regional government, 36.4% preferred Spain allow regional governments to become independent, 25.9% preferred regions have greater autonomy and 23.8% would just maintain the current situation.
 
The new Catalonian regional president, Joaquim Torrá has resolved the impasse with Madrid designating a cabinet that excludes the two fugitive and two incarcerated former Consellers. It is unclear what role former regional president Puigdemont may play.

The new Consellers are schedulled to take office after a legislative vote tomorrow at 11:30. This should enable Torrá to begin his regional government before the new President of Spain takes possession.

Former Spanish President Mariano Rajoy lost the vote of confidence yesterday and the PSOE’s (socialist party) president Pedro Sanchez has succeded him, but has yet to appoint his Cabinet.

Torrá called on Pedro Sánchez to “take the chance” and “begin bilateral mediation” with Catalonia in an anticipated meeting between the two.

It is expected once Torrá’s cabinet assumes office they will consider the new regional president’s first initiative; a suit for “misrepresentation” against Rajoy and former Spanish vice-president Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, for barring the required publication in the Generalitat’s Official Gazette of the names as regional cabinet members of the incarcerated and fugitive former Consellers (precluding their inclusion in Torrá’s cabinet).

Most realize this is Torrá’s effort to make peace with irrendentist separatists who view his decision to exclude those former Consellers and fashion a legally viable cabinet as an “abdication” (as indicated by leaders in ANC and CUP). Torra se jacta de liquidar a Rajoy y al "golpe de Estado" del 155 | Cataluña
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(translation mine)

It is unclear whether the new regional president will have the votes to get his Cabinet installed, the CUP has reservations, PdeCat and Esquerra don’t see things the same way, Puigdemont seems sidelined.

If Torrá can get his Cabinet approved, the requisite conditions to remove application of Article 155 will be met, and then the Spanish authorities will have to stop requisitioning records from the regional authorities documenting the former regional government’s malfeasances, but by now I suspect Madrid has all the evidence it needs.

I expect the judicial authorities will be ready to proceed within a couple of months, break for summer and begin hearings in September.
 
Puigdemonth could be extradited by Germany:
The German prosecutor for Schleswig-Holstein on Friday formally requested the surrender of Puigdemont for the crimes of rebellion and misappropriation, backing the warrant issued by the Spanish court on every point. Now it is up to the court in Schleswig-Holstein to resolve whether to abide by the prosecutor’s request. The decisión is expected within weeks.

“Having examined the extensive documentation provided by the Spanish authorities, there is no doubt the requirements for incrimination exist for both rebellion and misappropriation” reads the prosecutor’s writ, which also criticizes the court going beyond the terms of the extradition warrant in evaluating the information provided by Spain in its request.

The German prosecutor declared that “the charges by the Spanish authorities do not need to be confirmed by their judiciary”, adding that “in the extradition process what needs to be verified is double incrimination (that what is charged is a crime in Germany). In this context, the extradition request to Germany fills the requirements for high treason under Article 81 of the German Penal Code. Thus the German prosecutor calls for the incarceration of Puigdemont.

On the matter of misappropriation, the prosecutor finds that “it is not relevant whether the facts are punishable under German law since corruption is included in the catalogue of 32 crimes the European extradition framework requires immediate dispatch, and that even when it is required conditions be met under German law, the prosecutor finds these have been satisfied.” https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2018/06/01/actualidad/1527852448_357644.html
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This is what I said when the German court rejected the extradition request. I didn't know about this catalogue of 32 crimes requiring immediate dispatch, but it is established the extraditing court does not need to consider whether the crime charged would be punished in it's jurisdiction is moderated, it doesn't have to weigh the evidence and hear arguments on either side, just look and see if the offense is close enough to it's similar there.

Puigdemont should get packing.
 
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Spain's new socialist government isn't going to be any more accommodating to Catalonian secessionists.
Spain’s new foreign minister, Josep Borrell (a Catalonian) has taken office advocating continuity rather than change and warning that the gravest problem Spain confronts is “territorial integrity”, while that which confronts the EU is a “crisis of confidence”. On the EU issue Borrell advocates “for majorities to advance the EU rather than minorities to block it” insisting Spain should recover its leading role in this area.

“Spain is a great country” Borrell said, the new foreign minister was one of the leading constitutionalist figures confronting regional separatists. Josep Borrell asume Exteriores alertando del grave problema de la "integridad territorial" | España
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Evidently the new government in Madrid is no more inclined to dismemberment than its predecessor, and while this doesn't surprise me, I can appreciate the discomfiture on the left which may have thought socialists would be more sensitive than conservatives to supposedly democratic aspirations.

The new foreign minister, a Catalonian, in his first statements upon assuming office has emphasized two transcendental points; he sees the separatist movement as the "gravest" threat and he will work in support of rather than in opposition to the EU.
 
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