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Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

bbc.co.uk

531–540 of 785 posts

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#531
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to that, the validity of the votes are questionable in the first place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_referendu... > Due to the many irregularities and to the actions taken by the national police and civil guard, the international observers, invited by the Generalitat, declared that the referendum results could not be considered valid as the process failed to meet the minimum international…

I'm guessing "national police" referrs to Spanish police and their brutal suppression of the voting, not Catalan police.

Of course, the Catalan police is the regional police.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a LOT of people in Catalonian independence movement (or nationalists). I guess some are in for the economic advantages. Others are in because they feel culturally different. Others because Spain is too right wing. Or because they think its their historical right. Or because the new country would be better managed. Or because an independent Catalonia can better help the peoples of the world against the tyrants…

> For most there will be a mixture of reasons (good and bad). Are there objective criteria for figuring out whether a reason is good or bad? Or do you just mean your opinion?

Just my humble opinion

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#533
post #321

It's been a bit of bad luck what happened. On the Spanish side, the party at the Government did not have enough votes to freely apply their own policies. By helping provoke a polarizing crisis, they hugely improve their chances for an absolute majority to improve their power position should there be an election in Spain. Had they negotiated with Catalan Government, their future chances for a huge win would be a lot l…

In short, both parties ruling on both sides believe that they benefit greatly from confrontation No, that's wrong. The reason we have the current clusterf * in place has been the conflict-avoiding actitude of 40 years of spanish governments. We have a proportional voting systems and regional parties have been the "hinge", the small parties that helped ruling parties to reach absolute majority, in national parliament.…

> Did you know you can't have your children study in Spanish in Spain?

This isn't particularly unusual, it basically works that way in Quebec, unless you use a private school. Unlike Quebec, aren't Catalans almost all bilingual anyhow?

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#534
post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stage one would be amending the Spanish constitution to get rid of the notion of Spain as being indivisible, and that's where it becomes really tricky, as you then need to get consensus from all of Spain to allow that.

Well, good luck with that. Spain was a fascist country for 40 years.

And why is that relevant to this discussion?

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#535
post #525
post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the people in spanish gov are not nationalists. I have a lot of bad things to say against Rajoy but nationalist is not one. And no, non-nationalists are not hostages. We are sick and tired of nationalism and most of us would have wanted the government to react much sooner to the abuses, specially the non-nationalists living in Catalonia that are the ones that have suffered this situation more directly.

I don't know under what prism you do not consider the PP party not nationalists, when they are the direct successors of the Spanish National Catolicism movement that ruled Spain under Franco's dictatorship.

This is just your opinion, man. History is history and you cannot abuse it to explain everything. We know that already, history manipulation is one basic tool for every fascism ever.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#536
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the minds of the Spanish people of Catalonia the referendum was completely illegitimate, why would they vote in it?

Because it was run by the democratically elected legitimate government of Catalonia. Because it had immense popular support.

So it had immense popular support but most people didn’t participate? Maybe they didn’t realise how immense the support was...

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#537
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they just declared independence, why would they expect tax money from the government they just separated from?

The cynic in me says “because humans are like that”. For example, one elected UKIP official expected the EU to pay for a road in the UK after brexit. Wouldn’t be surprised if either Spain or Catalonia now acts confused when someone puts an armed customs inspector on the border roads between them.

Not sure what you mean by "after Brexit", but the UK is a full member of the European Union. If the EU has current obligations to finance that road project, whatever that may be, then of course it has to fulfill them.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You dont need outside support to declare independence, it is of no concern to those in Catalan what the US or anyone else thinks. The best course of action for the Catalan parliament would have been to call an election and then if they won it with a decent majority used that as their mandate to declare independence. As it is they dont have a solid mandate so it is easier for Spain and the EU to ignore them, however a…

> You dont need outside support to declare independence You don't. But you do need it for anyone in the world to accept is as a fact. A region like that cannot isolate itself from the rest of the world.

Well, there's the Abkhazia option where you become a weird pseudo-state with no recognition. It's not great, even if you have a big friend like Russia who does recognize you.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#539

It's not true, they haven't declared independence. This is a resolution proposal, which means it's not a law and it has no legal value (I mean, not even from the point of view of a pro-independence judge/lawyer). It's a proposal asking the Catalan government to declare independence. But it's fulfilling its purpose, which is to escalate things in a political sense while maintaining the status-quo in the legal realm: i…

Nothing that they do has legal value. The Catalan government has been acting outside the law for several weeks already.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

based on the figures, that they contribute 20% to spains GDP and get back 14% it would seem that they are on their way to being self sufficient

By the same logic NYC can be independent of the NYS and the rest of the United States, which is ridiculous considering that it won't be able to withstand a week without food and fuel supplies from outside the five boroughs.

Independence does not mean without trade.
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