441–450 of 565 posts
It seems shocking that Spain a member of the EU is resorting to these tactics. Can you discuss some of their justifications for doing so?
Except being Spain, the country where inquisition and conquistadores were born and where Franco ruled till mid 70s?
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MPs in Spain have asked the same. Doesn't mean those other countries wouldn't have their judges apply the law. Not only it is the judge's job: it's not even legal for a judge to knowingly allow an illegal action.
The point is those other countries would have allowed the vote. We don't even have to imagine. It happened recently: Scotland. Or if you allow me to jump the pond: Québec. Also, indyref not ruled illegal yet so it might not be that clear cut.
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Changing the constitution isn't feasible? Are there any pro-separation parties in the national parliament?
It is completely feasible. In fact Spain was the project of many different kingdoms (or "nations" by modern standards): Basque, Aragon/Catalan, Galician and Castilian. Not only that but many modern leftist political parties advocate for self determination freedom within our constitution. So the fact that the Catalan parliament with a simple majority of separatists are claiming unilateral referendum of independence in…
Not true with PP having more than 1/3 of the Congress seats
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I downloaded the Bitcoin mining app in 2010, opened it once, got bored of waiting for it to sync with some server, then shut and forgot about it for a few years. It might be a funny story to tell my grandkids if BTC is still around
If Bitcoin is around when your grandkids are of age, even this minute might be a great time to buy Bitcoin. Why miss the same boat twice?
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The Crown of Aragon, which controlled the territories of modern-day Catalonia, was an independent state in all ways aside from military and foreign policy. The union of Castile and Aragon was a dynastic union, with very few shared institutions until the Kingdom of Spain was established in 1716. Aragon itself was a fairly decentralized state with constituent principalities having their own Corts and legal systems (rig…
> was an independent state in all ways aside from military and foreign policy It was still an absolute monarchy with the same monarch; it's not like the Aragonese were free to choose their own destiny. Still, the Constitutions Charles promised them to uphold must have given them something , I just don't know what it was. That's why I'd like to know how they compare to the current rights granted by the autonomía.
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If you are comparing the two, you have never visited Catalunya. The flag is everywhere, also they speak a different language.
That's not correct. In mother tongue terms, 55% of population in Catalonia has the Spanish as his tongue (mother/habitual tongue), and 35% Catalan. The "economic power" is in hands of Catalan-"ethnic" people, though. Source (official): https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=ed&lang=en "The first casualty when war comes is truth".
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That Constitution was voted in referendum by the whole country, and the support it got in Catalonia was even greater than in Madrid. > the people most oppressed by Franco Let's at least agree that this is subjective.
The options then (1970s) on offer were: 1) remain as a Francoist dictatorship 2) accept a new constitution with some democratic principles (but adherence to things like the unity of spain, the convenient 'forgetting' of fascist crimes and torture etc.) Given there were no other options, and few people wanted to return to dictatorship, the new constitution was adopted. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a shotgun, Hobson…
https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/1977/01/05/pdfs/A00170-00171.pdf
Read the first two articles of that law; Spain was no longer a dictatorship. The last clause of the law enacts it as supreme law of the land.
It is following that law that the first Congress of the new democracy (with the mandate to write a Constitution) was elected, using the same procedure we keep using today to elect our Congress. In that election, the francoist party of Fraga lost immensely to the centrist and marxist parties.
If the Constitution they wrote didn't pass the popular vote of the referendum, general elections would be repeated and the process would start again.
It never was a choice between accepting the new Constitution or going back to a dictatorship. It's called "Transición" instead of "Revolución" because the francoist regime turned itself into a democracy following its own laws and procedures.
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What's wrong with independence of small groups? The more governments - the more competition. Why are we against big monopolies in every area, except the state services?
> What's wrong with independence of small groups? The extinction Being smaller is stupid when you need to compete with much bigger countries in the rest of the world. It doesn't work in the practise.
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> and use of Spanish in public is heavily discouraged Would help to know (for non Catalans, specially) what you hint at. My parents talk in Spanish everywhere and to anyone they want to with no problems. Have done so for all her life for my mother and more than 40 years for my father. I assume you mean that public offices and positions require knowing and using Catalan?
I'm not from there, my information comes mostly from Dutch and English media. But I've read that all public schools are all-Catalan except for the Spanish language lessons, and shops with Spanish-only signs are fined.
For classes, IIRC it’s not mandatory (or wasn’t 15 years ago), just common. My chemistry teacher spoke only Spanish, and it was fine.
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If you are comparing the two, you have never visited Catalunya. The flag is everywhere, also they speak a different language.
It is much more complicated than this. Yes there are a lot of flags but there are also lots of places where there are no flags. In my building in Barcelona there are 10 flats. 2 flats have occupants who speak Catalan as the mother tongue, 4 flats with occupants who speak Spanish as their mother tongue and 2 flats with foreign languages. The language divide isn't always an indicator of their views, in the building the…
And that it's really the only relevant point in this issue. All the other arguments are just distractions.
When 82% (1) of the population want to vote, the two options are, voting or an undemocratic imposition by people that doesn't live in the area.
In the context of a democratic Europe, sooner or later there is going to be a vote, ergo, whatever the result, better sooner than later.
(1) - https://twitter.com/jpfbadcock/status/911702508749443074