Financial Times Editorial - A freer Catalonia
Financial Times Editorial - A freer Catalonia
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: June 20 2006 03:00 | Last updated: June 20 2006 03:00
Catalans, Spaniards and Europeans all have reason to be proud of Sunday's democratic decision to expand the powers of self-government available to the citizens of Catalonia. The Catalans wanted it. The Spanish parliament mandated it as constitutionally lawful. And the European Union provides a framework - part architecture, part shock-absorbers - that should make such exercises perfectly ordinary.
In Spain that is not yet the case. Since the death of Franco and his noxiously parochial dictatorship just over three decades ago, Spaniards have successfully created a confident and prosperous democracy. But the federal dimension of this democracy has, from the outset, been a work in progress.
ADVERTISEMENT
The deep-rooted and culturally in-eradicable nationalism of Basques and Catalans - who fought with the Republic during the 1936-39 civil war - still excites visceral opposition from Spain's right, and discomfits its more Jacobin left. All credit, then, to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Socialist prime minister, for insisting that more devolution, to the extent that it democratically empowers those of Spain's citizens who want it, will strengthen the country. José María Aznar, Spain's former prime minister, says Catalonia's new statute of autonomy will "Balkanise" Spain. Yet countries as diverse as Spain (or the former Yugoslavia) cannot for ever be constrained by a straitjacket of centralism against the will of their people(s).
Catalonia's new powers, moreover, are modest. The row over Catalans' right to call themselves a "nation" is, frankly, anachronistic. Article 2 of Spain's constitution already recognises the country contains different "nationalities". New rights of judicial independence are appropriate and do not override Spain's highest courts. The tax question is more complicated - and more exaggerated.
Barcelona will now share responsibility for tax collection with Madrid. The Basques, by contrast, already collect nearly all their own taxes. The real issues, obscured by the emotive rhetoric, are those of equity and fiscal responsibility.
Within Spain's asymmetric federalism and still uneven economic development, it is vital to uphold the principle of fiscal solidarity: transfers from rich to poorer regions, or to put it more concretely, from Catalans and Basques to Andalusians and Castillians. Equally, the link between taxation and representation is important. Regional governments, which, apart from the Basques, have not had to raise their own revenue, have been profligate.
But the overriding public good of enhanced Catalan autonomy is political. It gives Catalans more room to breathe. It also sets a precedent for constitutionally expanded home rule just as Mr Zapatero embarks on even more difficult negotiations with the Basques - designed to take the gun out of Spanish politics once and for all.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: June 20 2006 03:00 | Last updated: June 20 2006 03:00
Catalans, Spaniards and Europeans all have reason to be proud of Sunday's democratic decision to expand the powers of self-government available to the citizens of Catalonia. The Catalans wanted it. The Spanish parliament mandated it as constitutionally lawful. And the European Union provides a framework - part architecture, part shock-absorbers - that should make such exercises perfectly ordinary.
In Spain that is not yet the case. Since the death of Franco and his noxiously parochial dictatorship just over three decades ago, Spaniards have successfully created a confident and prosperous democracy. But the federal dimension of this democracy has, from the outset, been a work in progress.
ADVERTISEMENT
The deep-rooted and culturally in-eradicable nationalism of Basques and Catalans - who fought with the Republic during the 1936-39 civil war - still excites visceral opposition from Spain's right, and discomfits its more Jacobin left. All credit, then, to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Socialist prime minister, for insisting that more devolution, to the extent that it democratically empowers those of Spain's citizens who want it, will strengthen the country. José María Aznar, Spain's former prime minister, says Catalonia's new statute of autonomy will "Balkanise" Spain. Yet countries as diverse as Spain (or the former Yugoslavia) cannot for ever be constrained by a straitjacket of centralism against the will of their people(s).
Catalonia's new powers, moreover, are modest. The row over Catalans' right to call themselves a "nation" is, frankly, anachronistic. Article 2 of Spain's constitution already recognises the country contains different "nationalities". New rights of judicial independence are appropriate and do not override Spain's highest courts. The tax question is more complicated - and more exaggerated.
Barcelona will now share responsibility for tax collection with Madrid. The Basques, by contrast, already collect nearly all their own taxes. The real issues, obscured by the emotive rhetoric, are those of equity and fiscal responsibility.
Within Spain's asymmetric federalism and still uneven economic development, it is vital to uphold the principle of fiscal solidarity: transfers from rich to poorer regions, or to put it more concretely, from Catalans and Basques to Andalusians and Castillians. Equally, the link between taxation and representation is important. Regional governments, which, apart from the Basques, have not had to raise their own revenue, have been profligate.
But the overriding public good of enhanced Catalan autonomy is political. It gives Catalans more room to breathe. It also sets a precedent for constitutionally expanded home rule just as Mr Zapatero embarks on even more difficult negotiations with the Basques - designed to take the gun out of Spanish politics once and for all.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 11:41 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home