Tag Archives: spain

Catalunya, Scotland, Spain, United Kingdom

Three lessons from the Calatan experience for Scottish separatists

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Artur Mas, the president of Catalunya, played the sovereignty card in calling early elections on November 25 and, thereupon, campaigned hard for Catalan sovereignty and against the federal Spanish government — it felt like, at times, he was running more against Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy than against any particular regional adversary.cataloniaSpain_Flag_IconUnited Kingdom Flag Iconscotland

His reward? Mas’s center-right party, Convergència i Unió (CiU, Convergence and Union), lost 12 seats.

That’s not the whole story, of course — sovereigntist parties hold an overwhelming majority with 87 seats in the 135-member Catalan parliament (the Parlament de Catalunya).  Catalan voters found a way to express their discontent with the austerity measures of Rajoy’s federal government and Mas’s regional government by shifting support to the more leftist, pro-independence Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, Republican Left of Catalunya).

Furthermore, it’s not been an absolutely disastrous six weeks for Mas — the ERC truculently joined a governing coalition with the CiU, thereby stabilizing Mas’s government.  Just last week, the CiU and the ERC agreed upon a framework to push a vote for Catalan independence sometime in 2014, with or without the federal Spanish government’s acquiescence, setting him on a collision course with not only Mas, but much of the federal Spanish government and probably a majority of the other Spanish regions.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, the Scottish National Party, headed by first minister Alex Salmond (pictured above) has taken a vastly different course — United Kingdom prime minister David Cameron has agreed to the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland, and polls show independence trailing the status quo by about a 50% to 32% margin there.  Unlike in Catalunya, the Scottish aren’t coming out in waves of thousands in protest for independence, and despite the unpopularity of former Conservative UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s implementation of the poll tax in Scotland, the Scots can’t point to systemic — and recent — violations of civil liberties like the Catalans can, namely the suppression of Catalan language and culture under the regime of fascist Spanish strongman Francisco Franco from 1937 to 1975.

Catalan independence would likely be a greater disruption to Spain than Scottish independence would be to the United Kingdom — by the numbers at least.  With 7.5 million people, Catalunya comprises nearly 16% of the Spanish population.  Although Scotland comprises nearly a third of the United Kingdom by area, its population of 5.3 million people is just a little under 8.5% of the total UK population.

So what can the Catalan Sturm und Drang (or, tempesta i estrès, perhaps?) of the past few months, including the November regional elections, teach Scotland as it prepares for its own 2014 referendum?

Here are three lessons that pro-independence Scots should take to heart from the recent Catalan experience. Continue reading Three lessons from the Calatan experience for Scottish separatists →

Basque Country, Catalunya, Galicia, Spain

Rajoy survives election season in Spain’s most separatist regions

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It’s not exactly accurate to say that Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy has ‘won’ in the aftermath of three regional elections in the past two months in Galicia, Euskadi (i.e., the Basque Country) and Catalunya.

But it’s fair to say that, compared to the worst-case result in each region, Rajoy’s government is likely relieved at the results of each of the three elections, especially last weekend’s Catalan elections, which threatened not only to undermine Rajoy’s federal authority, but to undermine the stability of Spain as a nation-state.

Rajoy (pictured above, right, with Catalan president Artur Mas) has had an incredibly difficult first year since taking office in December 2011 — he’s  continued Spanish austerity policies in the face of continued recession and amid the highest unemployment within the eurozone (over 25%).  With Spanish voters disillusioned about the economy and with Catalan voters, in particular, agitating for greater autonomy — if not full independence from Spain’s federal union — Rajoy and his center-right Partido Popular (the PP, or the People’s Party), together with the PP’s various local, regional iterations, were playing defense, at best, in each region.

In each election, however, there are reasons for Rajoy to take heart.

It’s obvious that the autumn’s regional elections could have been much worse: Rajoy’s party could have lost power in Galicia, the former radical leftist ETA sympathizers could have won control of the Basque government, and an outright majority win by Mas and the CiU in Catalunya would have likely caused an immediate political and, indeed, constitutional crisis — and, given the bond market’s jitters, likely a financial crisis as well.

Continue reading Rajoy survives election season in Spain’s most separatist regions →

Catalunya, Spain

Mas push for CiU dominance — and Catalan independence — backfires

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When Artur Mas (pictured above) called early elections in late September, there was every reason to believe he would improve the position of his autonomist, center-right party, Convergència i Unió (CiU, Convergence and Union), in the wake of protests in Barcelona and throughout Catalunya (specifically on Sept. 11, a nationalist holiday in Catalunya) in favor of greater independence from Spain’s beleaguered federal government. 

Even as recently as a month ago, it seemed that CiU was poised to gain enough seats to take an absolute majority in the 135-member Catalan parliament (the Parlament de Catalunya).

Instead, Mas’s party lost 12 seats and will fall to just 50 seats in the Catalan parliament.  The CiU has long been Catalunya’s dominant party, and it controlled Catalunya’s regional parliament from 1980 until 2003 — it has won the largest share of seats in every regional election since Spain’s return to democracy, and that was always unlikely to change after Sunday’s election.  Moreover, the result leaves the CiU in a stronger position than after the 2003 and 2006 elections, when a resurgent federalist, center-left Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC, Socialists’ Party of Catalunya) won enough seats to lead governing coalitions in the regional government.

All the same, Mas’s gambit — hopping on the bandwagon of wide Catalan discontent by wrapping himself in the cause of Catalan independence — has clearly backfired, and Mas will have fallen back from a near-absolute majority status two years sooner than necessary.

The CiU won just 30.68% of the vote on Sunday, a drop of 7.75% from the 2010 election that returned the CiU to power.

Meanwhile, the PSC won 14.43% and just 20 seats — eight fewer than its historically poor result in 2010.

The ‘winner’ of the election in relative terms is clearly the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, Republican Left of Catalunya) — a leftist party in favor of Catalan independence, which won 13.68% and 21 seats, giving it the second-largest number of seats in the parliament (although just barely).  The CiU will most likely seek a governing coalition with the ERC for a broad separatist coalition.  Although the ERC joined in a governing coalition with the PSC from 2003 to 2010, its current leader since 2011, Oriol Junqueras, has moderated the ERC’s sometimes-radical leftist tone, while pulling the ERC toward a more pro-independence line.

Both moves make it a likelier coalition partner for the CiU, and Junqueras looks set to become the second-most important politician in Catalunya after Mas.  The ERC has indicated, however, that it will seek some moderation of the CiU’s support for austerity policies in exchange for joining any coalition.  If negotiations fail with the ERC, however, the CiU might also seek a coalition with the PSC or other parties.

The Partit Popular de Catalunya (PPC, People’s Party of Catalunya) — the local variant of Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy’s Partido Popular (the PP, or the People’s Party) won 12.99% and gained one seat for a total of 19.

The Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds – Esquerra Unida i Alternativa (ICV-EUiA), a green/leftist coalition, won 9.89% and 13 seats, while Ciutadans – Partit de la Ciutadania (C’s, Citizens — Party of the Citizenry), a center-left, federalist and euroskeptic Catalan party, won 7.58% and nine seats.  A group of radical leftists, the Candidatures d’Unitat Popular (CUP — Popular Unity Candidates), broke through for the first time at the regional level with 3.48% and three seats.

To understand Sunday’s vote, it’s helpful to look at the result on three axes:

  • On the axis of ‘federalist’ parties (PSC, PPC and Ciutadans) versus autonomist and pro-independence parties (everyone else), the ‘federalists’ won 48 seats to 87 seats for the ‘separatists.’  If you break down the 2010 result, this is a one-seat ‘gain’ for ‘separatists.’ So the Catalan parliament will actually remain remarkably stable in terms of the balance of power on the separatist axis.
  • On the axis of center-right parties (CiU and PPC) versus leftist parties of all stripes, it’s clear that Sunday was a win for the broad ‘left’: the center-right parties, together, won 80 seats in 2010 versus just 55 for leftist parties; in 2012, the broad ‘right’ will control just 69 seats to 66 seats for the broad ‘left.’
  • But the real story of the election comes when you look at the axis of parties that are ‘tainted’ with having supported austerity policies — that includes not just the PPC and CiU, but also the PSC, which controlled Catalunya’s fiscal policy through 2010 and is the local arm of the national center-left Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) that governed Spain until December 2011 and implemented the first of Spain’s federal austerity policies.  Those three parties’ share of the Catalan parliament’s seats dropped from 108 to 89 on Sunday, while the other parties — all of which are anti-austerity and/or protest parties of some degree — surged from 27 seats to 46 seats.

Taken together, the result indicates that Catalans haven’t necessarily reached a point of historically high support for independence as much as they, like most electorates throughout Europe in the past three years, remain weary of recession and unemployment, coupled simultaneously with budget cuts and tax increases.

At the end of the day, when you get past all of the sturm und drang about Catalan independence leading up to the election, the Catalan result fits fairly neatly within the context of the wider eurozone debate (which Edward Hugh noted back in October).  I’ll have some further thoughts later today or tomorrow in a separate post on what the result means for ‘Catalan independence’ as such.  Continue reading Mas push for CiU dominance — and Catalan independence — backfires →

Basque Country, Galicia, Spain

Spanish conservatives take Galicia; Basque nationalists win Euskadi

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Sunday’s regional elections in Galicia and Euskadi (i.e., the Basque Country) have given just about everyone in Spanish politics something to be happy about.

In Galicia, the ruling center-right Partido Popular de Galicia (PPdeG, People’s Party of Galicia) of Galician president  Alberto Núñez Feijóo (pictured above, top right), the local branch of Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy’s Partido Popular (PP, People’s Party), extended its majority in the 75-member Parlamento de Galicia from 38 to 41 after winning 45.72% of the vote.

In Euskadi, the Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV, EAJ, the Basque Nationalist Party or, in Basque, the Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea) emerged with the largest number of seats in the Eusko Legebiltzarra (Basque parliament), with 27 seats on 34.64% of the vote.  Like Galicia, Euskadi’s unicameral parliament has 75 members.

As such, the PNV fended off a strong challenge from a more radical leftist and more firmly pro-independence coalition of Basque nationalists — the contest was widely seen as a fight between the more centrist PNV and the coalition of the ezker abertzalea (‘patriotic left’) formed this year, the Euskal Herria Bildu (EHB).

 The PNV, however, is now likely to form a government and its leader, Íñigo Urkullu (pictured above, bottom), is very likely to become lehendakari (president) of Euskadi.  Urkullu is the former PNV leader in Biscay, a stronghold for the party, and he became party leader in 2008.  The likely return of the PNV to government will put it back in power after only its first stint in opposition in the past 30 years.

So what do Sunday’s regional elections means more widely for Spain?

The result will give some comfort to Rajoy (pictured above, top left), who hails from Galicia, a center-right heartland within Spain.  Rajoy once served in Galicia’s parliament, and Rajoy and his party will be delighted to see Feijóo’s local Galician allies extend their majority.  After extending the center-right majority in Galicia and winning a plurality, if not an absolute majority, of seats in the March 2012 regional elections in the center-left stronghold of Andalucía, Spain’s most populous region (despite remaining in the opposition), Rajoy can take respite that his party retains some support throughout the country, which is suffering its fourth year of consecutive economic malaise and unemployment that’s perhaps the highest in Europe at just over 25%.

But the result will also embolden nationalist movements throughout Spain, especially Catalunya, where the separatist movement has taken an increasingly popular turn in the past couple of months.  Catalan president Artur Mas called snap elections early last month, and Mas is engaged in a high-profile political fight over regionalism with Rajoy — Catalunya votes on November 25.  Urkullu, who called for calm following the election, has been vague about his plans for the region, and he has not said whether he intends to seek full independence for Euskadi or merely greater regional autonomy.  But he is seen as the more moderate of the two Basque nationalist party leaders in a region where the armed separatist group, the ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), signed a ceasefire just one year ago.

The result will also provide some small amount of delight for the radical left, which can point to gains in both regions.

Continue reading Spanish conservatives take Galicia; Basque nationalists win Euskadi →

Basque Country, Catalunya, Galicia, Spain

Six ways in which Sunday’s Galician and Basque elections will affect the Rajoy government

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Just over 10% of Spain’s population will vote in regional elections this weekend in two key regions, Galicia and Euskadi (the Basque Country), but the elections will play a role in shaping the national politics that affect the remaining 90% of Spain at what’s an especially precarious time for the government of center-right prime minister Mariano Rajoy (pictured above with Galician president Alberto Núñez Feijóo).

Although Rajoy’s Partido Popular (PP, People’s Party) only recently came to power in November 2011, after the eight-year government of prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and the center-left Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party), Rajoy has faced an unenviably difficult climate.  Spain’s economy is contracting this year after two years of tepid growth under 1%, which followed a contraction in 2008-09.  Unemployment is now just over 25%, among the highest in the eurozone.

Despite the tough economic conditions, Zapatero’s government, and now Rajoy’s government, have been relentless in slashing the Spanish budget.  Although Spain ran a fairly tight fiscal policy throughout the 2000s, the drop in tax revenue has resulted in an exploding budget deficit, which Rajoy hopes to reduce to just 6.3% of GDP this year (and 4.5% next year and 3% in 2014), in order to prevent yields on Spanish debt from rising to dangerous levels.

In less than a year, Rajoy has passed at least four different budget cut packages, including a raise in the Spanish income tax rate, a 3% hike in the Spanish value-added tax from 18% to 21%, the elimination of tax breaks for home owners and spending cuts for education and health care.  Furthermore, each of Spain’s regions are responsible for cutting their own budgets to just 1.5% of GDP.

Although Rajoy campaigned on a promise not to seek any bailouts from the European Union, like Greece has done, everyone in the EU believes it’s only a matter of time before Rajoy requests one — the European Central Bank has already provided emergency funding to prop up Bankia and other beleaguered Spanish banks in June.  Unlike with Greece, however, the most likely path for a Spanish bailout would be through a temporary credit line through the European Stability Mechanism, triggering the purchase of Spanish debt by the European Central Bank.

So on Sunday, when election results roll in from Galicia and Euskadi, here are six items to consider about how the results could affect the Rajoy government and Spain’s national politics: Continue reading Six ways in which Sunday’s Galician and Basque elections will affect the Rajoy government →

Basque Country, Spain

Which nationalist party will triumph in Sunday’s Basque Country elections?

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In addition to Galicia, Euskadi (i.e., the Basque Country) will hold regional elections on Sunday — and the chief question is which of the two major nationalist groups will win the largest plurality of the vote. 

As with Galicia, polls in Euskadi have been relative stable since elections were called last month, and the top two parties have been the longstanding nationalist Partido Nacionalista Vasco (the Basque Nationalist Party or the EAJ-PNV — in Basque, the Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea), and the largest and most organized leftist Basque nationalist coalition to contest regional elections, a group of ezker abertzalea, or “patriotic left,” joined together as Euskal Herria Bildu (EHB).

The latest polls show that the Basque Nationalists would win 33.3% of the vote, amounting to between 24 and 26 seats in the  75-member Eusko Legebiltzarra (the Basque parliament) while the abertzale would win 24.5% and around 20 seats, although some polls have shown an even closer race between the two.

As such, it is expected that either the two nationalist groups will form the next governing coalition in Euskadi or, alternatively, the largest party in the Basque parliament will form a minority government, relying on external support from other parties.

The emergence of a unified abertzale is the most fundamental shift in the election from past elections, and the election will follow one day after the one-year anniversary of the ceasefire signed by the ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), ending the armed leftist/nationalist struggle against the Spanish government.  For many years, radical leftist nationalist parties were actually banned from participation in Spanish elections because of actual or potential ties to the ETA — the largest party in the coalition, Sortu, which formed in 2011, was allowed to participate in elections by Spain’s Constitutional Court only in June 2012.

The current leader of the Basque Nationalists, Íñigo Urkullu (pictured above, top), certainly seems the favorite to become lehendakari (president) of Euskadi.  The former party leader in Biscay, the traditional stronghold of the Basque Nationalists, Urkullu became party leader in 2008, and has served sporadically in the Basque parliament since the 1980s.

The leader of the abertzale coalition is Laura Mintegi (pictured above, bottom), a relative newcomer to Basque politics.  Mintegi has been a professor at the University of the Basque Country for the past three decades, and is also a Basque novelist.  Mintegi is a native of Navarre, the region neighboring Euskadi with a predominantly Basque-speaking north and a Spanish-speaking south — the union of Navarre, or at least northern Navarre with an independent Euskadi has long been the goal of the  abertzale. 

Given the tense background to the various nationalist movement, what’s been most striking throughout the campaign is that both leaders have emphasized a relatively calm approach to greater Basque autonomy and/or independence, especially in contrast to the populist and nearly bombastic nationalism that Catalan president Artur Mas has suddenly adopted.  In line with the traditional moderation of the Basque Nationalists, Urkullu has not called for Basque independence, but rather for ways to renegotiate a new regional deal with Madrid, and he has spoken in vague ways about the failures of Spanish federalism.  Both opposition parties have tried to draw out Urkullu for his post-election plans; although the Basque Nationalists (and the abertzale) seem keen on harnessing the energy of pro-independent Basques who are heartened by the sovereignty movement in Catalunya, Urkullu has been more subdued than coy about potential Basque independence.

For her part, Mintegi is clearly pro-independence, but she and her allies have taken pains to distance their approach from Mas’s — Mintegi has emphasized that any referendum on independence would require widespread Basque political and social consensus and would have to comply with existing legal conventions:

Continue reading Which nationalist party will triumph in Sunday’s Basque Country elections? →

Galicia, Spain

Economy and budget woes, not regional independence, mark Galicia’s election campaigns

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Galicia, this Sunday, joins Euskadi (i.e., the Basque Country) in holding regional elections, each of which will have national significance for the center-right government of prime minister Mariano Rajoy.

But unlike in Euskadi and especially in the upcoming November elections in Catalunya, the election in Galicia isn’t about the increasingly polarized fight over regional autonomy and independence, but about the budget priorities of the national and Galician government at a time of prolonged economic duress.

In Galicia, Rajoy’s home region, polls have consistently shown that the center-right government of Galician president Alberto Núñez Feijóo (pictured above) will win by law the largest share of the vote, although it will need to win an absolute majority of the 75 seats in the Parlamento de Galicia in order to continue governing Galicia — the difference between 37 seats and 38 seats could mean the difference between government and opposition.

Since Feijóo announced the early elections last month, polling has shown remarkably stable support for Feijóo’s party, the Partido Popular de Galicia (PPdeG, the People’s Party of Galicia), the Galician branch of Rajoy’s own Partido Popular (PP, People’s Party).

But if the PPdeG wins less than 38 seats on Sunday, the three opposition parties could unite to form a leftist coalition.

For example, the center-left Partido dos Socialistas de Galicia (PSdeG-PSOE, Socialist Party of Galicia), the Galician version of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) and the nationalist Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG, the Galician Nationalist Bloc), a nationalist Galician party, which also tilts to the left, formed a narrow one-seat governing coalition from 2005 to 2009.  That coalition was Galicia’s first center-left government since the normalization of democratic politics in Spain in the early 1980s.

In addition, the Esquerda Unida-Izquierda Unida (EU-IU, the United Left), the regional variation of the stridently leftist Izquierda Unida (IU, United Left), essentially the remnants of Spain’s communist party, looks set to win its first seats ever in Galicia, reflecting a nationwide resurgence for the radical left in the wake of four years of economic depression, unemployment and increasingly stringent budget cuts from governments of both the center-left and center-right.

As such, the Galician election is the first major electoral test for Rajoy’s government, which is already unpopular in its first year after passing increasingly severe austerity measures.  If Feijóo loses the election, it will an incredible embarrassment, given that it’s Rajoy’s home base (he once served in the Galician parliament) and Galicia has long been a traditional center-right stronghold in Spain.

In some ways, the Galician election is for Rajoy and the PP what the earlier March 2012 regional elections in the left-leaning Andalucía region of southern Spain were for the PSOE.  In that election, the PP marked its best performance yet — winning three more seats than the PSOE.  Although the PSOE continues to govern in coalition with the Andalucian version of the United Left, and the PP did not win an absolute majority of seats, as some had predicted, it marked a low point for the PSOE in what should be its traditional stronghold. Continue reading Economy and budget woes, not regional independence, mark Galicia’s election campaigns →

Catalunya, Spain

Mas calls early elections in November for Catalunya amid growing calls for independence

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Artur Mas, the president of Catalunya (pictured above), called early regional elections yesterday, which are set for November 25, and which will now follow two other key regional elections in October — in the other two ‘nationalities’ of Spain, the Basque Country and Galicia.

The decision brings to the forefront of Spanish politics the question of Catalan independence during a period in which Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy is trying to balance increasingly harsh budget cuts against an economy mired in recession and 25% unemployment, trying to keep yields on Spanish debt from climbing too high (which surpassed 6% again this week) while also keeping his pledge never to seek a bailout from the European Union (a pledge that Rajoy seems increasingly unlikely to keep).

Mas’s decision amounts to the latest ploy in a game of chicken between Madrid and Barcelona, despite the fact that it’s a dangerous time for Spain (and for the eurozone) for either to be playing any such game.  After a month in which the eurozone seemed largely on the right track — a pro-European election result in the Netherlands, the European Central Bank’s decision to buy eurozone debt, the German constitutional court’s decision to endorse the European Stability Mechanism and optimism on Greece’s continued membership in the eurozone — a Catalan/Spanish showdown could spook bondholders into another round of eurocrisis.

The elections come more than a year early — elections were not due until November 2013 — and they come after contentious negotiations between Mas and Rajoy over a bailout for Catalunya.  At a time when many regional governments are struggling, Mas’s regional government is seeking a rebate of up to €5 million for Catalunya and a ‘fiscal pact’ under which Catalunya could levy its own revenues to be used solely in Catalunya.  This comes in the shadows of strident pro-independence sentiment, with up to 2 million Catalans participating in pro-independence marches (pictured above) on September 11 earlier this month (that’s Catalan’s national day).

If Mas’s Convergència i Unió (CiU, Convergence and Union), a center-right and autonomist party, wins the election on the strength of a pro-independence wave, and if it garners an absolute majority in the 135-member Catalan parliament (the Parlament de Catalunya), Mas will have more leverage with Rajoy’s national government — and it seems likely that Mas and other Catalan nationalist parties will champion a referendum on either greater Catalan autonomy, a full declaration of Catalan nationhood or actual Catalan independence from Spain.  Some polls now show over 50% of Catalans support independence, which has risen dramatically during the Spanish financial crisis of the past three years — just as Germans balk at sending money to shore up Greek and Portuguese (and Spanish!) finances, Catalans balk at shoring up broader Spanish finances.

If he wins, though, the danger is that Mas will become the unlikely champion of an independence movement that is moving faster than he might otherwise have liked.  The snap elections only risk fanning the flames of Catalan independence further out of control of Mas, Rajoy or anyone in Spanish or Catalan politics.

Rajoy, who certainly has enough headaches of his own, has taken a largely conciliatory public stance, even as he looks for ways to isolate Mas at the federal level — in the broad fight between Mas and Rajoy over concessions to Catalunya, Rajoy has the support of his own party, the center-right Partido Popular (the PP, or the People’s Party) and the opposition leader, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the leader of the national center-left Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party), as well as many of the regional presidents, who blanche at Catalunya getting a better deal than their regions.

Catalunya, the second-most populous region in Spain, with 7.5 million people and one of three ‘nationality’ regions (like the Basque Country and Galicia), has as strong a regional identity as the Basque Country — both have their own language and their own culture that were subdued during the Franco era.  The current surge in support for Catalan independence comes from the view that Catalunya, as Spain’s wealthiest — and most indebted — region, has subsidized other (read: lazier) regions that have mired Spain in its current austerity/recession trap, and that money transferred from Catalunya to the federal budget is money that could be better spent shoring up the Catalan budget.

Essentially, Catalan politics since the end of the Franco era has been traditionally a battle between two major parties:

Mas’s CiU (technically it is a federation of two similar parties) essentially ran Catalunya from 1980 until 2003 under the leadership of Catalan president Jordi Pujol. Although it technically won a plurality of seats in the 2003 and 2006 elections under Mas’s leadership, it won nearly an absolute majority in 2010, with 38.5% of the vote and fully 62 seats, just six seats short of such a majority.

The Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (PSC, Socialists’ Party of Catalunya) is the major center-left party in Catalunya, but remains much more federal in nature — it’s the Catalan variant of the national PSOE.  It controlled Catalunya’s government from 2003 to 2010 in coalition with two smaller parties.  It lost a significant number of seats in the prior 2010 election and holds 28 seats currently after receiving just 18% of the vote.

In response to Mas’s latest push, the PSC has called for a federal system, like in Germany (a call that has been met with something far less than enthusiasm from Rajoy’s government).

Meanwhile, five smaller parties also hold seats in the current Catalan parliament and will vie for support in the November elections: Continue reading Mas calls early elections in November for Catalunya amid growing calls for independence →

Galicia, Spain

Galicia regional elections will be the first test of Rajoy’s austerity measures

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Galicia’s premier Alberto Núñez Feijóo on Monday announced that his province, too, would join the Basque Country in holding early regional elections on October 21, rather than waiting for his term to run out in March 2013.

In so doing, Feijóo (pictured above, right) who hails from the center-right Partido Popular de Galicia (PPdeG, the People’s Party of Galicia), the local version of Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy’s Partido Popular (PP, People’s Party), has launched the first electoral test for Rajoy’s government, after just eight months in office.

Given Rajoy’s ties to Galicia and its status as a traditional PPdeG stronghold, it’s very much more fraught for Rajoy (pictured above, left) than the simultaneous Basque election, where two nationalist parties lead polls and where unique local and autonomy issues will figure nearly as much as national issues.

Rajoy’s party won the Spanish general election in November 2011, but his government is already facing mounting unpopularity as it’s made increasing cuts to the Spanish budget, notwithstanding an economy that’s back in recession — the economy has contracted by 0.7% so far this year and grew just 0.4% in 2011 — and an unemployment rate of 24.8%, as of June.

So far, Rajoy has pushed through at least four different austerity packages, designed to bring the Spanish deficit to just 6.3% of Spanish GDP, down from an 8.9% deficit in 2011.  Rajoy has raised the Spanish income tax rate, raised the Spanish value-added tax by 3% to 21%, eliminated tax breaks for home owners and reduced spending on education and health care — and that comes after two years of cuts implemented by the government of Rajoy’s predecessor, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

For all its efforts, Spain is still straining under yields on its sovereign debt that rose from 5% (on 10-year bonds) when Rajoy entered office to 6.5% now, down from a crisis-level high of around 7.5% in mid-July.  So notwithstanding the harsh austerity, it seems more likely than not that Spain will seek a bailout from the European Union, possibly later this year — earlier in June, the European Central Bank intervened to provide funds for ailing Spanish banks.  That, too, has caused Rajoy to lose credibility after promising that he would never seek a bailout during his campaign.

The austerity push has affected the regions, which are responsible for cutting their own budgets to a combined 1.5% of GDP, and Galicia has not been unaffected by cuts at the regional level.

Since the end of the Franco era, the PPdeG has been out of power for just four years.  As such, it will be somewhat of an embarrassment if Feijóo and the PPdeG cannot win reelection in a region that’s historically been a bastion of Spanish conservatism — Rajoy himself is from Galicia and who once himself served in the Parlamento de Galicia.  Continue reading Galicia regional elections will be the first test of Rajoy’s austerity measures →

Basque Country, Spain

Snap Basque elections may return nationalists back to regional government

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With Europe expected to face its most tense times yet this autumn in its three-year-running eurozone crisis, and with Spain expected to seek a bailout from the European Union in the coming months, the Basque Country — a key autonomous region in Spain — is headed to the polls in October.

Patxi López, the president (or lehendakari) of the Basque government (pictured above), called early elections Tuesday.

The election for the 75-member Eusko Legebiltzarra (or Basque parliament) will be held on October 21.

So what’s likely to happen? And what will it mean for Spain?

Essentially, the fight will come down to a four-way fight: (1) López’s federalist Basque socialists, (2) the federalist conservatives, (3) the traditional Basque nationalists and (4) a new leftist coalition of Basque nationalists.  For now, at least, the chances that López will continue as lehendakari of the Basque Country currently seem slim.

López became lehendakari after the 2009 regional elections, when his party, the Partido Socialista de Euskadi – Euskadiko Ezkerra (the PSE-EE, or the Socialist Party of the Basque Country) joined in a coalition with the Partido Popular (the PP, or the People’s Party).  The López-led coalition marked the first time in the three decades of democratic elections in the Basque Country that the region had not been governed by the Partido Nacionalista Vasco (the Basque Nationalist Party or the EAJ-PNV — in Basque, the Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea).

That coalition unraveled after the PP won the Spanish general election in November 2011 — the local PP leader Antonio Basagoiti demanded that López not use his position to oppose newly-installed prime minister Mariano Rajoy, who has accelerated budget cuts at the federal level.  López, however, has opposed Rajoy’s planned cutbacks, especially as regards health and education.  Without PP support, López’s government commands just one-third of the seats in the Basque regional parliament.

The election will be held the day after the anniversary of the permanent ceasefire agreed with the ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), an armed Basque nationalist group that had engaged in many shootings, bombings and kidnappings.  That ceasefire, agreed by then-prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a political ally of López, was one of the final landmarks of the Zapatero government before the Rajoy government replaced it.  López is certainly hoping that voters will have that ceasefire on their minds on voting day, and that they will give his regional government credit for greater security and stability.

In 1978, the Basque Country — like Catalonia and Galicia — was granted the status of a nationality within Spain, as Spain wrote its new constitution, lurched toward democracy and began to emerge from the brutal and federalist four-decade dictatorship of Francisco Franco.  But sentiment for autonomy and/or independence runs strong in the Basque Country, and that sentiment has all too often turned violent in the past, even after 1978. Continue reading Snap Basque elections may return nationalists back to regional government →

Spain

‘Politically bankrupt’ Rajoy running out of options in Spain

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Speigel International earlier this week described a bit of the hopelessness of prime minister Mariano Rajoy who, only eight months into a government that was supposed to allow Spain to turn the corner, is watching his country sink even further into crisis.

Read it all, but this part, in particular, struck me as particularly insightful:

For too long, the prime minister believed that his mere presence at the head of the government was enough to ensure that Spain would stop “being a problem and become part of the solution.”

Rajoy’s bet was that a win by his center-right Partido Popular (PP, People’s Party) over the center-left Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) would be enough to assure investors that Spain could make it through the crisis. Sure enough, Rajoy’s PP won 186 seats to just 110 for the PSOE, even after José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, prime minister since 2004, made clear he was stepping down as prime minister.

But that hasn’t stopped the crisis — if anything, Spain’s nightmare has accelerated in the past eight months, which makes Spiegel‘s description all the more depressing:

And what has Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy done? He hasn’t given a television address or uttered so much as an explanatory or reassuring word to Europe or his people. Instead Rajoy, 57, has disappeared into his office at the Moncloa Palace on the outskirts of the capital Madrid. Some say that he spends his time there staring helplessly and powerlessly at charts. He meets with business leaders like Siemens CEO Peter Löscher in rooms decorated with modern art, and he has even met with Spanish trade union leaders for the first time, though it was after they had already spoken off the record with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Others say that Rajoy is irritating his European partners with hectic phone calls.

This behavior doesn’t inspire confidence. It seems more like a declaration of political bankruptcy.

What went so wrong? Continue reading ‘Politically bankrupt’ Rajoy running out of options in Spain →

Spain

Spain set to seek European bailout this weekend

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If true, at least this would put Greece on the backburner for a while. From Reuters, which has the scoop:

Spain is expected to ask the euro zone for help with recapitalising its stricken banks at the weekend, EU and German sources said on Friday, becoming the fourth country to seek assistance since Europe’s debt crisis began.

Five officials in Brussels and Berlin said the finance ministers of the single currency area would hold a conference call on Saturday morning to discuss a Spanish request for aid, although no figure on the assistance has been set.

The Eurogroup, which comprises the 17 euro zone states, will issue a statement after the call, which is scheduled to take place before midday (1000 GMT), the sources said.

“The announcement is expected for Saturday afternoon,” one of the EU officials said.

The dramatic move comes after Fitch Ratings cut Madrid’s sovereign credit rating by three notches to BBB on Thursday, highlighting the Spanish banking sector’s exposure to bad property loans and to contagion from Greece’s debt crisis.

Spain, with a nominal GDP (as of 2010) of $1.4 trillion, dwarfs that of either Ireland (nominal 2010 GDP = $229 billion), Portugal (nominal GDP = $204 billion) or Greece (GDP = $305 billion).  It is the eurozone’s fourth largest economy, after Germany, France and Italy, and it is the world’s 12-largest economy.

So this bailout would go much further to the heart of the eurozone than the previous bailouts to Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

Spain’s growth has stalled (or has been in recession) since 2009 and unemployment was 24.3% as of April 2012.  Although Spain’s banks have been fairly conservative, and Spain ran a surplus (or a very modest deficit) for much of the prior decade, the bust of a construction and property-value boom has left it in the midst of a staggering economic decline that brought Mariano Rajoy and the Partido Popular (PP — People’s Party) to power in December 2011 after nearly a decade of rule by prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whose Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE — Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) took much of the brunt of Spanish anger about the sudden economic turn, after implementing harsh budget cuts in response to the reality of reduced revenues and rising anxiety among Spanish bondholders.

So just a little over half a year after taking power, it will be on Rajoy’s watch — Rajoy promised never to accept an aid package — that Spain seeks a bailout. Continue reading Spain set to seek European bailout this weekend →