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posted by janrinok on Friday September 08 2017, @06:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the then-the-Basques,-and-then-...? dept.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41191327

Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy says he will ask the courts to revoke a law passed by the Catalan regional government to hold a referendum on independence. He described the vote, planned for 1 October, as illegal.

Earlier, state prosecutors said they would bring criminal charges against Catalan leaders for their endorsement of the referendum.

The pro-independence majority in Catalonia's parliament passed the referendum law on Wednesday. Spain's wealthy north-eastern region already has autonomous powers but the regional government says it has popular support for full secession.

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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday September 08 2017, @07:20PM (21 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday September 08 2017, @07:20PM (#565266)

    Sounds like a possible Constitutional crisis.

    Any good examples in history where a country had a Constitutional crisis?

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Friday September 08 2017, @07:39PM (5 children)

    by Unixnut (5779) on Friday September 08 2017, @07:39PM (#565277)

    Yugoslavia comes to mind.

    Constitutional crisis was resolved when one side said **** the constitution, took up arms, and the result was a civil war and disintegration of the country.

    The constitutional crisis was not so much resolved in that scenario as much as rendered irrelevant. Constitutions (and other laws) are only as good as the violence available as backup to coerce the following of those laws.

    Looks like Catalonia (at least based on what I have read in the papers) will hold a referendum, and if they get enough votes they will declare unilateral independence and tell Spain to stuff its constitution where the sun don't shine.

    Then we will see if Spain is willing to back up its laws with force, and where that leads Spain (who coincidentally, is no stranger to civil wars themselves).

    This of course, assumes:

    a) That the vote is fair and not rigged by Spain (or others who which to see a particular outcome)
    b) The people actually vote to secede. Polls state that a max of 40% of people would vote "yes" to independence, but then, most pools thought Hillary would win, so you can't really trust them (every poll is biased, usually towards whoever is funding said poll).
    c) The Catalan politicians actually have the balls ( and/or backing of a stronger power) to actually follow through and tell Spain to get stuffed if they win the referendum.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 08 2017, @07:54PM (2 children)

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday September 08 2017, @07:54PM (#565285) Journal

      That might be dicey for Spain vis-a-vis the EU. Maybe better informed people can chime in here, but I recall the EU constitution paying a lot of lip service to self-determination.

      If Catalonia secedes and succeeds, will Brittany and Scotland follow?

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Friday September 08 2017, @08:57PM (1 child)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday September 08 2017, @08:57PM (#565319)

        The EU Constitution may pay lip service to self-determination, but in reality the EU seems to poo-poo the idea. They weren't supportive of Scotland's independence referendum at all, threatening Scotland with not being part of the EU, though one of the main reasons Scotland wanted out of the UK was so they could have better ties to the EU.

        It would be interesting to see a wave of independence movements succeed in the EU: Scotland, Catalonia, Brittany, Basque territory, perhaps more places like Galicia and Wales too. Most of these places seem to be very pro-EU, they just don't want to be under the particular country they're in; it's a lot like various new-state proposals in the US, such as Jefferson. In theory, the EU should do better with more smaller countries that have less internal friction and their own regional autonomy, but are all committed to the overall EU concept, just like the idea behind the founding of the USA. For competing with the rest of the world, European nations would in theory do better as part of a strong federal republic, but there aren't many examples of federal republics being successful with such large differences in cultures and languages between their member-states.

        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Unixnut on Friday September 08 2017, @09:19PM

          by Unixnut (5779) on Friday September 08 2017, @09:19PM (#565326)

          > but there aren't many examples of federal republics being successful with such large differences in cultures and languages between their member-states.

          Two come to mind for me. Russia (whose full name is the "Russian Federation"), and India, both of which have multiple cultures, religions and languages within them.

          Russia is interesting because it has federal states, autonomous regions, and allied states who remain independent, so it is a bit of a "pick and mix" of how integrated you want to be. Perhaps that is why it managed to grow so large, yet still not disintegrate after many centuries.

          India doesn't have that, but it has been able to successfully corral 150 different languages and cultures into one "country" as such (and as some Indians explained to me, there is a large difference between the different groups, in behaviour, culture, religion and language).

          Of course, it is never plain sailing, and there is always some kind of conflict or disputes between groups, although in both cases of Russia and India, the disputes were primarily with those who followed the Islamic religion, and who generally have a bit more trouble than most integrating peacefully with others.

          I guess it depends on what you define as "successful" really. Also, the only federation of a single language and culture (officially) is the USA, and pardon me from saying, but it seems there is a lot of discord and disagreement within the country. Could just be human nature to argue and fight and generally compete against others, whether internally or externally.

    • (Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Sunday September 10 2017, @08:25AM (1 child)

      by FakeBeldin (3360) on Sunday September 10 2017, @08:25AM (#565906) Journal

      b) The people actually vote to secede. Polls state that a max of 40% of people would vote "yes" to independence,

      but analysts suspect many of the 60%-ers will not go and vote, while many of the 40%-ers will.
      So there seems to be a real possibility of the result being "SI" while the will of the majority is "NON".
      Moreover, some Catalan politicians have already remarked that they will ignore turnout if it means they get to secede.
      They phrased it differently, but that's what it boiled down to.

      • (Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday September 10 2017, @09:10AM

        by Unixnut (5779) on Sunday September 10 2017, @09:10AM (#565914)

        Interesting, I guess we will see what happens. One thing though:

        > So there seems to be a real possibility of the result being "SI" while the will of the majority is "NON".

        If the result is "SI", it means that was the will of the majority. Those who don't vote are essentially voting that they don't care which way it swings, so it can be considered "SI" for both sides.
        Also explains why they would ignore the turnout, it would be the right thing to do. As long as they ignore the turnout if it was a "non" as well.

        Moral of the story is: if you actually care about such an important referendum, you go out and vote. Only way to be sure people don't assume you are for either option. If you don't vote, both sides can claim you are on their side, and then things can get messy.

        Either way, looks like things will be interesting in Spain in the coming weeks.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @08:06PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @08:06PM (#565293)

    Maybe the Germans could lend a hand they have some experience in helping with constitutional crisis in Spain

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:20AM (3 children)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:20AM (#565457) Homepage

      The few remaining patriotic Germans(and Spaniards to include the Catalans and Basque) should enlist the help of football hooligans from across the land. They could bus them in George Soros-style. Football hooligans hate Islamic savages and authority more than they do their teams' arch rivals and have demonstrated time and time again that they have hair-triggers for rioting.

      As an American I'm actually jealous of this. Sure, our version of football has much more hard contact, but our fans are rather soft in that violence in the stands and at the bars during games is sporadic, though it is amusing to watch drunks hurl full beers at each other (splattering screaming wives of bystanders) in the stands of a live game.

      This is why (+1, informative) any one person is allowed to buy only 2 beers at a time* at ball games in the U.S. -- I discovered this at a baseball game, and holy Jesus fuck are those slow, when I tried to buy 4 beers and received the bad news.

      Most venues, including all I visited, but not all.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dry on Saturday September 09 2017, @03:18AM (9 children)

    by dry (223) on Saturday September 09 2017, @03:18AM (#565480) Journal

    Came close in Canada. Quebec has had two referendums on separating, with the second one being very close, 50.5%-49.5% in favour of staying IIRC. Afterwards the federal government passed the Clarity Act, which basically said that a clear majority has to vote to leave without saying what exactly a clear majority is. It went to the Supreme Court whether the Federal government could pass and enforce that law and ignore a 50%+1 majority voting to separate and the court agreed that the feds could, which made the Quebec separatists very unhappy.
    Personally I think that such a major decision is like a Constitutional Amendment , which in Canada generally follows the 7/50 rule (7 out of 10 Provinces containing 50% of the population, but a 100% for some amendments, probably including breaking up Canada) and usually takes a super-majority in other countries.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarity_Act [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:37PM (8 children)

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:37PM (#565664)

      The biggest practical problem I see with Quebec secession is its location: it's not that far from the middle of Canada, and there's several provinces to its east, esp. the "Maritime provinces". If Quebec leaves, now you have to go through a separate country to get from one province to another. It wouldn't be nearly as big an issue, I think, if it were Newfoundland trying to secede. Considering how much Quebec likely contributes to the Canadian economy and resources (a lot of hydro power is generated there), I can see why Canada is reluctant to let them leave. As for a "clear majority", they really should define that term if they're going to use it, but in other contexts it usually seems to mean 60%.

      Personally, I'm a believer in self-determination, but I do think the clear majority rule is a good one; deciding really gigantic things based on only a plurality (50%; I hope I'm using the right term here), isn't sufficient, because you could do another vote the very next day, or even later that same day, and get a different result: the margin for error is greater than the amount needed to win by. By requiring a clear majority of 60%, or perhaps even more (75%?), the separatists can truthfully argue that the people of that region really do want to separate, and it's only a minority that doesn't, and that this isn't just some short-term fad or emotional feeling. If you're deciding something as momentous as what country a large region is part of, it can't be something that people change their mind on quickly, just like you can't have married people with kids together getting divorced and remarried to each other multiple times a week: the consequences of the action are too great, and too much administrative effort ensues from that decision, that it needs to be made carefully, and only once. If only half want to leave, personally I think that's not enough; they really need more agreement than that for it to result in stability.

      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:53PM (2 children)

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday September 09 2017, @02:53PM (#565674) Journal

        Maybe Newfoundland could become an independent country again, as they were before the Act of Dominion in 1949. Perhaps the rest of the Maritimes (New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia) would join them. They're kind of an afterthought in Canada anyway. Its national center of gravity is in the middle, in Ontario, with its west rapidly growing in importance thanks to Pacific trade.

        Quebec seems like it would continue to do about as well as an independent country as they do as a Canadian province. They'd surely keep open borders with Canada and the US, and they have ocean access so shipping would not be a problem. On the plus side, Quebecois'd stop having to speak English and the Anglophones in the rest of Canada would stop having to learn French.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday September 09 2017, @03:02PM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday September 09 2017, @03:02PM (#565678)

          Maybe Newfoundland could become an independent country again, as they were before the Act of Dominion in 1949. Perhaps the rest of the Maritimes (New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia) would join them.

          Maybe, but what if they don't want to? Small regions with few resources are usually better off as part of a larger collective, rather than trying to be independent. Maintaining your own national government and military is hard and expensive, and having to pay customs and duties for everything you import gets expensive; that's why small regions tend to band together into federations and unions.

          the Anglophones in the rest of Canada would stop having to learn French.

          They could just change the law in the other provinces to fix this if they really wanted.

          Quebec seems like it would continue to do about as well as an independent country as they do as a Canadian province.

          Perhaps, but I don't think the same can be said of the Maritime provinces.

        • (Score: 2) by dry on Saturday September 09 2017, @05:11PM

          by dry (223) on Saturday September 09 2017, @05:11PM (#565708) Journal

          Newfoundland gave up its Dominion status during the depression due to basically going bankrupt. It's hard to imagine it doing much better as an independent country now. The rest of the Maritimes don't have much going for them economically either.
          As for French populations, Manitoba and New Brunswick both have large enough French speaking populations that it wouldn't be that easy for Canada to become purely English speaking. And considering that it would take an amendment to the Constitution to break up Canada, there would have to be a lot of compromise.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dry on Saturday September 09 2017, @05:05PM (4 children)

        by dry (223) on Saturday September 09 2017, @05:05PM (#565705) Journal

        Yea, Quebec leaving and keeping its current boundaries would probably kill Canada, with the east cut off. Which brings up the other point, should Quebec be allowed to keep its boundaries? I don't think the natives wanted to go, they made their deal with the Queen, not Canada or Quebec. Quebec was also a lot smaller when they came into Confederation, all that northern land could be given back to the natives, sort of like Nunavut.
        Yes I agree that 60% should be the minimum, look at Brexit, basically a tie and like you said, the next day the vote may have gone the opposite way.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday September 09 2017, @06:13PM (3 children)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday September 09 2017, @06:13PM (#565718)

          Which brings up the other point, should Quebec be allowed to keep its boundaries? I don't think the natives wanted to go, they made their deal with the Queen, not Canada or Quebec. Quebec was also a lot smaller when they came into Confederation, all that northern land could be given back to the natives, sort of like Nunavut.

          That's an excellent point I never even thought of. Do they have counties in Canadian provinces the way US states do? I wonder how the Quebec independence vote looks if you look at it county-by-county instead. If most of the counties don't want to go, but only a few populated urban ones do, then that isn't fair either; would the separatists still want to secede if they could only make the Montreal area a new country, and they were dependent on those northern areas (now a separate country, part of Canada) for their water and power?

          As I said before, I'm all for self-determination, but you have to be practical. There isn't much point to being an independent nation if you can't even be remotely self-sufficient, and are utterly dependent on other countries for your basic services.

          • (Score: 2) by dry on Saturday September 09 2017, @07:25PM (2 children)

            by dry (223) on Saturday September 09 2017, @07:25PM (#565744) Journal

            Some Provinces have counties, others not. I'm in BC where we have regional districts that are kind of a weak county. Better would be to go by ridings (election districts), as that is how the numbers are available. I believe it would actually be the opposite, Montreal staying and the rural areas leaving if you went by ridings. The rural Quebecois are pretty conservative in some ways.
            There's also issues like the old border dispute between Labrador and Quebec, made worse by the hydro on that border.
            Quebec leaving would be pretty complicated, much more then the separatists campaigned on, which basically was staying in a common market with Canada, using our money and similar things that Canada may not have agreed to.

            • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday September 09 2017, @07:47PM (1 child)

              by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday September 09 2017, @07:47PM (#565748)

              The rural Quebecois are pretty conservative in some ways.

              But not the more remote areas where the First Nations people live, right? I imagine they'd want to stick with Canada.

              using our money

              That's another big problem with separatism: having to have your own currency, and all the friction that happens when you try to trade cross-border with different currencies. Over in the EU it's not so bad because they already have a common market and common currency so those advantages are absent, making the case for separatism much stronger.

              • (Score: 2) by dry on Saturday September 09 2017, @11:53PM

                by dry (223) on Saturday September 09 2017, @11:53PM (#565807) Journal

                The natives aren't Quebecois, rather Cree, Dene, Inuit and I forget what else and might be misrembering the native nations who occupy the north of Quebec, been a long time since grade 6. The Quebecois traditionally occupy the lands close to the St Lawrence. I think the natives wanted to stick with Canada. Generally they don't really recognize either the Federal or Provincial governments, having made treaties with the Crown. Constitutionally, the feds are responsible for the natives and if they didn't want to go with Quebec, it would have complicated things quite a bit.
                As for money, if a country wants to use another countries currency, I don't see how you could stop them. On the other hand, they don't have any control and can't inflate away debt. Other treaties such as NAFTA also wouldn't automatically cover Quebec though old ones like the Jay treaty probably would as they predate Confederation.
                It's much more complicated then the Quebec separatists campaigned on and I'm sure it's the same with Catalonia.