The concept of crises engendering opportunities for the “rebirth” of Europe should have died with the Greek experience in the most dramatic phase of which Yanis Varoufakis took an active part. Having worked with former Prime Minister George Papandreou before embarking on his “radical Left” experiment, which nearly cost Greece its place in the Eurozone, Varoufakis should have learned that courting the abyss and generating crises is never a good way to change what needs to be changed. [...]
Varoufakis uses the Catalan crisis as a mere illustration for his favorite topic, which he espoused after he quit the Syriza government and denounced its policies: the reconfiguration of the European Union with “radical” changes like “fiscal autonomy”. He now has another radical idea: fostering regional governance (that’s where Catalonia comes in handy) and even creating a “Code of Conduct for secession”, facilitating regions all over Europe (why should one stop in Spain?) to become autonomous. This is presented as a progressive idea. In fact it is, to my eyes, both a misrepresentation of reality and a rallying call for nationalism, which, for all non-radical socialists, and a majority of democrats, constitutes the opposite of progressiveness.
The Catalan question flared up not on the basis of the economic situation in Spain but because of a combination of political mismanagement, or pure populism, by both sides of the conflict. The right-wing government of Mr. Rajoy challenged the special regime for Catalonia established under the socialist government of Mr. Zapatero, tolerated then disparaged a first referendum on independence, never treated the Catalan government as equal, constantly sought legal remedies to political and societal issues and opted for repression where it should have opted for dialogue. Still independence is at best a 50-50 option for the Catalan people and not an inescapable conclusion. On the other hand, the current Catalan government has been elected on an “independentist” agenda, but it overplayed its hand and misjudged both the Spanish environment (although it provides about 20% of Spanish output, Catalonia is only one of 17 regions) and the European drive for unity and integration. [...]
“Regionalization” is not the answer, nor do we need a crisis as dramatic as Catalonia’s to understand this. Regionalism is already a part of the European project – Varoufakis gets the relationship between Spain’s central government and Catalonia’s regional government or Barcelona’s City Hall completely wrong and of course there could be no such thing as a “secession (of rich regions like Veneto or Catalonia) with an obligation to maintain fiscal transfers” (to the poorer regions), since the main reason for secession would be to stop paying for others. From both a political and a legal point of view it is obvious that the EU framework allows for many types of regional settlement (ranging from advanced autonomy to federalism) other than separatism. The non-negotiable and unilateral “secession” of Catalonia evokes the populist themes of Brexit much more than the nuances of a regionalist settlement.
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