Catalan crisis tests EU’s limits
An independent Catalonia will have to negotiate from scratch membership in the World Bank, WTO, United Nations, etc.
The problem for the European Union is that it doesn’t have a Sardar Patel. Deep in the heart of many die-hard European Union bureaucrats is the desire, conscious or not, for the EU to be more like India. They wish it could be a federation, with Brussels at the centre, and the various countries relegated to states within the federation.
In that way if, for example, Catalonia separated from Spain, it would be like creating a Telangana: tricky, but not fundamentally disruptive.
But, as much as those bureaucrats dream, most of the politicians from the countries that make up the European Union have little desire to give their powers to Brussels. This tension played into Brexit, and is now contributing to the EU’s vague and weak response to the current crisis in Spain.
It’s worth taking a closer look at the mechanics of the crisis. Catalonia is an area of Spain that is relatively wealthy. It borders Andorra, France and is on the Mediterranean coast. It held an illegal referendum, in which the majority of voters chose independence from Spain. On Friday, the Catalan government declared independence, and the Spanish government moved quickly to use its constitutional powers to take over the running of the state.
Response from the EU has been subdued. President of the EU Council, Donald Tusk tweeted: “For EU nothing changes. Spain remains our only interlocutor. I hope the Spanish government favours force of argument, not argument of force.”
However, the EU has quietly pointed out that if Catalonia goes independent, it will no longer be a member of the EU. But it hasn’t explicitly said what this means. It hasn’t said Catalonia will have to put in hard borders on its frontiers with Spain, Andorra and France. That the port of Barcelona will need an entirely new set of security procedures and will be outside the customs union. That Catalonia will have to assume some of the Spanish debt and due to the EU. That Catalans will need visas to visit their neighbours. That they will have to get their own currency. That they won’t even have WTO tariffs to fall back on for trade, because they aren’t members of the WTO.
The UK is leaving the EU via Brexit, but it is already an independent country, with its own currency, intelligence service, military, diplomatic corps, etc. A Catalonian exit is exponentially more complex.
An independent Catalonia will have to negotiate from scratch membership in the World Bank, WTO, United Nations, Interpol, etc. All while dealing with a resent- ful Spain on the other side of the negotiating table. Meanwhile, many other states will also have to play hardball in dealing with Catalonia because of concerns a Catalan success will spur separatist movements in other parts of the EU (Flanders, Lombardy, Basques, etc.) and further afield (Quebec, New Caledonia, Bougainville, even Kashmir).
And, if Catalonia tries to look elsewhere for allies (I am pretty sure China would be more than willing to help the Catalans manage the port of Barcelona), it may find itself even more isolated by its neighbours.
But the EU isn’t saying any of this. And neither are the Catalan separatists. The debate is largely emotive. And at least one EU member state, Finland, has even said it will debate a motion to support an independent Catalonia in its Parliament.
The Scottish example makes a useful comparison. Before Scotland held its legal independence referendum in 2014 (in which the “stay” side won), the Scottish government spent years systematically examining questions around economics, defence, governance, etc., in an independent Scotland. They even issued a White Paper for further discussion. When people went to vote, they had a fairly good idea of what it all meant.
This is not the case in Catalonia. And the EU isn’t helping. It is chiding Spain, while at the same time not sending clear messages to the Catalan people about the implications of “independence”. All the threats made to the UK in the lead up to the Brexit vote (and continued now during the Brexit negotiations) should, by the EU’s own logic, also hold true for a Catal(onian) exit. But mostly we are seeing muted press releases and vague tweets saying this is an internal Spanish matter.
The European Union is facing a very large set of challenges. Underpinning many of them is uncertainty over what it actually is, and where it is heading. The Catalan crisis is testing the limits of how it responds to core issues of sovereignty. It doesn’t have a Sardar Patel, but it isn’t a federation (yet). However, it is still trying to limit the moral power Spain has to keep itself intact. It will be interesting to see if this path leads to more, or less, stability in Europe. Cleo Paskal is The Sunday Guardian Special Correspondent. The needless controversy featuring the heritage monument Taj Mahal, generated by ill-informed bigots belonging to the Sangh Parivar has adversely affected India’s international image. It has dented the belief that the country was a melting pot, where communities, regardless of caste and creed, respected the rich culture assimilated and absorbed over centuries.
It, indeed, is a shame that none of the top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have found it fit to curb this growing intolerance, which is blatantly aimed at further polarising our society to enable the saffron brigade to wrest political advantage on the eve of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections. The BJP can surely win these polls without unleashing venomous misinformation, given that it was occupying the pole position in national politics, and thereby, has little need to take the assistance of communal crutches.
The Taj Mahal, undoubtedly is, one of the greatest attractions for tourists from the world over, and thus, any attempt to diminish its importance needs to be, in the strongest possible words, deplored. Yes, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath, who had virtually fanned the tirade by initially making callous observations and subsequently excluding the monument from the list of the state’s tourist sites, did on Thursday attempt to make amends by urging his supporters not to raise questions regarding who built the Taj or what went into its construction. His actions failed to rein in die-hard BJP grassroots workers who take immense pride in displaying their lack of knowledge on vital issues, particularly historic facts.
The problem with the foot-soldiers of the Hindutva outfit is that they tend to mix mythology with history—when both are important—but not the same. Their distorted perception of history, propelled by religious myths, thus bereft of facts, bears testimony to their intellectual bankruptcy. They fail to understand that the consequence of their irresponsible utterances can create disharmony that would negatively impact the unity and integrity of this great and ancient nation.
Throughout the world there are discrepancies in history, but they can be corrected only through disclosures of concrete facts and not by mere imagined beliefs. There is no historic evidence to suggest that there was a Shiva temple at the site where the Taj was built. Presuming, however, there was one, how does it alter its present existence? The Mughals, kings or rulers, of the past and present, have the proclivity of changing the symbols of power.
In the United States, there is always a huge cross or a church in the middle of the reservations built for the Native Americans, who were displaced after being conquered by the Europeans, who made America their home. The cross was an emblem of authority, and the crest denoted a change of regime. It served as a reminder to those who had been vanquished, that from then onwards their beliefs, religious or otherwise, were subservient to the victors.
It is well known, that in democracies, change of the government leads to knocking down the key images and symbols of the previous regime. It is no co-incidence that the present BJP leadership has been targeting the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, so as to establish its supremacy. Even during the Congress period, Indira Gandhi adopted her own quintessential style of politics and brand of ideology, which was in sharp contrast to that of her father.
In recent times, Sonia Gandhi did not adhere to what was practised by her late husband Rajiv Gandhi and created her own narrative. The Narendra Modi government has no resemblance whatsoever with the earlier BJP-led NDA dispensation of Atal Behari Vajpayee. All of the above are well-documented facts. In the civil service as well, most bureaucrats reel off fudged figures after holding office for only one year so as to highlight the imaginary or notional improvement they have initiated in their ministry or the institution they head.
The Taj has been under fire in the past, but not for the reasons it is now being vocally vandalised. The late Sahir Ludhianvi, arguably the country’s most renowned Urdu poet, had from a Leftist and progressive perspective mocked the majestic structure. In a poem addressed to his beloved he emphasised on the limitations of the common people who did not have the power and pelf of the mighty emperor to create something similar to the Taj. “Ik Shanshah ne Daulat ka Sahara Lekar, Hum Gharibon ki Mohabbat ka Udaya hai Mazaq. Mere Mehboob kahin aur mila kar mujhse ( An emperor because of the treasure of his wealth has wrought a harsh joke on lovers who are commoners. Therefore, my beloved, meet me elsewhere).”
Similarly, Aldous Huxley said of the Taj, “I, perceive, that the marble covers a multitude of sins.” However, like Sahir, the description was abstract, and not concrete, just like some of the present day self-styled custodians of Hindu culture are trying to portray the matter. So far as the state government goes, it should focus on areas of governance and development rather than primarily promoting rituals and obscurantist thoughts and theories. Adityanath owes it to the people who have elected his party, and thus needs to erase the erroneous impression that he was merely a “part-time Chief Minister”. Between us.
The debate is largely emotive. And at least one EU member state, Finland, has even said it will debate a motion to support an independent Catalonia in its Parliament.