Catalonia is now a huge headache for Brussels
The EU was hoping, as with all things, that it could wait it out. Instead, pro-independence parties won a majority of the seats in Catalonia’s elections on Thursday. “The Spanish state has been beaten,” declared the region’s would-be president, Carlos Puigdemont. This is a bit of an overstatement, but the nightmare has returned. Despite high turnout and a unionist rallying call, the three separatist parties snatched victory, winning 70 of 135 seats. They haven’t won a majority of the popular vote – but that didn’t stop them before.
Brussels, so far, has managed to stay out of this fight. It is not the EU’S fault, though the euro crisis contributed, because it saw the rich Catalonia region sending more cash to Madrid in return for fewer services.
It will, however, become increasingly difficult for Brussels to stay out of it if the election leads to an ongoing confrontation between Catalonia’s separatists and Madrid. Mr Puigdemont himself is, embarrassingly, holed up in Brussels to evade arrest, and won’t return to Spain unless Madrid promises not to lock him up.
This isn’t another Brexit. Whereas the UK is proceeding legally, under the rule of law, Catalonia’s separatists trampled the legal order when they held a referendum without a mandate and unsuccessfully declared independence.
That is why Brussels bureaucrats, ever the legal-minded lot, find it impossible to intercede and broker a political outcome. Doing so would reward extra-legal behaviour – a big no-no. But if Catalonia’s separatists manage to provoke another harsh Spanish retaliation, staying neutral will look heartless. Any overreaction by Spain easily transfers its bad aura to the EU, especially given that Mr Puigdemont insists he is leading a pro-european movement seeking EU protection. It would be especially awkward if Madrid were to reapply for an EU warrant to arrest him.
The EU is trying to cobble together a consensus to reform its institutions. It didn’t need this headache and it doesn’t like to look like the bad guy. Unfortunately, it is now relying on Madrid to keep things calm. That’s an uncomfortable place to be.
Despite the miracle of online deliveries, it’s still sometimes necessary to brave the shops in search of other Christmas goodies. This year, I found myself in Fortnum & Mason on Piccadilly a week before Christmas.
The crowds are nightmarish. But the store itself is a delight – like stepping back into a Victorian childhood you never had. There are the baubles on sale: little birds decorated with pheasant feathers that clip onto branches; a sparkly, enamel afternoon tea set; an elaborate pair of glass ice-skates garnished with holly (why? I don’t quite know), which will set you back £20.
Then there are the advent calendars – not just paper or cardboard, but heavy wooden things with smoothly oiled doors. On the front they each have a different picture: a traditional nativity scene, a snowy village, a toy shop. The parent’s task is then to fill them up with treats.
The food section on the ground floor is like a party gone wrong, children trailing mournfully after desperate adults who are just trying to stay in the game. There’s an array of shining marzipan fruits, stacks of fruit, rose and violet creams in turquoise boxes, truffles piled up like ammunition, Christmas puddings as dense as cannonballs, battalions of chocolate Santas and reindeer.
After wandering the aisles in a daze for 45 minutes, I no longer found it hard to believe that many shops bring in a full third of their annual revenue from Christmas sales. There’s almost nothing that brings out British ingenuity like shopkeeping.
Many of us will, on Monday, be embarking upon the traditional Christmas walk. It wouldn’t be the season with that slow, full-stomached stroll around a handful of grey fields. But I’m also sad to say that thousands of Britons will also, on Christmas Eve or Christmas night, be embracing a more recent invention: Christmas nightclubbing.
Inconceivable as it is to me, this week is also a boom time for nightlife. Thousands of us seem to think that the way to cap a really meaningful reunion of family is to stay out till the small hours moving to a fat beat. This also helps to explain why this is, depressingly, one of the busiest times of year for the police. I’ve been aware of this phenomenon ever since having police officers in my family, because it makes it so hard for any of them to take the day off.
It’s not just clubbing that is to blame, of course. Christmas gettogethers can be a difficult time for broken and estranged families. But this new Noel “tradition” of going out and getting so soused that the police have to stop you throwing bottles around town centres, is nothing short of an abomination.
Much better, surely, to stay indoors and try your hand at a wooden jigsaw puzzle. The best are those cut with “fancies” – pieces cut into curious shapes like hot air balloons or aardvarks – and tricky ones that pretend to be edge pieces but are in fact very smoothly cut middle ones, or those that are really an edge piece, but have been chopped into triangles to disguise their true nature. This is a way of throwing shapes that really is suited to the time of year.