Catalan separatists vow civil disobedience
ROME: Two of Italy’s wealthiest regions were drawing up plans Monday to claw back power and money from Rome after a victory for autonomy campaigners that could deepen divisions in Europe.
Over 95 percent of voters who flocked to the polls in the Veneto and Lombardy regions, home to Venice and Milan, supported a mandate to negotiate a better deal with the Italian capital.
Turnout was higher than expected and the results should not be underestimated in the context of the crisis created by Catalonia’s push for independence, analysts warned.
Voter participation stood at 57 percent in Veneto and nearly 39 percent in Lombardy.
Both regions are run by the Northern League (LN) party, which was once openly secessionist but has lately shifted its focus to run on an anti-euro ticket in the hope of expanding its influence into the south.
The leaders of the two regions, which contribute up to 30 percent of Italy’s GDP, will now embark on negotiations with the central government on the devolution of powers and tax revenues from Rome.
Once the terms are agreed, they will need a green light from parliament in a process that could take up to a year.
Veneto leader Luca Zaia said the regional council, which was meeting Monday, was aiming to get Rome to agree it could keep ninety percent of taxes, rather than handing them over to a capital it has long accused of waste.
“More than five million people voted for change. We all want less waste, fewer taxes, less bureaucracy, fewer state and EU constraints, more efficiency, more employment and more security,” said LN head Matteo Salvini.
He said the party was committed to winning greater autonomy for all regions up and down the country.
Secessionist sentiment in Veneto and Lombardy is restricted to fringe groups but analysts see the autonomy drive as reflecting the same cocktail of issues and pressures that resulted in Scotland’s narrowly-defeated independence vote, Britain’s decision to leave the EU and the Catalan crisis.
“Lombardy is not Catalonia, nor indeed is the Veneto, but the revival of the autonomist flame here takes place in a Europe which tends toward fragmentation and closing in on itself,” Italian political commentator Stefano Folli said.
Economist Lorenzo Codogno, a former senior official in the finance ministry, said the “Yes” victory would likely “add to the sense of uneasiness in Europe.”
“Following the populist wave, now Europe has also to face a nationalist/ regionalist wave, which somewhat overlaps with the populist one, and makes European integration even more difficult,” he added.
And Folli evoked the fear in Italy that the results, which “captured a growing divide between the North and South,” could aggravate deeply rooted antipathies that predate the country’s unification in the 19th century.
BARCELONA: Catalan separatists Monday threatened “mass civil disobedience” against the Spanish government if it fulfils its vow to depose the region’s secessionist leader to stifle his drive for independence.
Firefighters, teachers and students weighed into the dispute, warning of strikes and protests, at the start of a crucial week in Spain’s deepest political crisis in decades.
Madrid has said it will suspend the powers of the semi-autonomous region, where separatist leaders held a banned independence referendum on October 1.
Catalonia’s separatist parties announced they would hold a full session Thursday to decide their response.
That could be an opportunity for the region to follow through on threats to declare unilateral independence from Spain, a prospect that has raised fears of unrest.
The Senate is set to suspend the territory’s limited self-rule in a meeting expected Friday.
Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said Catalan President Carles Puigdemont will be out of a job as soon as this weekend.
“He will no longer be able to sign anything, he will no longer be able to take decisions, he will no longer receive a salary,” Saenz de Santamaria told radio Onda Cero.
The far-left Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), which backs Puigdemont’s coalition, said Madrid’s post-referendum clampdown was the “biggest assault” against the Catalan people since the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
Franco — who ruled from 1939 until 1975 — suppressed Catalonia’s autonomy, language and culture.
“This assault will receive a response in the form of massive civil disobedience,” the CUP, a key regional power broker, said in a statement.
Lluis Corominas, spokesman of the Together for Yes ruling coalition, meanwhile urged a “peaceful and democratic defense of Catalan institutions.”
He branded the Spanish response to the independence drive “a case of unprecedented institutional violence.”
Catalan firefighters hinted they may offer resistance in the dispute by refusing to obey orders from national authorities.
“It depends on what they ask us to do. If there is a road that is blocked and they send us to unblock it, maybe we won’t go,” said a spokesman for a firefighter association associated to the separatist movement.
Teachers called a protest march for Thursday, and students said they will go on strike from that day.
Half a million angry separatists took to the streets of Barcelona on Saturday after Rajoy announced he would replace Puigdemont and his executive.
To do so, Madrid will use previously untested constitutional powers to stop Catalonia breaking away.
Under Article 155 of the 1978 Spanish constitution, Madrid could take control of the Catalan police force and replace the heads of its public broadcaster.
Political analysts warn that Madrid faces a serious struggle in practical terms to impose control over the region, especially if civil servants refuse to obey orders from central authorities.