Lessons from Britain in dealing with Catalonia
IN THE next few days it is possible that the Catalan nationalist government, led by Carles Puigdemont, will declare independence from Spain. The threat has elicited a robust response from the Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, who declared: “We will not accept blackmail.” The nationalist party must, he said, “return to the path of law” before any negotiations can take place.
What are we to make of this stand-off ? This is undeniably a constitutional crisis for Spain. The referendum that took place on Sunday was illegal under the Spanish constitution. Most Catalans opposed to independence — a majority, according to polls before the event — did not take part. So the Spanish government was, according to the law, within its rights to try to prevent the referendum taking place, and the probable result in favour of separation can, and should, be disputed on the basis that fewer than 40 per cent of Catalans voted for independence.
Yet the inevitable result of the police crackdown on the poll has been to radicalise Catalan politics further. Moderate Catalan unionists have been marginalised; the divisions between nationalist Catalonia and the rest of Spain have been sharpened. The Spanish king, Felipe VI, probably unwisely attacked the separatists in his televised address; Mr Puigdemont accuses him of “deliberately ignoring millions of Catalans”.
Is there any insight that Britain — as a friend of Spain and, indeed, of Catalans — can usefully offer in this situation?
Westminster has not always dealt well with nationalism, as anyone familiar with Irish history will testify. Yet in the past 20 years we have got much better at engaging with it. The last government did not, for instance, seek to stifle nationalist demands for a referendum in Scotland, and instead facilitated a legal referendum and then unionists won it on the strength of the argument.
There is another lesson from Northern Ireland, which is that outside engagement can help. In the peace process, talks between Sinn Fein, nationalists, loyalists and the British government were made easier by the participation of independent international players, including Senator George Mitchell, former US President Bill Clinton and General de Chastelain. The Spanish government has rejected Catalan demands that the EU should be involved in brokering talks between them. But judicious outside intervention, not necessarily by the EU, can help, and should not be dismissed.