Spanish province votes for split from ‘fictitious region’
CITY councillors in León in north-west Spain have passed a motion demanding the separation of the province from the region of Castilla y León, which was formed in 1983 shortly after Spain returned to democracy after the death of General Franco.
“We’ve never felt ourselves to be part of Castilla y León. It’s a fictitious region; León has nothing to do with Castile,” said José Antonio Díez, the Leonese mayor.
After Friday’s vote in León city hall, several other towns across the province followed suit, demanding that what they consider a historic region comprising León, Salamanca and Zamora split away from Castilla y León.
“We have started on the path,” Luis Mariano, a member of the regional parliament for the Leonese People’s Union (UPL) party, told The Daily Telegraph.
Mr Mariano said six town and city halls now supported the creation of a new region out of León’s 200 municipalities. “If we can get to the point where we have a majority of the population represented by these motions, we would at least oblige the main political parties to sit down and debate our demands,” Mr Mariano said.
Mr Díez said the next step would be to form a “table for dialogue” over the future of the embryonic region, using the same language as the Catalan Republican Left party, which has demanded the launch of a negotiation process over Catalonia’s future as its condition for supporting a government in Madrid led by Pedro Sánchez.
Mr Mariano was adamant, however, that the drive for a new Leonese region
‘We want to continue being Spanish. This has absolutely nothing in common with the Catalan issue’
was not a question of separatism. “We feel Spanish. We want to continue being Spanish. This has absolutely nothing in common with the Catalan issue.”
Nine provinces make up the Castilla y León region, the capital of which is Valladolid.
Mr Mariano pointed out that there was no referendum on the formation of the Castilla y León region, as took place in others including the Basque Country, Catalonia and Andalucia, and complained that Valladolid took the lion’s share of investment into the region.
“All we have done is to swap one overwhelming centralisation in Madrid for another one in Valladolid,” Mr Mariano said of the formation in 1983.