The principal investigator of the Elcano Royal Institute considers that Pedro Sánchez is correct in his strategy and that it weakens the Catalan secessionism.
Ignacio Molina, principal investigator of the Elcano Royal Institute, the most important think tank in Spain and one of the most prestigious in the international concert, is clear that the independence movement must go through "all the stages of mourning," including "depression and acceptance ", although now it is debated between" denial and anger ". He is a professor of Political Science and International Relations at the Autonomous University of Madrid and a visiting researcher at different universities such as Trinity College in Dublin, Harvard and Oxford. He nuances his phrases, extends its sentences, but he is clear and points out that the countries of the European Union will not offer support to the independence movement, and that what they really want from Spain is that they adopt a more relevant role and be able to lead the Union in the context of Brexit, next to France and Germany. Molina has been advising and offering his analysis on this role of Spain and on the Catalan political problem, with different published works, among them, on Foreign Policy. In the interview with Crónica Global, Ignacio Molina points out that President Pedro Sánchez is right in his strategy, because "it weakens the independence movement" and puts "in evidence" President Torra. But he also warns that Sanchez and the PSOE may not have the necessary support, with a "Podemos" diminished and with the perception of the whole of the Spaniards that the PSOE has its support from independence parties.
- A problem for the PSOE?
- The voters who are on the right of the PSOE (very angry about what happened in Catalonia) now have three options and, if the electoral system does not harm that dispersion of the vote, it is difficult not to mobilize and reach a sufficient parliamentary majority to govern. The paradox is that it helps to delay elections because it encourages Catalan nationalists to moderate, given the fear of a different government in Madrid that could suspend autonomy again. In this way, if that allows to approve the new budgets and the legislature is extended, the Catalan conflict could lose some relevance and be partly replaced among voters for issues more typical of the left-right axis. In any case, at least until there are no general elections, it is very difficult for Catalonia to stop being the great factor that conditions Spanish politics.
- With Europe focused on how the Brexit negotiation ends, how is going to affect the after trial period of the independentists politicians in Spain?
- The secessionist process, as Joaquim Coll, Manuel Arias Maldonado and myself have defended in the book Anatomy of proces (Barcelona, Debate) ended in autumn of last year, after the fiasco of the symbolic DUI. It has always been intellectually and politically unsustainable to think that, without even reaching the social majority in a territory and beyond constitutional legality, it would be possible to achieve secession and break through an advanced democracy, which will soon be the fourth most important state in the world. EU. But, until October 2017, at least one could play with the benefit of the doubt: were the structures of the Catalan Republic ready and sovereignty willing to effectively control the territory? How would half of Catalans not independentists behave? What attitude would the big companies have? Would the State (understood as an organization but, above all, as a political community) be willing to accept this amputation? What would be the international reaction and, in particular, the EU? Now we have answers to all those questions and, although the pro-independence world is still debating between denial and anger, those who think in terms of negotiation are beginning to appear. Then the depression will come and in the end the acceptance. These stages of mourning may last more or less, but the independence movement must go through the duel.
--So?
--The trial will very likely make the moment of anger longer (and it is possible that relevant sectors of the independence movement are trapped in that phase indefinitely) but will not alter the fundamental: the conflict can only be resolved with broad consensus within the Catalan society and the whole of Spain respecting the mechanisms of the constitutional system. As this is the position defended by the State itself, it is impossible that popular mobilizations, decisive attitudes of the Catalan Government or other impacting developments will alter the attitude of national diplomacies and European institutions regarding the matter. The EU, beyond some minority politicians who express their legitimate opinion and the logical interest to see resolved this very annoying conflict in a very important partner, will not intervene in the internal crisis of a Member State. If it does, it will be in the declarative terrain that we saw last year and to defend the interpretation made by the national government, the national parliament and the Constitutional Court. What is most worrying right now in the Commission, Paris or Berlin with regard to Spain is that it dares to get more involved in post-Brexit European governance. Catalonia, and even less if it is a judgment of the judiciary, will hardly alter this clear political alignment among the capitals. However, to fantasize about a European implication supposedly to mediate, it is clear that this would not lead to the rupture of Spain or the imposition of any binary secession referendum; instrument not exactly popular right now in Brussels. In light of what the EU has done in two other conflicts within its territory with communities split by nationalist lines (Northern Ireland and Cyprus) what would be favored would be consociational arrangements and power sharing that would rather reduce the current power of the Catalan nationalism in the Generalitat.
Ignacio Molina, principal investigator of the Elcano Royal Institute, the most important think tank in Spain and one of the most prestigious in the international concert, is clear that the independence movement must go through "all the stages of mourning," including "depression and acceptance ", although now it is debated between" denial and anger ". He is a professor of Political Science and International Relations at the Autonomous University of Madrid and a visiting researcher at different universities such as Trinity College in Dublin, Harvard and Oxford. He nuances his phrases, extends its sentences, but he is clear and points out that the countries of the European Union will not offer support to the independence movement, and that what they really want from Spain is that they adopt a more relevant role and be able to lead the Union in the context of Brexit, next to France and Germany. Molina has been advising and offering his analysis on this role of Spain and on the Catalan political problem, with different published works, among them, on Foreign Policy. In the interview with Crónica Global, Ignacio Molina points out that President Pedro Sánchez is right in his strategy, because "it weakens the independence movement" and puts "in evidence" President Torra. But he also warns that Sanchez and the PSOE may not have the necessary support, with a "Podemos" diminished and with the perception of the whole of the Spaniards that the PSOE has its support from independence parties.
- A problem for the PSOE?
- The voters who are on the right of the PSOE (very angry about what happened in Catalonia) now have three options and, if the electoral system does not harm that dispersion of the vote, it is difficult not to mobilize and reach a sufficient parliamentary majority to govern. The paradox is that it helps to delay elections because it encourages Catalan nationalists to moderate, given the fear of a different government in Madrid that could suspend autonomy again. In this way, if that allows to approve the new budgets and the legislature is extended, the Catalan conflict could lose some relevance and be partly replaced among voters for issues more typical of the left-right axis. In any case, at least until there are no general elections, it is very difficult for Catalonia to stop being the great factor that conditions Spanish politics.
- With Europe focused on how the Brexit negotiation ends, how is going to affect the after trial period of the independentists politicians in Spain?
- The secessionist process, as Joaquim Coll, Manuel Arias Maldonado and myself have defended in the book Anatomy of proces (Barcelona, Debate) ended in autumn of last year, after the fiasco of the symbolic DUI. It has always been intellectually and politically unsustainable to think that, without even reaching the social majority in a territory and beyond constitutional legality, it would be possible to achieve secession and break through an advanced democracy, which will soon be the fourth most important state in the world. EU. But, until October 2017, at least one could play with the benefit of the doubt: were the structures of the Catalan Republic ready and sovereignty willing to effectively control the territory? How would half of Catalans not independentists behave? What attitude would the big companies have? Would the State (understood as an organization but, above all, as a political community) be willing to accept this amputation? What would be the international reaction and, in particular, the EU? Now we have answers to all those questions and, although the pro-independence world is still debating between denial and anger, those who think in terms of negotiation are beginning to appear. Then the depression will come and in the end the acceptance. These stages of mourning may last more or less, but the independence movement must go through the duel.
--So?
--The trial will very likely make the moment of anger longer (and it is possible that relevant sectors of the independence movement are trapped in that phase indefinitely) but will not alter the fundamental: the conflict can only be resolved with broad consensus within the Catalan society and the whole of Spain respecting the mechanisms of the constitutional system. As this is the position defended by the State itself, it is impossible that popular mobilizations, decisive attitudes of the Catalan Government or other impacting developments will alter the attitude of national diplomacies and European institutions regarding the matter. The EU, beyond some minority politicians who express their legitimate opinion and the logical interest to see resolved this very annoying conflict in a very important partner, will not intervene in the internal crisis of a Member State. If it does, it will be in the declarative terrain that we saw last year and to defend the interpretation made by the national government, the national parliament and the Constitutional Court. What is most worrying right now in the Commission, Paris or Berlin with regard to Spain is that it dares to get more involved in post-Brexit European governance. Catalonia, and even less if it is a judgment of the judiciary, will hardly alter this clear political alignment among the capitals. However, to fantasize about a European implication supposedly to mediate, it is clear that this would not lead to the rupture of Spain or the imposition of any binary secession referendum; instrument not exactly popular right now in Brussels. In light of what the EU has done in two other conflicts within its territory with communities split by nationalist lines (Northern Ireland and Cyprus) what would be favored would be consociational arrangements and power sharing that would rather reduce the current power of the Catalan nationalism in the Generalitat.
- Is the Spanish Government wrong or wrong in relation to the Catalan problem?
- It is difficult to answer that if you do not specify what is the priority: territorial integrity above all, the union within diversity, the desire for accommodation of the one that has a different identity to the majority, maintaining the independence as a residual option? In addition, there are hardly any references to judge it. Among the western countries there are few cases of democracies as plural (and, therefore, difficult to manage) as the Spanish. And where imperfect comparisons can be made, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, Italy or even France, it is discovered that there is no effective antidote to the independence movement. Very different systems of lace (which include agreed referendums, demands for clarity, confederalization practice processes, slow-motion decentralization and even Jacobinism) have not prevented the independence movement from also touching 40/50% in Scotland in the last 20 years, Quebec, Flanders, Veneto or Corsica. But it is that in none of these cases, not even in Quebec in the mid-nineties, regional governments had adopted by far a strategy of disobedience such as that of Catalonia between 2012 and 2017 (especially as of January 2016) . Seen with perspective, of course mistakes have been made by excess and default since the eighties. The governments of Spain could have done more to translate the plurality of the State (for example, in the field of language) and favor an authentic territorial distribution of power that went beyond a decentralization of competence on the other hand generous. But, at the same time, the different governments since the time of Gonzalez could have been more sophisticated when it came to understanding the own internal plurality of autonomous communities such as Catalonia, and not assuming so easily and imprecisely that nationalism already represented the whole of Catalan society. If we approach the trial to the most recent stage, there were serious errors in the management of the Statute and, since 2012 the Government could have been more intelligent and less legalistic with the sovereignty challenge. However, as I believe that this was above all an endogenous process of nationalist overdraft, after a certain moment, what Madrid would have done was a bit different. The procés was almost doomed to evolve as it did. It was condemned to carry the auction to the end. And to show that the prize of the Republic was not at the end of the road.
- It is difficult to answer that if you do not specify what is the priority: territorial integrity above all, the union within diversity, the desire for accommodation of the one that has a different identity to the majority, maintaining the independence as a residual option? In addition, there are hardly any references to judge it. Among the western countries there are few cases of democracies as plural (and, therefore, difficult to manage) as the Spanish. And where imperfect comparisons can be made, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, Italy or even France, it is discovered that there is no effective antidote to the independence movement. Very different systems of lace (which include agreed referendums, demands for clarity, confederalization practice processes, slow-motion decentralization and even Jacobinism) have not prevented the independence movement from also touching 40/50% in Scotland in the last 20 years, Quebec, Flanders, Veneto or Corsica. But it is that in none of these cases, not even in Quebec in the mid-nineties, regional governments had adopted by far a strategy of disobedience such as that of Catalonia between 2012 and 2017 (especially as of January 2016) . Seen with perspective, of course mistakes have been made by excess and default since the eighties. The governments of Spain could have done more to translate the plurality of the State (for example, in the field of language) and favor an authentic territorial distribution of power that went beyond a decentralization of competence on the other hand generous. But, at the same time, the different governments since the time of Gonzalez could have been more sophisticated when it came to understanding the own internal plurality of autonomous communities such as Catalonia, and not assuming so easily and imprecisely that nationalism already represented the whole of Catalan society. If we approach the trial to the most recent stage, there were serious errors in the management of the Statute and, since 2012 the Government could have been more intelligent and less legalistic with the sovereignty challenge. However, as I believe that this was above all an endogenous process of nationalist overdraft, after a certain moment, what Madrid would have done was a bit different. The procés was almost doomed to evolve as it did. It was condemned to carry the auction to the end. And to show that the prize of the Republic was not at the end of the road.
--Does the Spanish Government of Pedro Sanchez approach the Catalan Government, despite the criticism it receives? Was the meeting in Barcelona of the Council of Ministers a good idea? Or should the independence movement be fought with a 155 defense as the right does?
- Mariano Rajoy mishandled on October 1. History will be harsh with his statements in Washington assuring that there would be no referendum (in the face of the disbelief of a Donald Trump that surprisingly showed to know better than he what would happen) or with the police device of that day, giving away the well-known images of riot police hitting the voters. However, he did reasonably well from that moment and that it was very difficult to apply the unpublished article 155 of the Constitution. President Pedro Sánchez has opted for relaxation and the offer of dialogue (without prejudice to draw a red line respect for the constitutional order and promoting an international activism greater than that of the previous Government). This new strategy has the advantage of highlighting the rigidity of the current president of the Generalitat, weakening the independence movement and aiming for the future a political solution of consensus among Catalans and among all Spaniards, which is the only possible solution. I believe that in general it is correct and that, for example, it did well to gather the Council of Ministers in Barcelona. There was a very ambiguous joint statement and street protests but the result was positive in terms of the symbolic presence of the State in Catalonia. In any case, none of this should lead us to believe that the crisis will be solved in the short term, something that will only be possible when the separatist movement goes through all the stages of mourning to which I referred earlier. In addition, as there have been no general elections after the DUI to strengthen this commitment with a popular mandate and as the continuity of Sánchez in Moncloa depends in some way on the parliamentary support of the Catalan nationalist parties, it is logical that there are those who have their serious doubts about this way. It is soon to know if that strategy is right or has been a counterproductive contentment.
- The independence movement insists that it has promoted a democratic movement. Can it be established that it enters fully into a catalog of democratic demands? To reject the referendum of self-determination, is it democratic or is it an imposition of the Spanish State?
- The procés had the double success of presenting itself as a progressive and placing the "right to decide" as a powerful motto of the most developed democracies, but it is also obvious that what secessionism postulates moves away from the best practices of Liberal democracies for their lack of respect for basic elements of the Rule of Law or for their expressions of decisionist and even reactionary populism that would be related to Brexit and other selfish sub-national nationalisms, such as flamenco and padano. Regarding the referendum, independence advocates that it is the optimal solution although among the approximately 100 cases of liberal polyarchies that exist in the world there is only one that admits such a possibility (a tiny Caribbean country of two islands, San Cristobal and Nieves, where they demand two thirds of the voters of an island to be able to separate themselves) and then two more where there is no regulation but accept the possibility of doing them: United Kingdom and Canada. The international comparison leads to the conclusion that preventing a secession referendum is as democratic or more than allowing it. The case of Scotland in 2014, which was the greatest international gift received by the Catalan independence movement in these years, was based on exceptional circumstances: a British monarchy composed, a flexible Constitution, the absence of identity conflict (very different from the Northern Ireland case) and the illusory pretension of the nefarious Prime Minister David Cameron to settle the Scottish demands for more competencies. The fact is that Spanish institutions have their legitimate reasons for denying a vote that asks for secession. From the point of view of the whole of Spain these reasons are connected with the very majority desire not to question the unity, either because it is believed that the self-definition of a State as indivisible gives it greater constitutional strength, either because admitting referendums opens the door to a destabilizing territorial competition for a tactical use of the instrument to gain power advantages. From the point of view of the Catalan reality, the tensions on national and linguistic identities advise to avoid a vote that could turn into an agonizing and sectarian counting. As happens in many other European contexts where there are also such divisions (Belgium, Cyprus, South Tyrol, Northern Ireland), the truly democratic referendum is the one that asks for new coexistence agreements.
- One of the issues that the independence movement has worked with is the international projection. Have they won the battle to the Spanish governments? Should we distinguish between governments and heads of state, and public opinion and the media, which have embraced independence?
--I have said before that the entire EU, and the international community as a whole, was placed in the autumn of 2017 on the side of Spanish territorial integrity. But, in effect, the independence movement has won several consolation prizes abroad, benefiting from some errors, especially omissions, committed by the State. He has managed to get sympathy in academic and political environments ideologically close to other peripheral nationalisms, to the critical left or to the populist right, and even in certain minority sectors of thought and the main parties. Most of these supports do not imply joining the objective of independence, much less if it is to be achieved unilaterally, but there have been condemnations of how the Spanish public powers have managed the crisis. The regional authorities of Quebec, Scotland and Flanders, the Belgian prime minister, the president of Slovenia, the German justice minister and even the president of the European Council Donald Tusk have at some point slipped comments critical of the State's action and are of known the judicial defeats that have prevented the delivery to Spain of the ex-president Carles Puigdemont and other politicians fled to which the Supreme Court imputes a controversial crime of rebellion.
- To what can be attributed that the Anglo-Saxon world has paid more attention and understanding to the independence movement?
- I am not so clear that this is so. No, at least, from October 2017 when the summit began to really interest the international public opinion and the analysis went deeper. What is certain is that the Anglo-Saxon democracies have a tendency towards the rule of the majority (the referendums of Scotland or Quebec are exponents) while in the continental world there is more tradition of respect for constitutional frameworks that can only be changed by broad consensus. On the other hand, Spaniards pay much more attention to the American or British press than to the French, German or Italian press.
- The independence movement has opened an international discussion on the right to secession? Can it be incorporated into a liberal democracy?
--The most interesting developments of the Catalan crisis will occur in the immediate future in the field of thought and power of conviction that may have the reasoning on the legitimacy or not of independence in contemporary democracies. There is no universally accepted theory about secessions: the comparative casuistry available offers examples and counterexamples that the parties will have to know how to use to convince. What is certain is that Catalonia is today the main world reference of the territories that aspire to become new States and the outcome of its sovereignty can set a precedent in three very different ways: either precipitate a kind of global wave of attempts to break up, or to discourage them in the event of total failure, or (if a new accommodation arrangement is reached between Catalonia and the rest of Spain, which is desirable) serve as a model for other processes of territorial decentralization and adjustment of the plurality. I do not think it's good that the right to secession is regulated in a liberal democracy. There are examples of countries that without recognizing this right, at least, do not deny the possibility (such as the United Kingdom or Canada) although there are others such as the USA (with the idea of perpetual union) or Germany (and its eternity clause) that are more resounding that Spain at the time of rejecting the independence movement. I personally do not believe that secession is always unacceptable but, yes, only as a final solution that is not understood as a right. In the event that it is politically concluded that it is the way to go, that would not exempt scrupulously from respecting the existing procedures of constitutional reform. Secession profoundly alters the original pact and therefore must be processed according to the rules on which the democratic regime is based. That is, there could only be independence when a qualified majority of Spaniards has convinced themselves that this is the best or least bad option to resolve the territorial conflict.
- Should Spain offer a channel for the independence movement to know what to expect in the future, for example, based on what percentage of support could a negotiation be initiated with the State Government? If a democratic state can not accept that right to secession, what response should half of a society that asks for independence have?
--I believe that a State can not wear the ban "fragile" and that is why I insist that secession should not be regulated, but I also think that it is not absurd to think of any way to articulate independence if a clear and solid majority of the Catalans want it. In that case, it would be necessary to demand that this majority not be an identity key and, therefore, with the most demanding criteria that are demanded in plural societies, where democracy can only be "consociational" and not half plus one is enough of votes, especially in matters of constitutional scope. But if a qualified percentage of the Catalan population (to define politics and not legally) vote in a sustained manner over time secessionist options and if that meant that Castilian-speaking Catalonia also supports the rupture, the rest of Spain should take note and promote constitutional changes that would channel such a claim. Spain can not be a cage. That said, such a large majority is neither expected nor expected, so we return to the only possible solution: the search for broad consensus that may include an improvement in self-government that can be accepted by a majority of at least two thirds of the Catalans and an absolute majority of the whole of the Spaniards.
- Are there truths in the independence movement? The autonomous governments, and the Catalan in particular, have had real limitations to exercise true self-government? The problem is that central governments have never taken this autonomous self-government seriously?
- There are truths in those who complain that the State has recentralized in the years of the crisis or that it is not as plural as it should be and does not assume, with all its consequences, the complex reality of Spain. But at all those complaints, which are typical of a state composed of competence and identity, justify a remedial independence. In addition, there may also be complaints from the center about how the territorial governments (and especially those with a peripheral nationalist tendency) have behaved in these years.
- If a new agreement is reached, which can be voted on by all, as a constitutional reform, should the independence movement understand and accept that not everything passes through more competences and does it respect the internal plurality in Catalonia, in exchange for a greater recognition in the rest of Spain?
- Independence has three possibilities before itself. The first is to hit the frustration of the unilateral road again. The second, renounce the shortcuts and try to broaden its social base, although the threshold needed to convince Spain would be located in majorities much more demanding and durable than 50%. The third possibility is to assume the complex, plural and stubborn sociopolitical reality of Catalonia, not to be deceived about the strength or the democratic credentials of the State and to opt for alternative ways in which an improvement of self-government is negotiated. Some improvements that, in my opinion, in effect, should not focus on expanding the powers exercised by the Parliament (which in the case of Catalonia are already very broad) but rather to improve the distribution of power with the "national" minorities. in the State as in the Generalitat itself.
https://cronicaglobal.elespanol.com/politica/ignacio-molina-independentismo-duelo-depresion-aceptacion_211761_102.html
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