I see the northern Italian region of Alto Adigio has sought the ‘protection and tutelage’ of Austria. I wonder whether we can shortly expect to see a similar request from Catalunia in the direction of France. Or perhaps Andorra. And from Celtic Galicia towards Ireland. Though I guess it’s unlikely Gibraltar will ever seek the protection and tutelage of nearby Morocco, once the British government finally achieves its aim of getting shut of the troublesome place.

Negotiation of a new constitution for the autonomous community [i. e. region] of Valencia seems to have gone off relatively peacefully. Needless to say, though, there was a problem around the language of Valencian. This was resolved by referring to it as the ‘idioma Valenciano’. I’m not sure whether an idioma has any less status than a lengua so my Spanish readers might help out here. The unresolved issue around Valencian is that the [ever difficult] Catalans insist it’s not a distinct language at all; merely Catalan with a different label. But, in modern Spain, every region has to have its own tongue to champion in Madrid and Brussels. Stand by for the deification of Andaluz and its sub-variants. All of them quite unintelligible to the rest of Spain, never mind Europe.

Surprising Quote of the Week

The USA, which did not sign up to the Kyoto Treaty, has actually reduced its emissions since then. The EU, which did sign up, has increased them.

‘Prospect’, a left-of-centre British magazine.