Dawn

Dawn

Sunday, October 22, 2017

Thoughts from Galicia: 22.10.17

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
- Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain

If you've arrived here because of an interest in Galicia or Pontevedra, see my web page here.

Life in Spain
  • Cataluña 1: Don Quijones: These measures, which are more fitting of a capricious tin-pot dictatorship than a modern, self-respecting democracy, will do nothing to improve relations between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. . . If anything, the repression is more likely to strengthen rather than weaken the resolve of Catalonia’s independence movement. Quite. More here.
  • Cataluña 2: Some of the Catalan reaction to the imposition of rule from Madrid.
  • Cataluña 3:One third party reaction.
  • Cataluña 4: As expected, there's much talk of early elections in Cataluña. In preparation, the Spanish government has taken over the local TV channel and can be expected to use it as it does the state channel(s) - for the propaganda purposes which they decry on the part of the Catalan government. Democracy in Spain.
  • Cataluña 5: Meanwhile, President Puigdemont continues to prove that – in Cataluña at least - You can displease all the people all the time. And the number of companies who've moved their head office from the region has risen to 'more than 1,000'.
  • Cataluña 6: Speaking impressively on British TV this morning, the Spanish Foreign Minister has claimed that whatever violence there was on October 1 around Cataluña was 'not deliberate'. That's Ok, then.
Richard North continues to pull his hair about the way Brexit is being negotiated by the British government:- The issue, of course, is that no one who has done any serious analysis can be under any illusions that the "no deal" scenario is a non-starter. We are not the only ones to have suggested that, as a ploy, it is akin to Davis threatening to shoot himself if we don't get out own way. . . . Yet, even if Davis seems to be breaking out of his fantasy cycle, this new-found reality is apparently not shared by his ministerial colleague, Liam Fox.  Jessop offers no detail. Nor indeed does Roger Bootle, another "no deal" fantasist. These people never do.

On the other hand, Janet Daly sees some reason for a minor degree of optimism. On the basis that - as the French doctor and I agreed in the early hours of Thursday morning - common sense would surely break out, both in the UK and on the Continent. See the article below.

Nutters Corner:- Yesterday Donald Trump posted a tweet recommending a book called 'A Place Called Heaven' and calling its author, Dr. Robert Jeffress, a “wonderful man.” What he didn’t say is that this wonderful man has made numerous controversial statements, including his suggestion that Satan is behind the Catholic Church. Even as a lapsed Catholic atheist, I can't go along with that.

Finally . . . Seeing how far concern for safety/risk reduction has gone in the UK, I wonder how long it'll be before every road is fenced off from pedestrians.

Today's Cartoon:-

"Now, don't panic, petal. It's called a thought. Now, trust Mummy and put back your iPod and you'll soon be as right as rain."

THE ARTICLE

The EU finally seems to have realised that this is not a play fight any more: Janet Daly

Is this hell? We appear to be locked in some horrible recurrent dream in which the same people say the same things again and again in varying tones of voice, but always with the same deadly intransigence. The “negotiations” over our exit from what was supposed to be a fraternal, cooperative, mutually beneficial association is now a hostage crisis in which the ransom cannot even be agreed, let alone met.

The two sides in the British political divide on Brexit are, ironically, in agreement that this process is utterly futile. For the irreconcilable Remain camp, this means only one thing: let’s call it off and stay in – or at least retreat to the safe harbour of a simulacrum of membership. For the tenacious Leave team, it confirms the worst expectations of malign EU intentions, so the only plausible solution is to pull the plug on the entire charade and walk away.

Even if both sides are making use of this mess for their own ends, surely they are both right: this is hopeless.

Or is it? By the end of last week, much official effort seemed to be going into producing what Americans call new “optics”. The leaders of Europe’s governments – who have to worry about being re-elected and are therefore not free to give a Juncker like shrug over the fate of their own economies – started talking turkey about trade.

At least, they started to talk about talking about it. Not with Britain, of course, just among themselves. But we had already had hints of that: the EU27 was to begin exploring the possibilities that might – maybe, possibly – constitute an arrangement for trading with the UK after it leaves.

This will involve, one may imagine, some pretty heavy-going debate between countries like Sweden, whose main concern is selling us things and where the National Board of Trade is already engaged in drawing up a basis for trading with the UK post-Brexit, and those whose concerns are fiercely ideological, like France, which was the original architect of this metaphysical project.

At some point, they will presumably report back to the UK negotiating team with the conclusions of these internal deliberations – assuming that they are able to reach mutually acceptable conclusions. In the end, it will almost certainly be Germany (when it eventually forms a government) that will call the shots. And that may be good news for the UK (if you think that reaching some sort of agreement is good news) and for the desperately embattled Conservative government.

It was Angela Merkel who was leading the upbeat chorus after the EU Council summit. She simply would not countenance the idea that Britain would leave without a deal: there was “absolutely no indication” of such a thing, she said, and then added that for British Eurosceptics to urge Theresa May to walk away was “absurd”. Contrary to reports in the UK media, progress was being made step by step. And so on. Whether you believe this or not, the fact that she said it is hugely significant.

In the great EU tradition, everybody followed Germany’s instructions. The European Council’s president, Donald Tusk, tweeted that EU leaders had given the green light to “preparations for the second phase [of negotiations]” and Jean-Claude Juncker, in his predictably back-handed way, agreed: he hated the “no deal” scenario, he said – which was an oddly personal way of putting it.

Only Emmanuel Macron (see reference to France above) seemed adamantly unhelpful, muttering about how much more work still needs to be done on the question of money. On the prospect of no deal, he was relentless: “The UK would be the first to lose in that situation.” (But not the last, he might have added.)

What is the lesson of this sudden outburst of conciliatory noise? That the people who really run the EU – the elected leaders of its member states – have got the upper hand over its unelected, unaccountable pinhead bureaucrats? Or maybe that this business was bound to get serious eventually and that reality is finally breaking through?

Either or both of these things are probably true, but it is almost certainly the case that the increasingly aggressive calls from assertive Brexiteers for the UK to walk away – supported by some extremely persuasive argument and evidence for the plausibility of a no-deal future – have scared the living daylights out of European leaders.

Mrs Merkel may claim that their calls are “absurd”, but if she is even remotely persuaded that they are under serious consideration, she – and her colleagues – will know that this isn’t a play fight any more.

At least for the moment, we must take all this nice talk at face value. The EU really, really loves us. Punishment is not what they have in mind – certainly not. Nor do they wish to make an example of us to dissuade any other malcontents who might get dangerous ideas about self-government.

Presumably even the terrible twins of Brussels, Juncker and Michel Barnier, will now be caught up in the new mood of generosity and fair play. Fine. Let’s go with that. It is precisely the attitude that Mrs May offered in her speech in Florence last month. Indeed, Mrs Merkel’s words appeared to echo Mrs May’s quite pointedly.

In that spirit, the UK negotiating team should step on to the front foot. An immediate unilateral offer of existing rights to all EU citizens living in the UK should be the first move. This would make it morally impossible for the EU not to reciprocate by matching the offer to UK citizens living in Europe.

Then they must give great attention to every word that is uttered by everybody to ensure that we always make an unimpeachable and coherent case for our position: yes, this is about defending the democratic integrity of the nation state – which is a very different thing from nationalism of the sinister sort.

Above all, we understand the difficulties. Nobody has invoked Article 50 before. Everybody is stumbling in the dark. But all our peoples deserve something better than political vanity and recrimination.

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