The real issue behind the negotiations over the new Constitution for Catalunia was, of course, money. The region is the richest in Spain and basically wanted to keep and dispense more of its revenue. In this they have succeeded and some have argued that the emotional issues of nationality and language were really just a smokescreen to distract attention from what was really going on. Indeed, a witty commentator has suggested Catalunia has now achieved its desired status of finannación.

The Galician political parties have, naturally enough, decided to get together to see how quickly they can follow the Catalan precedent. However, it finally seems to have dawned on some of them that the Catalunian model of finance based on regional net domestic product would be a disaster for Galicia. On the other hand, they like the idea that Madrid has accepted the Spanish state has an ‘historical debt’ it must repay to Catalunia. They feel this means Galicia is likewise owed some 21 million euros. On the third hand, there are fears that diminished national coffers means half of what was in the Galicia Plan will now go to Catalunia. All very confusing and all part of the rich mosaic of regional comparisons and enmities that is Spain in early 2006. Things can only get worse. Or at least more interesting. Especially if it’s correct that emulation of the Catalan model across the board would mean the state losing 15% of its revenue and less money flowing from the centre to the poorer regions of Asturias, old Castile, Estremadura, Galicia and Andalucia. Turning them into 3rd class citizens, as someone has suggested.

As for that emotional language issue, one of the Galician nationalists/regionalists has come out with this gem – ‘The Galician language is the best key to our identity and the strongest guarantee we have of participating successfully in the globalised world.’ He looks forward to the time when Gallego is an official language of the EU. Or perhaps the lingua franca of global commerce.

Back in the humdrum, everyday world, another ten people were killed on Galician roads in the last three days, not counting the three I mentioned on Sunday. As ever, most of the deaths occurred in the early hours of the morning, when cars carrying up to five youths left the road and came up against innocent trees and walls. I suspect quite a lot could be done to reduce this appalling toll but it would be considered ‘unfair’ to put the nightclubs out of business by stationing police cars outside them. One day, no doubt. Meanwhile, we pay higher insurance premiums than elsewhere and stay off the roads at night.

Down in Sevilla, a court has imprisoned the gypsy who slaughtered the driver of a car which bumped into his daughter when she ran into the road a couple of weeks ago. His defence is that he’d found a gun in a rubbish bin and happened to have it on him when he got blind drunk before the accident. He then shot the man because he was beside himself with anger and thought he recognised him as the head of a rival gypsy clan. He insists that, although he was senselessly inebriated, it was him who fired 6 shots though the window, then opened the door, re-loaded the gun and fired another 6 into the body. No one else - least of all his wife – was involved. Obviously a believer in the Hitlerian principle - If you’re going to tell a lie, tell a big one.

To end on a positive note … I’m reading Paul Preston’s excellent Concise History of the Spanish Civil War. Not for the first time it’s struck me that, given the astonishingly violent nature of Spanish society long before, during and even after the Civil War – it’s a huge testament to the intelligence, wisdom and maturity of the Spanish people that Spain is the peaceful democracy it now is. And I can’t see any of the above regionalist shenanigans changing this. Even if pluralism does morph into federalism.