Spanish
life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
-
Christopher Howse: A
Pilgrim in Spain.
Life
in Spain
- Cataluña1: While we wait on events, I'm reminded of two teenage would-be pugilists each saying to the other: “No, you hit me first and then we'll fight.”
- Cataluña 2: Meanwhile, the Catalan president has announced another non-event. The man has painted himself not into just one corner but into several. Squeezed by his fanatical secessionist coalition partners on his (far) left and the equally fanatical Spanish PP government on his (far) right, he's announced that he won't, after all, be calling for early regional elections. Not because this would provoke Madrid even further but because his fragile coalition of unnatural bedfellows would then rancorously fall apart. Not terribly good at seeing the future, Sr Puigdemont.
- Cataluña 3: As for the Spanish government, it appears to be preparing to roll back Catalan autonomy, it says here. And it's urging Cataluña's civil servants to cooperate with officials sent from Madrid. Fat chance. Today is said to be the day action will be taken by Madrid if the Catalans don't come to heel. Which they won't, of course.
- Spain and Gibraltar: In a statement worthy of the Jesuits, the Spanish Foreign Minister has announced that this issue most definitely won't ever be a barrier to the completion of Brexit. Just as long as the UK recognises, firstly, that Spain is not going to give in - 'not in the slightest' - in its demand for shared sovereignty, and that, secondly, Spain will 'use its powers of persuasion' to convince both Britain and the Rock to accept its 'offer' of joint sovereignty. As with Cataluña, Madrid's negotiating position is that amicable talks can take place on details just as long as its preconditions are accepted in totality. There must be something in the Castilian genes. Apart from the absence of a word for 'compromise' in Castilian Spanish.
A proud nation
which doesn't easily admit to being wrong. Someone talking
about Spain? No, the said Foreign Affairs Minister talking about the
UK.
Europe's Banks:
The European Commission made a lot of bank executives very happy
this Tuesday by abandoning its multi-year pledge to
break-up too-big-to-fail lenders. Despite the huge risk they still
pose to Europe’s rickety financial system, big European banks like
Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, ING, and Santander can breathe a large
sigh of relief this week in the knowledge that they will not have to
split their retail units from their riskier investment banking arms.
According to the Commission, this is no longer necessary since the
main rationale behind ring-fencing core banking services from
investment banking divisions — i.e. to make Europe’s financial
system less disaster prone — has “already been addressed by other
regulatory measures in the banking sector.” That’s right:
Europe’s banking system is already safe, stable and secure…
Finally
. . . Here's something from an American 'pilgrim' who appears to have
done the camino de Santiago
backwards and mostly in a car. He's one of the modern breed of
peregrinos
who can afford boutique hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants. As
I've said, Santiago de Compostela has changed a lot in 20 years. En
passant, presumably an Irish Catholic, the writer accepts without
question that in 1300 in a village church “the eucharistic host
miraculously changed to flesh and the wine to blood.” Oy ve!
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