EPTEuropean Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 1258
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Silvanel
Poland4725 Posts
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
On October 14 2019 17:42 Silvanel wrote: Not really, no. I had hoped, they would need to go in coalition with someone, that would curb them significantly. As of now nothing really changed. We will get 4 years of more or less the same. He clearly means that if PiS did not get majority, they would go into coalition with Konfederacja, leading to a possible shit theater. | ||
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Silvanel
Poland4725 Posts
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
 ) but if Czech politics is any guidance, the more extremist the party the more likely are they gonna give up on whatever principles they appear to hold in exchange for getting to power. As far as I understood that the other opposition parties in Poland are so deep into being anti-PiS that in the situation where PiS would not have majority, but the non-Konfederacja opposition wouldn't either, there would be no other solution? | ||
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Sent.
Poland9177 Posts
The bad/good news is that our senate is pretty much powerless, so at best the oppositon will be able to stall the legislative process by 30 days. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain17970 Posts
The protests were aimed against the Spanish national government and courts, who just issued the verdict on the 13 Catalan politicians (and grassroots activist leaders) who they found guilty of sedition (and some of the politicians of misspending government funds) for everything around organizing the referendum for independence, and subsequently declaring it, in 2017. They were given 9-13 years prison sentence. Which is, imho, quite absurd. It's about what you get for murder. However, I personally don't think there was any doubt that they did indeed break the law. That said, the whole situation is a mess, and looks to make not only Catalonia ungovernable, but Spain as a whole. Separatist and other parties are unable to meet in the middle right now over the other issues that they *do* agree upon. Barcelona is a great example of that, but so is, surprisingy, the national government. The elections early this year gave a very slight majority to the left, but only if they all worked together. One of those parties on the left is the ERC, a Catalan independentist party. They are socialist, but above all independentist, and to support Sanchez require that he works with them to find a path to separatism. The PSOE is the traditional social-democratic party, but is opposed to Catalan separatism. The third party that could have supported a left-wing government is Podemos, who felt their ideas were not being heard by PSOE, and also pulled their support. This means no government was formed in July, and there will be new elections in November, however polls show that in the grand scheme of things, nothing is going to change. ERC will gain some seats, Podemos is falling apart into two parties (and together will have about the same share as Podemos did before), PSOE looks to maintain their lead and on the right Cs is losing seats back to PP. But on the whole, not much will change, and ERC will maintain a crucial role in any support for a national coalition. And just in case you were wondering, unless PP were to win in a landslide victory, Junts pel Catalunya (Catalan separatist neo-liberals) will play a similar kingmaker role for a right-wing government, which is generally far more fervent about its nationalism, and thus even less likely to succeed. | ||
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farvacola
United States18824 Posts
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Elmonti
Spain299 Posts
New elections probably won't change much, with the social-democratic PSOE winning but unable to get enough support to form a Goverment from the rest of the parties. Regarding the Catalonian situation, it's extremely complex and it gets worse everyday... the sentence to the separatist leaders seems to anger everyone: the separatists wanted the acquittal for them as they think they are fighting for Catalonia's independence and the right-wing parties wanted even harder sentences. What is undeniable is that they broke the law by calling a one-sided referendum for independence and used public funds to do so, being warned several times that what they were going to do was illegal and had legal consequences... The thing is some people think it is justified as they were fullfilling the voter's mandate (Separatist parties have majority in the regional catalonian parliament); other people think that mandate doesn't come from the majority of the catalonian people (separatist parties received about 45% of votes in 2019 regional elections, 39% voted for unionist parties, and about 15% to a party pretty ambiguous about it, basically in favor of voting but against independence); and finally Law says only the National Parliament can make decisions regarding that stuff (with representation of all the regions, Catalonia, Madrid, Valencia, Basque Country, etc.). It comes to whether beaking the law can be justified by fullfilling the political promises you made to your voters... Fact is we all are surrounded by irresponsible and selfish politicians, in both sides... Truly a sad sad situation... | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
Acro, didn't you use to live in Brazil, or am I mistaking you with someone? Is the unrest in Barcelona a temporary thing or is it now happening often? I am kinda used to meeting protests there, but often they aren't even related to the Catalan issue, just people seem to like to protest stuff in the southern parts of Europe more than we are used to here, probably because it's often too cold to be outside if you don't desperately need to ... | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On October 16 2019 05:33 opisska wrote: Well the law is quite disgraceful - the concept that you can't even push for secession without the rest of the country allowing you to is in direct contradiction with the right to self-determination which is rooted even in the UN Charter - and it basically amounts to oppression. On one hand it's a bit pious to criticize Spain in a world where powers to be squash separatists left and right, on the other, we should judge our own to a higher standard, right? I am gonna meet some of my Catalan friends next week, one of them is an ardent Catalan nationalist, I am looking forward to having dinner with him after the sentences happened Unless outside powers start acknowledging the Catalans as a different people than the rest of Spain the right to self-determination doesn't apply. As with all things including nationalist phrases you won't get a hardcoded scientific definition what it is. It is what it is until someone starts challenging it. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On October 16 2019 05:33 opisska wrote: Well the law is quite disgraceful - the concept that you can't even push for secession without the rest of the country allowing you to is in direct contradiction with the right to self-determination which is rooted even in the UN Charter - and it basically amounts to oppression. The right to self-determination in this literal sense has always been a meme and in Europe we know the quite catastrophic outcomes of this Balkanisation, which is essentially violence. I'm not really sure why anyone should celebrate this ethno/cultural separatism of the Catalonia region as anything other than attempting to hold the rest of the country hostage with disorder and protest. It's extremely sensible that independence movements need to seek the authority of the central government because by definition they are not sovereign. We'd be living in permanent chaos if every region that thinks it knows better than their neighbours were to interfere with the state. Also, Catalonia is not an oppressed region, if anything the primary driver for independence is economic self-interest. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain17970 Posts
On October 17 2019 21:53 Nyxisto wrote: The right to self-determination in this literal sense has always been a meme and in Europe we know the quite catastrophic outcomes of this Balkanisation, which is essentially violence. I'm not really sure why anyone should celebrate this ethno/cultural separatism of the Catalonia region as anything other than attempting to hold the rest of the country hostage with disorder and protest. It's extremely sensible that independence movements need to seek the authority of the central government because by definition they are not sovereign. We'd be living in permanent chaos if every region that thinks it knows better than their neighbours were to interfere with the state. Also, Catalonia is not an oppressed region, if anything the primary driver for independence is economic self-interest. Catalonia isn't really holding the nation hostage, though, despite what I said above. If national politics were not in a state of complete disarray, it would be a fringe issue limited to the region. The region would indeed be locked down with disarray and protests, as it is right now, but they would not have much impact on a national level. The reason this is dominating national politics is mainly because politicians like it as a distraction from their own incompetence in dealing with the actual issue of governing the country. | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
On October 17 2019 21:53 Nyxisto wrote: The right to self-determination in this literal sense has always been a meme and in Europe we know the quite catastrophic outcomes of this Balkanisation, which is essentially violence. I'm not really sure why anyone should celebrate this ethno/cultural separatism of the Catalonia region as anything other than attempting to hold the rest of the country hostage with disorder and protest. It's extremely sensible that independence movements need to seek the authority of the central government because by definition they are not sovereign. We'd be living in permanent chaos if every region that thinks it knows better than their neighbours were to interfere with the state. Also, Catalonia is not an oppressed region, if anything the primary driver for independence is economic self-interest. Please go to the families of people who lost their lives in Balkan wars and tell them they fought for a meme. I would love to see the medical report of what bones they managed to break in your body in afterwards. Balkan led to wars exactly because someone valued power more than other people's right to self-determination. The reason for the violence is the refusal to let go of power over other people - and the utter lack of worldwide support for the right to self-determination, which is caused by selfish interests of almost every nation in the world. Asking the separatists to ask for permission of central authority is not "sensible" it's authoritarian. Anyone who truly believes in democracy has to recognize that it is a farce when people are held under the power of other people by force, even if those other people "democratically" decided to do so simply by the virtue of having a majority in the involuntary union. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On October 18 2019 04:53 opisska wrote: Please go to the families of people who lost their lives in Balkan wars and tell them they fought for a meme. I would love to see the medical report of what bones they managed to break in your body in afterwards. Balkan led to wars exactly because someone valued power more than other people's right to self-determination. The reason for the violence is the refusal to let go of power over other people - and the utter lack of worldwide support for the right to self-determination, which is caused by selfish interests of almost every nation in the world. Asking the separatists to ask for permission of central authority is not "sensible" it's authoritarian. Anyone who truly believes in democracy has to recognize that it is a farce when people are held under the power of other people by force, even if those other people "democratically" decided to do so simply by the virtue of having a majority in the involuntary union. You make a very simple case to leave any form of social system that you don't like, yet demand of the society you leave that they have to acknowledge your rights. I don't think that is how the world should work. Societies are built on social contracts and trust. It is one thing to be against rules, it is another to break them and claim self-determination. | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
On October 18 2019 05:38 Big J wrote: You make a very simple case to leave any form of social system that you don't like, yet demand of the society you leave that they have to acknowledge your rights. I don't think that is how the world should work. Societies are built on social contracts and trust. It is one thing to be against rules, it is another to break them and claim self-determination. A statement like this is simply disingenuous because it ignores the reality of the world we live in. Many current countries have not been "built on social contracts and trust" - it's not a contract of nobody asks you if you are willing to enter it or not. Your view would be perfectly valid if we lived in a world where borders been drawn based on mutual agreement of affected citizens - then obviously breaking such status would be anti-social behavior. But this is remarkably different from what happened - the current countries as we know them are a result of hundreds of years of power play, wars and politics, mostly undertaken with little regard to the wishes of the affected population, in a large part because a lot of the events simply predate any democracy in the areas. In the last hundred years, the humanity has made considerable progress towards more democratic societies and acknowledgment of various human rights, but international politics has lagged to an almost unbelievable respect. When it comes to borders, the existing countries cling to absurd historical arguments, simply because their are beneficial to them (by the virtue of those being the countries that managed to survive to this day). What is worse, they support each other in the fight against the evils of "separatism", because again, it's "beneficial" to them - as they don't want to be losing any territory as well. Why do people cling so hard to the territory they happen to control though? It just doesn't make much sense in the "woke" world of the 21st century and it is honestly sometimes pretty childish. I guess it's a kind of natural instinct of people who seek power to seek as much power as possible and thus those that get in power and in a position to make such decisions, tend to be the most power-hungry and controlling territory somehow scratches their itch for more power - and then they are able to manipulate voters into supporting this silliness by nurturing the illusions of grandeur as well. At the end it boils down to the understandable difficulty in establishing any "planetary government" on a planet which is split into hundreds of mostly ad hoc selfish entities. But one can only hope that this, as many other atrocious configurations we had before, is just a phase in the development of our society and eventually the concern of well-being of every individual prevails over primal tribalism and petty games. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On October 18 2019 05:52 opisska wrote: A statement like this is simply disingenuous because it ignores the reality of the world we live in. Many current countries have not been "built on social contracts and trust" - it's not a contract of nobody asks you if you are willing to enter it or not. Your view would be perfectly valid if we lived in a world where borders been drawn based on mutual agreement of affected citizens - then obviously breaking such status would be anti-social behavior. But this is remarkably different from what happened - the current countries as we know them are a result of hundreds of years of power play, wars and politics, mostly undertaken with little regard to the wishes of the affected population, in a large part because a lot of the events simply predate any democracy in the areas. In the last hundred years, the humanity has made considerable progress towards more democratic societies and acknowledgment of various human rights, but international politics has lagged to an almost unbelievable respect. When it comes to borders, the existing countries cling to absurd historical arguments, simply because their are beneficial to them (by the virtue of those being the countries that managed to survive to this day). What is worse, they support each other in the fight against the evils of "separatism", because again, it's "beneficial" to them - as they don't want to be losing any territory as well. Why do people cling so hard to the territory they happen to control though? It just doesn't make much sense in the "woke" world of the 21st century and it is honestly sometimes pretty childish. I guess it's a kind of natural instinct of people who seek power to seek as much power as possible and thus those that get in power and in a position to make such decisions, tend to be the most power-hungry and controlling territory somehow scratches their itch for more power - and then they are able to manipulate voters into supporting this silliness by nurturing the illusions of grandeur as well. At the end it boils down to the understandable difficulty in establishing any "planetary government" on a planet which is split into hundreds of mostly ad hoc selfish entities. But one can only hope that this, as many other atrocious configurations we had before, is just a phase in the development of our society and eventually the concern of well-being of every individual prevails over primal tribalism and petty games. I agree with what you say for the most part, what you keep on leaving out when it comes to "self-determination" is Popper's "Tolerance Paradoxon", which means you should be intolerant against the intolerant. (if you prefer socialist over liberal phrasing: those that are suppressed must unite as a dictatorship of the working class against the suppressors - same principle, slightly more specialized topic) You cannot allow for universal self-determination, because it allows anti-self-determination societies to exist. And no UN charta is ever going to have me accept a society of murderers. I previously stated that the right to self-determination is way to vague for its usage of the word "a people". I would like to cut down a little on that and add, that it is sharp enough to exclude such examples. And since I, like you, deny historical-cultural arguments for what "a people" is, I do not think that Catalonia, like Austria or much of the Balkans, has a very good claim to be a fully independent state. All of these countries wouldn't be where they are without international trade, migration and other forms of exchange. The notion that they should be allowed to freely retract on that as an independent state is an assault on their own people. The notion that the rest of the world has to keep up trade and other connections with them is an assault on the self-determination of people in other countries. We should be intolerant against those notions and create much more excessive groundrules which forms of self-determination we internationally accept and which we don't. | ||
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Elmonti
Spain299 Posts
1- Please, don't compare the Catalunya situation with the one in the Balcans in the 90s... It's a huge lack of respect for them... It would be more similar to Scotland or Quebec. 2- Catalonia is not a colony nor it is opressed ("opressed" doesn't mean "they won't let me do whatever I want breaking the Constitution I voted in 1978"), and it has never been in the last 2 centuries, so the UN self-determination stuff cannot be applied to them. It's one of the richest regions, the second one with the highest inversion from the State (after Andalucía: www.lavanguardia.com) and it is considered the most important region along with Madrid in general terms). Some people are burning cars or public stuff, or blocking roads or train tracks... If you call opression the fact that Police (both State Police and Catalonian police, the Mossos D'esquadra, controlled by the catalonian regional goverment) are trying to control the riots... 3- You should know, Catalonian separatis movement has been pushed these last few years by a right wing middle-upper class aristocracy (CIU party, with HUGE corruption issues, just like the spanish PP) who has been getting more and more power thanks to supporting both PP and PSOE so that they could form a Goverment... The catalonian independence movement is an economic movement: "We produce a lot of wealthy and we feel we don't get back what wee should, so we want to be independent and keep that wealthy to ourselves". That can be seen from many angels: some think it's logic and deserved, some think it's a lack of solidarity, etc... So here we are, we have left-wing youngsters protesting in the street so that those right-wing guys from the Catalonian goverment don't have to share the power/money/corruption with the Spanish goverment. 4- When you talk to your friends, whether they are hardcore spanish nationalists or ardent catalonian independent, keep that in mind and approach their arguments with a bit of criticism... Things usually aren't white or black, and both sides will paint it that way... | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25035 Posts
On October 18 2019 17:45 Big J wrote: I agree with what you say for the most part, what you keep on leaving out when it comes to "self-determination" is Popper's "Tolerance Paradoxon", which means you should be intolerant against the intolerant. (if you prefer socialist over liberal phrasing: those that are suppressed must unite as a dictatorship of the working class against the suppressors - same principle, slightly more specialized topic) You cannot allow for universal self-determination, because it allows anti-self-determination societies to exist. And no UN charta is ever going to have me accept a society of murderers. I previously stated that the right to self-determination is way to vague for its usage of the word "a people". I would like to cut down a little on that and add, that it is sharp enough to exclude such examples. And since I, like you, deny historical-cultural arguments for what "a people" is, I do not think that Catalonia, like Austria or much of the Balkans, has a very good claim to be a fully independent state. All of these countries wouldn't be where they are without international trade, migration and other forms of exchange. The notion that they should be allowed to freely retract on that as an independent state is an assault on their own people. The notion that the rest of the world has to keep up trade and other connections with them is an assault on the self-determination of people in other countries. We should be intolerant against those notions and create much more excessive groundrules which forms of self-determination we internationally accept and which we don't. I really don’t understand why we can’t both accede to self-determination while maintaining some degree of cohesion. Some people are romantic nationalist types who buy into the myths of nation, I’m more a pragmatically minded soul myself. When something starts becoming politically dysfunctional due to fundamental differences between populations, it leads to practical problems. Regardless of those being necessarily national identity-focused in scope. While no perfect institution it would seem to me that the EU is a rather well suited body to facilitate smooth transitions into smaller nation states while maintaining a consistent set of rules regarding trade and various other things, at least within Europe obviously. This is of course not to say that the solution to any issue of internal division is to just split into smaller and smaller states, or a particular comment on current protests in Catalonia. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25035 Posts
On October 18 2019 19:23 Elmonti wrote: @Opisska 1- Please, don't compare the Catalunya situation with the one in the Balcans in the 90s... It's a huge lack of respect for them... It would be more similar to Scotland or Quebec. 2- Catalonia is not a colony nor it is opressed ("opressed" doesn't mean "they won't let me do whatever I want breaking the Constitution I voted in 1978"), and it has never been in the last 2 centuries, so the UN self-determination stuff cannot be applied to them. It's one of the richest regions, the second one with the highest inversion from the State (after Andalucía: www.lavanguardia.com) and it is considered the most important region along with Madrid in general terms). Some people are burning cars or public stuff, or blocking roads or train tracks... If you call opression the fact that Police (both State Police and Catalonian police, the Mossos D'esquadra, controlled by the catalonian regional goverment) are trying to control the riots... 3- You should know, Catalonian separatis movement has been pushed these last few years by a right wing middle-upper class aristocracy (CIU party, with HUGE corruption issues, just like the spanish PP) who has been getting more and more power thanks to supporting both PP and PSOE so that they could form a Goverment... The catalonian independence movement is an economic movement: "We produce a lot of wealthy and we feel we don't get back what wee should, so we want to be independent and keep that wealthy to ourselves". That can be seen from many angels: some think it's logic and deserved, some think it's a lack of solidarity, etc... So here we are, we have left-wing youngsters protesting in the street so that those right-wing guys from the Catalonian goverment don't have to share the power/money/corruption with the Spanish goverment. 4- When you talk to your friends, whether they are hardcore spanish nationalists or ardent catalonian independent, keep that in mind and approach their arguments with a bit of criticism... Things usually aren't white or black, and both sides will paint it that way... I wish more people were aware of point 3. There’s a tendency amongst my Irish-relating brethren over here to jump to solidarity with any kind of secessionist nationalism and imposing the Britain/Ireland framework over it when it doesn’t always apply at all. Sometimes reasonably appropriately, such as with a general sentiment of Palestine solidarity, not always as in this case in my view. I don’t think it’s helped by people’s relative lack of historical literacy and relative lack of contemporary literacy regarding Spain. Quite a few have read up on the Spanish Civil War for example, but aren’t particularly familiar with modern Spain so they impose a framework of the Spain of Franco vs the lefty Catalans which just isn’t accurate in that crude sense. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain17970 Posts
On October 18 2019 19:23 Elmonti wrote: @Opisska 1- Please, don't compare the Catalunya situation with the one in the Balcans in the 90s... It's a huge lack of respect for them... It would be more similar to Scotland or Quebec. 2- Catalonia is not a colony nor it is opressed ("opressed" doesn't mean "they won't let me do whatever I want breaking the Constitution I voted in 1978"), and it has never been in the last 2 centuries, so the UN self-determination stuff cannot be applied to them. It's one of the richest regions, the second one with the highest inversion from the State (after Andalucía: www.lavanguardia.com) and it is considered the most important region along with Madrid in general terms). Some people are burning cars or public stuff, or blocking roads or train tracks... If you call opression the fact that Police (both State Police and Catalonian police, the Mossos D'esquadra, controlled by the catalonian regional goverment) are trying to control the riots... 3- You should know, Catalonian separatis movement has been pushed these last few years by a right wing middle-upper class aristocracy (CIU party, with HUGE corruption issues, just like the spanish PP) who has been getting more and more power thanks to supporting both PP and PSOE so that they could form a Goverment... The catalonian independence movement is an economic movement: "We produce a lot of wealthy and we feel we don't get back what wee should, so we want to be independent and keep that wealthy to ourselves". That can be seen from many angels: some think it's logic and deserved, some think it's a lack of solidarity, etc... So here we are, we have left-wing youngsters protesting in the street so that those right-wing guys from the Catalonian goverment don't have to share the power/money/corruption with the Spanish goverment. 4- When you talk to your friends, whether they are hardcore spanish nationalists or ardent catalonian independent, keep that in mind and approach their arguments with a bit of criticism... Things usually aren't white or black, and both sides will paint it that way... Regarding point 2: if you think Franco didn't specifically target the Catalan region or culture, you need to study your history better. Catalunya was definitely oppressed during Franco's regime. Not saying Franco was good for other parts of Spain, but political oppression hit the minority cultures, as he took a page out of the Bourbon kings' playbook in how he wanted to homogenize Spain, with a single language. Didn't help that Catalunya was also one of the regions that fought longest and hardest *against* Franco in the civil war, so he had an axe to grind with them anyway. Other than that, I agree with everything you said. Catalunya currently is not oppressed by the Spanish government. It's worth noting that the national government has a history of playing foul here too. This all started when the constitutional court struck down the "statute of autonomy" in 2010. Had that simply been accepted, the independence movement would never have gone anywhere. And I still don't understand that decision by the courts. Firstly, the very fact that the tribunal was allowed to convene at all is questionable. Some judges came out of retirement just to vote on this issue, and without them the court wouldn't even have had enough members to make a ruling, mainly because the government was intentionally stalling on appointing new judges to the court in order to get this issue ruled on first. Second, I don't even see how the courts had the power to strike down a lot of what they did. I understand that stipulating bits about language, but striking down the fiscal and tax agreements that had already been negotiated between the federal government and the catalan government, doesn't seem like something the constitutional court should be able to do, as the constitution quite explicitly leaves the fiscal arrangements up to lawmakers. Anyway, it was done, and that got the ball rolling. I noticed the difference almost overnight, with many people questioning how much "autonomous communities" even meant if the courts could simply overrule negotiated statutes that had been approved by referendum (an apathetic, shoddy and barely legal referendum, but it met the minimum requirements). Another thing my separatist friends love to point out is that the Spanish Constitution was drafted during a very precarious period and many feared the nation would be plunged into another civil war if the constitution was not passed rapidly and with an overwhelming majority. Moreover, as I said above, Catalonia was oppressed during Franco's time so *any* democratic government was seen as a vast improvement over that previous status quo. Hell, the constitution gave Catalans the right to speak Catalan in the street again. That alone would have gotten people to vote in favor. But that doesn't mean the constitution shouldn't be revised now. That is a huge can of worms, but one that the national government has categorically shut down any time it is brought up (and Catalonia isn't the only one who thinks having a national discussion about the constitution would be a good idea... they have support on that from various political sides). None of this excuses using public funds to organize an unconstitutional referendum and then unilaterally declaring independence. But simply pointing to Catalonia and saying "look at those traitors" as the PP and Cs like to do, or pointing to Madrid and screaming "oppression" as Catalan politicians like to do is getting us nowhere other than escalating into an increasingly polarized society. | ||
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