European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 952

On September 26 2017 08:01 Sent. wrote:


I assume few bankers would be jailed, then the banking system would collapse due to some populistic "reforms" and we would be in a middle of giant economic crisis right now, while the rest of the bankers would laugh at us poor peasants from their estates outside of the reach of the European law enforcement.

On September 26 2017 08:04 TheDwf wrote:

And I think we would have some bankers in jail + a more stable banking system with healthier regulation... and less debts to pay.

On September 26 2017 08:07 sc-darkness wrote:


What if this causes hysteria? It might sound shocking to you but I know at least one bank which has bankrupt due to hysteria and people withdrawing their money in response.

On September 26 2017 08:08 TheDwf wrote:

What would cause hysteria?

On September 26 2017 08:09 sc-darkness wrote:


People's Court? This actually reminds me about something... You know what regime used that? Communism.

Spain’s attorney general has refused to rule out the possibility of arresting the Catalan president, as the region’s pro-sovereignty government prepares to defy Madrid by holding an independence referendum on Sunday.

José Manuel Maza said that Carles Puigdemont could face action for disobedience, breaching public duties and misuse of public funds for proceeding with the poll after Spain’s constitutional court suspended the hastily passed legislation underpinning the vote.

Maza said the regional president could be arrested for misuse of public funds as the crime carries a jail sentence. On Monday, he told Onda Cero radio that although such a move had not been judged “timely” as yet, adding: “It’s a decision that’s always available.”

Speaking days after Spanish police arrested 14 Catalan officials, seized almost 10m ballot papers and chartered ferries to accommodate the thousands of extra police officers who are being sent to Catalonia to stop the referendum, Maza rejected suggestions that the government was being heavy-handed.

“On the contrary, we’re making an effort every day not to go beyond what the law allows and, of course, not to be disproportionate,” he said.

Puigdemont, however, has accused the Spanish government of acting “beyond the limits of a respectable democracy” in its effort to stop the vote. He has promised to declare independence within 48 hours of a victory for the yes campaign.

The Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has repeatedly said the unilateral referendum will not be allowed to take place because it is illegal and a clear breach of the constitution.

Speaking to reporters in Barcelona on Sunday, the Spanish infrastructure minister, Iñigo de la Serna, said the vote would not happen and rubbished talk of a unilateral declaration of independence.

“As far as we’re concerned, what is proposed for 1 October lacks all the normal guarantees and therefore has nothing to do with a referendum,” said Iñigo de la Serna. “To be a referendum, it has to be legal, and if it’s not, it’s something else.”

He repeated the government’s assertion that it was willing to enter into dialogue if the Catalan government abandoned its attempt to hold a referendum, but said there were currently no meetings planned between the Spanish and Catalan administrations.

On September 27 2017 05:43 Big J wrote:
Since I assume that most of us are still rather young I have some breaking news for everyone: "Acquiring property is a good way to prevent poverty in old age for young people."
Thank god for conservatives. I would be totally lost without their guidance. I'm off now, gonna buy some nice big flat in Vienna tonight. It's just that easy and I never saw it! Tomorrow I'm gonna start eating cake instead of bread. What glorious times we live in!

On Sunday, September 17, Juan Ignacio Zoido, Spain’s Twitter-happy minister of the interior, posted a strange video on his feed. The 24-second clip showed scores of boxes the authorities had seized, most still in their original packaging, located in a nondescript warehouse. Had they found drugs? No. Money? Also no. As the camera approached, it showed a poster with “Sí” in bold, block letters. The Spanish police, it turned out, had confiscated 1.3 million posters, fliers, and pamphlets calling for a “Yes” vote in the upcoming Catalan referendum on independence, which is scheduled to take place across the region on October 1. Hours later, Interior Ministry officials posted a DEA-style picture on Twitter of their entire loot.

The police confiscations indicate the degree to which tensions between the central government in Madrid and Catalonia’s regional government in Barcelona, known as the Generalitat, have escalated in recent weeks. As it turned out, they were only the first salvo in a series of draconian measures that have left many Catalans and Spaniards reeling, pushing the country to the edge of its most serious constitutional crisis since the end of the Franco dictatorship.

Once Catalonia announced the referendum in early September, Madrid immediately launched an appeal with the country’s Constitutional Court, which then proceeded to suspend the measures while it considered their legality—a process that can take many months. Spain’s 1978 Constitution grants the region limited autonomy, including the right to its own parliament, language, and police force, but also declares Spain “indivisible.” As such, there are no provisions for regional secession, and referenda of any kind can only be issued by the central state, for the entire state.

President of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont and other Catalan leaders have declared their intention to proceed with the October 1 referendum anyway. According to leaders in Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s administration, the Catalan president and his cabinet’s brazen acts of disobedience may be punished with stiff fines and prison sentences, including years of disbarment from active politics. (Some of them have been prosecuted for conducting a similar referendum in 2014.)

“We will apply the law in its full force,” Rajoy, the conservative leader of Spain’s Popular Party (PP), announced in early September. The key word, it turns out, was “force.” On September 13 and again on September 16, the national police shuttered Catalonia’s official referendum website. On September 14, the Supreme Court of Catalonia ordered the national police to compile a list of media organizations that were running referendum ads, marking them as possible targets for criminal proceedings. On September 19, the Spanish Finance Ministry took over the Catalan treasury; it even ordered that banks block the credit cards of the Generalitat in compliance with the national court’s suspension of the referendum. On September 20, Madrid announced that it was sending some 4,000 riot police to Catalonia to help “maintain order” in the run-up to the referendum. (Given the lack of housing, they are being lodged in several chartered cruise ships anchored in Catalan harbors; the fact that one of them features gigantic images of Looney Tunes characters has provided some comic relief.)
Also on September 20, the national police raided several offices of the Generalitat and arrested 14 officials, including the second-in-command of Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras, who were charged with disobedience, misuse of funds, and sedition. The Constitutional Court then proceeded to impose individual fines of between $7,000 and $14,000 for every day they continued to work on the referendum. To shelter the officials from this liability, the Catalan government had no choice but to relieve them of their duties—in effect dissolving the governing body responsible for safeguarding the referendum’s integrity. On September 23, Zoido’s Interior Ministry announced it was taking over command of Catalonia’s autonomous police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, although the measure was presented as a mere issue of “coordination.”

According to article 155 of Spain’s Constitution, the central government may revoke a region’s autonomy if it poses a “serious threat” to the country’s interest. Despite not formally invoking the article, which would require a previous parliamentary procedure, Rajoy’s summary decision to take control of Catalonia’s finances and security apparatus has effectively revoked any autonomy the region had. To many, his bypassing of Parliament and reliance on a politicized judiciary point to an erosion of Spanish democracy.

Throughout the entire process, Rajoy has insisted that his government is simply “enforcing the law” and not “entering into the provocation” that the Catalan government is angling for. But many would argue that it is Rajoy who is the provocateur. His administration’s disproportionate measures have not only showcased its tone-deafness, but have, for many, also conjured the specter of Spain’s dictatorial past. Speaking at a meeting of left-wing parties looking to negotiate a state-sponsored referendum, Alberto Garzón, the leader of United Left, a left-wing coalition that includes the Spanish Communist Party, called the central government’s measures “characteristic of the Francoist dictatorship.” Rajoy, he said, was “a coward” for “hiding behind the law instead of taking a political position.”

Indeed, were Rajoy to pronounce his political position on Catalan independence, he’d have to confess to his deep-seated attachment to a unified Spain. His brand of Spanish nationalism is eerily close to that of erstwhile dictator Francisco Franco, a diehard centralist for whom the unity and cultural homogeneity of Spain was sacred. “Without doing so formally, Rajoy has decreed a state of exception,” Benet Salellas, a member of the Catalan parliament for the left-wing, assembly-based Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), told us, referencing the concept developed by the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt in Weimar Germany. In his indignant reaction to the arrests on September 20, Catalan President Puigdemont used the same phrase.

Given the battery of confiscations, prohibitions, and arrests, will the Catalans get to vote at all on self-determination on October 1? “It’s anybody’s guess,” Guillem Martínez, a journalist in Barcelona who writes for the weekly CTXT, told us the day after a million Catalans took to the streets on September 11, Catalonia’s National Day, to defend their right to vote. “Literally no one knows what will happen.”

While the repressive measures taken so far have certainly made a region-wide vote more difficult, the Catalans refuse to give up. In a nationally televised interview aired on September 24, Catalan President Puigdemont vowed to go ahead with the referendum. Meanwhile, the arrests of September 20 have prompted massive, ongoing demonstrations in Barcelona and elsewhere. More remarkable even is the fact that Rajoy’s heavy-handed response has sparked acts of solidarity across the country. Bilbao and San Sebastián, in the Basque Country, have seen protests over the past fortnight in support of the Catalan referendum. The Basque group Gure Esku Dago (“In Our Hands”), which organized the protests in Bilbao, has called for a major demonstration on September 30, the day before the scheduled vote in Catalonia. (Elsewhere, in Zaragoza, radical-right Spanish nationalists took to the streets to demand that the Catalan “traitors” be executed.)

On September 27 2017 06:28 TheDwf wrote:

Just fly back in time...

https://twitter.com/PeterStefanovi2/status/909034709468028930

On September 27 2017 07:02 Big J wrote:


If you showed this to a conservative they would probably feel confirmed. After all you must imagine how much taxes a fireman - that totally gets 200k nowadays because that's just how the economy works - must have to pay. Those damn socialist, don't they see that lowering the peak taxes is totally in the interest of people like fireman?

On September 26 2017 23:53 Broetchenholer wrote:
Are there more then economical reasons for the independence of the catalonians? The Kingdom of Aragon ceased to be independent in the 15th century, and even though the Catalonians were not quite as integrated for the first centuries, that's an awfully long time to reverse in the 21st century. Considering that Spain and France are the longest standing centralized countries in Europe, it would mean every other european state could over night brake apart. Or am i completely unaware of the long struggle of the catalonians to break off after 1689? My german Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg has probably less that binds it to a centralized german Country then Catalonia to Spain.

Donald Trump: “It would be foolish of Catalonia not to stay with Spain"

"I bet you if you had accurate numbers and accurate polling, you’d find that they love their country, they love Spain."
DONALD TRUMP ON THE CATALANS

On September 28 2017 00:23 Godwrath wrote:
Define a large number of catalans. If we take the plebiscite they did back in 2015 during elections as any reference: They lost it, but pretty much it's a 50/50. So yeah, it's pretty large imo, atleast enough to deserve an honest debate.

I don't have any numbers for spanish, but it's a right+center vs left divide. So while i am sure there is a good chunk of the population who doesn't mind catalonia having their a (legal) referendum, the center and the right won't and they are the majority (called constitutionalists).