Col·lectiu Emma

Cancel·lada la conferència a Vic

2012-02-01T22:02:00.000+01:00

La conferència que feia aquest dijous a Vic s'ha cancel·lat per la previsió del temps a Osona.

És previst fer-la més endavant.

Lamentem els inconvenients.

Conferència a Vic el 2 de febrer: "Catalunya al món: com som i no com diuen que som"

2012-01-30T20:10:00.001+01:00

El proper dijous 2 de febrer Salvador Garcia, promotor del Col·lectiu Emma, farà la conferència "Catalunya al món: com som i no com diuen que som".

Lloc: Llibreria La Tralla: C. de la Riera, 5 - Vic
Hora: 20.30h

Més informació clickant aquí.

Regional governments are responsible for less than 20% of Spain’s debt and for 33% of its 2011 deficit

2012-01-14T18:03:00.000+01:00

(Recommended article published at the Catalan News Agency)

Barcelona (ACN).- In the last number of weeks, the Autonomous Community governments have been blamed even further for Spain’s deficit, even at an international level, and therefore agreeing with the Spanish Government and Spanish nationalists. However, simple and transparent data show that regional governments are not the only ones responsible for Spain’s deficit and debt, quite the contrary. 62% of the 2011 deficit depends on the Central Government as well as 75% of Spain’s public debt. The Central Government is behind 50% of Spain’s public spending. Regional governments control 40% of the total spending and are responsible for the main welfare policies (healthcare, education, social grants, public transportation, etc), whose costs increase in times of crisis, while revenue levels decrease. However, despite these facts, the regional governments have been blamed. Olli Rehn, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs is the latest person to blame the Autonomous Communities. At a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday he said: “It is lamentable that Spain exceeded its deficit, apparently in a quite a substantial manner, mainly because of the excessive spending of its regional governments”. Spanish nationalists have campaigned against the Autonomies and it is beginning to bear its fruits abroad. The Catalan Minister for the Economy and Knowledge, Andreu Mas-Colell, denounced these facts in an open letter to the New York Times published on Wednesday. Mas-Colell’s letter is an answer to a previous article from the American newspaper focusing on the overspending of the Autonomous Communities. Mas-Colell, who in the past was an economics professor at Harvard University, stressed in his letter that the article “placed excessive responsibility on the regions for the fiscal problems of Spain”. The Catalan Finance Minister also warned of the Spanish nationalists’ plans to alter Spain’s decentralisation, recovered after Franco’s death.

The Catalan Finance Minister addressed a letter to the New York Times’ editor, which was published in Wednesday’s edition. Mas-Colell said “the largest public budget and deficit and most of the regulatory power over fiscal and expenditure issues lie with the central Spanish administration”. Furthermore, he stressed the will and the need that both the Catalan and the Spanish governments work together and cooperate to reduce the deficit in all public administrations. “What the situation demands is a concerted effort by central and regional administrations for the success of fiscal consolidation”, he proposed, instead of using the financial crisis as a way to change Spain’s political organisation.

Spanish nationalists want to reverse Spain’s decentralisation process

The Catalan Minister for Economics and Knowledge, Andreu Mas-Colell, clearly condemned the objective of Spanish nationalists and warned of not reviewing history and thus Spain’s territorial and political organisation. Mas-Colell alerted, “The matter is a sensitive one, as not everyone in Spain is reconciled to the post-Franco transformation of the country.” He added “there is now the temptation, with the economic crisis as an excuse, to turn back the clock.”

The Spanish Government has decided not to take the blame for Spain’s deficit and debt. And Spanish nationalists have decided to use the current debt crisis to push for a recentralisation of the country, taking powers away from the Autonomous Communities.

Data clearly show that the Autonomies are not the main administration responsible for Spain’s financial problems

Data clearly show that the blame should be taken by the Central Government, and not the Autonomies. In 2011, the autonomous communities will have a public deficit of 2.7%, according to the latest data released by the Spanish Government. The Central Government will have a deficit of 5%, almost double that figure. Overall, Spain will have a 8% public deficit (the rest corresponds to local and municipal governments). The Central Government manages 50% of public spending in the country and the regional governments around 40%, although some such as Catalonia’s manage a larger quantity as they have more devolved powers. In addition, regional governments manage the most expensive and socially-rooted policies (healthcare, education, social grants, public transportation, etc.), which are very difficult to cut from one year to the next and whose costs increase in times of crisis. Furthermore, regional governments have limited control over revenue, as they have very limited fiscal autonomy and depend on Spanish Government transfers –which are not always made despite the legal obligation to do so-. On the contrary, the Spanish Government has much more room to control its revenue, and also its spending. Despite these facts, the Spanish Government is responsible for 75% of the country’s public debt, while the Autonomous Communities share represents less than 20%.

Catalogna in pillole

2012-01-13T21:01:00.001+01:00

El bon amic i col·laborador del Col·lectiu Emma Marco Giralucci ha publicat a Spaghetti BCN, la pàgina web dels italians a Barcelona, una entrevista amb el professor venecià Patrizio Rigobon, que parla de literatura catalana. Aprofitem per recomanar molt especialment tota la sèrie de Catalogna in pillole, unes entrevistes en vídeo molt curtes que són una magnífica introducció a la realitat catalana per a la gent de fora.

Lliçons al Financial Times? (II)

2012-01-12T22:00:00.000+01:00

(article publicat al blog de Salvador Garcia, membre del Col·lectiu Emma)

Fa un temps vaig escriure sobre una entrevista de Manel Fuentes a Victor Mallet, corresponsal del Financial Times. Avui, sant tornem-hi.

Escolteu l’entrevista. Hi ha un tema de formes. I hi ha un tema de fons: és el Financial Times responsable de la imatge que s’està projectant de que les autonomies, i en especial Catalunya, són les principals responsables de la situació financera de l’estat espanyol?

Algunes notes. Primer, l’incompliment del dèficit públic espanyol s’explica principalment per les CCAA (la major part del dèficit és de l’estat, però l’excés de dèficit és de les autonomies; per l’espoli fiscal i per l’incompliment dels compromisos de l’estat en el cas de Catalunya, però de forma agregada és degut a les CCAA). Segon, aquest focus en les autonomies no és exclusiu del Financial Times sinó de molts mitjans i agències de ràting, fruit d’una campanya deliberada des de Madrid que des del Col·lectiu Emma estem avisant des de fa un any i mig (arran un article del Business Week). I tercer, el Financial Times ha explicat els “centralising instincts” del nou Govern espanyol i en el passat ha parlat del dèficit fiscal català. L’evolució del Financial Times és positiva i insuficient, però no és el culpable dels nostres greuges financers.

Amb tot això el que vull dir és que si la premsa internacional apunta a les CCAA és en part perquè el sistema autonòmic espanyol és car i ineficient. I que si apunta a Catalunya és també en part perquèel deute públic català s’ha desbocat, des de Catalunya ens hem comparat amb Grècia, i perquè no s’ha fet una acció decidida i eficaç a nivell internacional per canviar aquesta imatge. I el Financial Times s’apunta a aquesta tendència, però també dóna la visió catalana del dèficit fiscal i de l’onada centralitzadora de Madrid.

Potser els catalans enlloc de buscar els culpables de tots els nostres mals a fora de Catalunya (Madrid o el Financial Times) fem el que depèn de nosaltres: pedagogia interna a Catalunya de l’espoli fiscal; i pedagogia externa a mitjans i comunitat internacional de l’ofec econòmic de Catalunya. Les declaracions del President Mas a Londres i la carta del Conseller Mas-Colell al New York Times van en aquesta direcció, i tan de bo siguin el preludi d’una ofensiva en aquesta línia (estic expressant més un desig que una convicció).

Els problemes de Catalunya no són culpa del Financial Times. Això és com culpar a la crisi a les agències de ràting oblidant la responsabilitat de cadascú de nosaltres (persones, institucions i govern). El món ens veu com una província espanyola perquè, administrativa i políticament, és el que som. El deute i dèficit heretat del Tripartit és tan real com desmesurat. El sistema de finançament actual va estar avalat per l’anterior Govern, que incloïa un partit independentista. I el nou Govern dóna suport a les mesures econòmiques del Govern de l’estat. Vaja, que abans de culpar a Madrid o al Financial Times potser els catalans ens fem mirar si tenim allò que ens mereixem o, més masoquista encara, si de fet ja tenim allò que de veritat volem.

Spain’s Debt: The View From Barcelona

2012-01-11T13:47:00.000+01:00

(Minister Minister of Economy and Knowledge of Catalonia Andreu Mas-Colell reply published at the New York Times)

To the Editor:

“Regional Debts Add Woe in Spain” (front page, Dec. 31) placed excessive responsibility on the regions for the fiscal problems of Spain. In truth, the largest public budget and deficit and most of the regulatory power over fiscal and expenditure issues lie with the central Spanish administration.

The matter is a sensitive one, as not everyone in Spain is reconciled to the post-Franco transformation of the country. There is now the temptation, with the economic crisis as an excuse, to turn back the clock. On the contrary, what the situation demands is a concerted effort by central and regional administrations for the success of fiscal consolidation.

The year-old, austerity-minded government of Catalonia is looking forward to working with the new Spanish government in furthering this aim.

ANDREU MAS-COLELL
Minister of Economy and Knowledge of Catalonia
Barcelona, Spain, Jan. 9, 2012

L'Emma busca amics

2012-01-08T17:50:00.000+01:00

(article de Josep Gifreu publicat a El Temps)

Un article m’ha servit de consol per a cloure aquest fatídic 2011 i curiosament parla d’economia. No m’agraden els economistes quan volen explicar les causes de la crisi, ni els polítics quan atribueixen a la mà negra dels mercats totes les culpes de l’estat del malestar.

En canvi, l’article en qüestió comença amb un citació d’André Gide que fa: “M’agraden les nacions petites. M’agraden els petits nombres. El món serà salvat per uns pocs”. Aquest memorable article acaba de publicar-se a Harvard, a la Harvard Kennedy School Review.

L’autor és Adam Price, parlamentari gal·lès del Plaid Cimru entre el 2001 i el 2010, fill de miner, declarat socialista i independentista. El títol és prou eloqüent: “Small is Cute, Sexy, and Succesful: Why Independence for Wales and Other Countries Makes Economic Sense”.

Eloqüent i explícit respecte del que hi sosté: que les petites nacions europees obtenen uns resultats econòmics molt millors que les grans. Un dels seus arguments és especialment contundent. Compara el PIB de dues regions veïnes i petites del centre d’Europa com són Luxemburg (independent, mig milió d’habitants) amb el Sarre (estat federat d’Alemanya, un milió).

El PIB de Luxemburg ve a ser el doble que el del Sarre. I argumenta l’autor que aquesta petita regió metal·lúrgica entre la Lorena i Luxemburg ha pagat el preu de preferir Alemanya a la seva independència en el referèndum del 1955. La seva conclusió és òbvia: la independència de Gal·les (tres milions d’habitants) aportaria molta més prosperitat econòmica al país que no l’actual dependència d’Anglaterra.

He tingut coneixement i accés a aquest text gràcies a la recomanació dels amics de l’Emma, que ja són prop d’un miler. Més ben dit, gràcies a l’Emma i la seva activa vigilància del que es publica sobre Catalunya a la premsa internacional. Perquè Emma és el nom d’un col·lectiu d’una dotzena de persones que, des de diferents talaies d’arreu del món, fan aquest seguiment sobre “la qüestió catalana”, ja sigui per contestar la sovint esbiaixada visió dels corresponsals estrangers a Madrid, ja sigui per recomanar textos internacionals favorables a la causa catalana.

Si vosaltres, amics lectors, voleu donar suport a la causa de l’Emma, podeu apuntar-vos al web dels amics del col·lectiu. La internacionalització del projecte català de sobirania és ara una prioritat.

A Public Reply to the Financial Times (VII)

2012-01-05T17:23:00.000+01:00

Sirs,

Your correspondent is right to point up the "centralising instincts" of the new Spanish government ("Madrid targets regions in austerity drive", January 4, 2012). Tellingly, the economy minister himself is quoted saying that the present financial difficulties are "an opportunity to impose hard conditions" on the regions. You can be sure that these conditions will not be just financial but largely political. Relating in particular to Catalonia, a productive community which makes a huge contribution to the state and to the welfare of other regions, even to the detriment of some its own basic needs, and finds itself choked by Spain's discriminatory fiscal policies. Now its short-term liquidity problems, which would be easily solved if Catalans had control over their own money, can be used as an excuse to reimpose central rule and to undermine the thorn in the side of every Spanish government that is the reality of a Catalan national identity.

The Rain In Spain Falls Mainly On The Journalists, It Seems

by Edward Hugh

Things in Spain are never exactly what they seem to be. This is a painful lesson that even Angela Merkel must have learnt in recent days, especially since she put her credibility so much on the line in backing the country’s deficit reduction efforts. “Spain has really done its homework and I think it is on the right track,” is the message she has been trying to sell to the world.

Naturally then she will not have been amused to learn last Friday that rather than the 6% promised under the Spanish stability programme, the country’s deficit in 2011 is going to be something like 8%. Some sort of overshoot was long being anticipated, but such an overshoot? Naturally it isn’t (quite) Greek proportions, but it is still hardly evidence for a credible and praiseworthy effort. This is the thing about Spain, it obviously isn’t Greece, but still all isn’t quite what it should be. Add to this deficit result the fact that the Bank of Spain is reported to be frantically pressuring banks into revising the valuation of their property asssets following the publication by ratings agency Fitch of a report which claims they are currently on average 43% overvalued. And, of course, any major downward revaluation of the repossesed assets will give an entirely new reading for the balance sheets of many of the institutions involved (the Caja de Ahorros del Mediterraneo went from having a 50 million euro profit at the end of 2010 to 1.7 billion euros in losses in June 2011 following the application of just such a mark-to-market procedure – and the savings bank was finally sold to Banc Sabadell for the princely sum of one euro). Put two and two together here, and it is clear that the country’s bond spread may once more be in for a bumpy ride when investors finally recover from their yuletide hangovers.

Excuses are, of course, already being prepared for this lamentable state of affairs, and in particular the argument is being run that in fact the responsibility here does not lie with Spain’s central government (which was entirely composed of choirboys and girls), but with a lamentable set of constitutional arrangements which give far too much spending power and control to the country’s regional governments. To some extent this is true, but as I say, it is important not to take everything here at face value, since as ever, all is not what it is made out to be.

This advice could, as it happens, have proved useful to New York Times reporter Suzanne Daly who vertently or inadvertently seems to have been taken for a complete ride with the article she wrote for the newspaper last Friday. The focus of the article was purportedly on regional extravagance in Spain, but in the event she seems to have allowed herself to be used to float a political agenda which primarily seeks to take the attention away from the country’s central government, and the responsibility it has for the current lamentable state of affairs. Naturally examples of regional extravagance certainly abound (hell, the entire country was living beyond its means), but I started to smell a rat when I saw the example she chose to highlight in her article – the prison at Puig de Les Bases, Figueres (which just happens to be located only a few kilometres from where I live).

What worried me is that the prison you can see in the photo above is NOT an example of something that isn’t needed, like a phantom airport, or a golf course where no one will ever play golf. The problem with Puig de Les Bases is not that there aren’t prisoners waiting to be moved there from the two outdated prisons which are scheduled to close (there are, 300 of them, to which can be added an additional 450 once the new one is open). No, the problem here is that there isn’t enough money to run the place after it opens. This situation is not untypical, since many town halls and regional governments, not to mention the central government itself with its new high speed train network that the country can ill afford, find that they invested money on projects using the extraordinary income they were receiving during the years of “excess” but that now they don’t have the current revenue to keep the facilities created operating.

In fact Suzanne Daly does notice this, but she seems to get so carried away with the force of her own rhetoric that she doesn’t catch the significance of the point.

“Evidence of the regional profligacy dots the countryside. On the top of a hill here in the birthplace of Salvador Dalí, in northeastern Spain sits a giant, empty penitentiary. But even without a single prisoner in residence, the prison is costing Spain’s heavily indebted regional government of Catalonia $1.3 million a month, largely in interest payments. If prisoners were actually moved in, it would cost an additional $2.6 million a month. So it sits empty, an object of ridicule around here, often referred to as the “spa.” ”

So the question is, is this an example of regional profligacy, or an example of cuts which are biting, and a country which is coming to terms with its new reality?

The issue, however, goes deeper. The offending prison is in Catalonia, and Catalonia is a region which has long been seriously underfunded by the central government – indeed as was suggested by the regional minister of economics, Andreu Mas Colell, it looks suspiciously like the central government were not paying funds owing to some key regional governments to make the regional deficit look worse, and the central deficit look better.

Mas Colell who is a former Harvard professor, and distinguished micro-economist in his own right, recently told the central government that it should be ashamed of itself for withholding money which legally belonged to someone else (in this case 759 million euros for investments which have already been completed) and basically acting in complete bad faith.

“Els hauria de caure la cara de vergonya”, “és una mala jugada poc honorable i que no oblidarem”, “estan fugint i fent servir excuses de mal pagador”, “són molt poc exemplars”, “no poden desentendre’s amb arguments pobres”, “els avergonyirem”. Són algunes de els expressions que ha utilitzat el conseller d’Economia per referir-se a l’impagament dels 759 milions per part de l’Estat…… Amb tot, el conseller veu una clara intencionalitat en el no pagament d’aquests diners. “L’Estat vol que se’ns carreguin a nosaltres els quatre punts de dèficit que suposen aquests 759 milions i no a ells. I no paga perquè no vol pagar i no vol augmentar el seu dèficit”,
“They should be ashamed of themselves… its an injustice without honour, and we won’t forget… they are running away from their responsibilities using the typical excuses of someone who doesn’t pay their debts… this is hardly setting a good example… they can’t ignore the situation isung pathetic arguments… we will make them feel ashamed”. These are some of the arguments used by the Catalan economy minsiter with reference to the non payment by the Spanish government of the 759 million euros … The minister did not mince his words when it came to the reason behind the non payment. “The central government want to put on our account the 0.4% percent of deficit which these 759 million euros will involve for us, and they don’t want to add them to their deficit. They aren’t paying simply becuase they don’t want to pay, and they don’t want to increase their deficit.”

Naturally, the Catalan government is taking the central government to court over the issue, but given the efficacy with which justice is executed in Spain, I don’t think I’d be waiting for the result before finding solutions to the problem all this represents.

The central point here is picked up on by a group called Collectiu Emma, (an association of activists which spends it time correcting factual inaccuracies which appear about Catalonia in the international press, inaccuracies which in no small part have their origin in a constant public relations campaign conducted from Madrid). As they say:

“One key point that is overlooked in your otherwise informative article on Spain’s economic difficulties (As Spain Acts to Cut Deficit, Regional Debts Add to Woe, December 30, 2011) is that Spain is not a federal State. Under the country’s fiscal arrangement taxes are collected by the central government, which will keep part of the proceeds for itself and distribute the rest among the regions to pay for the services that have been devolved. There is no correspondence between what the regions get to spend and the wealth they have generated.”
“For the last year Catalonia, one of the most productive and most heavily taxed communities, has been undergoing painful cuts in services. And yet, the share of tax money that it contributes to the State and never comes back is estimated today at a staggering 8-9 per cent of its annual GDP. If Catalonia could use even part of those funds to finance essential services for its own population, it would have no deficit and no debt, and could even afford one or two extravagant schemes like those that other regions -and the central government itself- can enjoy as long as they are paid for with somebody else’s money. Catalans would not mind a serious revision of the regional setup, but only if it envisages fiscal responsibility on the recipients’ part, better control over their own money by those who have earned it and more transparent procedures by the central government”.

Now one of the points Collectiu Emma didn’t make, but could have, is that Catalonia is one of the few regional governments (and maybe the only one) which has responsibility for administering the prison service. Catalonia also received so little money from central government in 2011 that it effectively ran out of cash in December (not because it is “extravagant” but because it is seriously underfunded) to such an extent that it was not able to pay all public servant salaries for December before the end of the year. So in fact one of the reasons the prison is lying idle is that the central government is not forwarding money it has a legal responsibility to transfer, and the reason it is doing this is to massage its own deficit, and encourage people like Susanne Daly to write the article she wrote.

It gets worse, since some of the “misinformation” about the situation in Catalonia has, in my opinion, a deliberate political intent – to recentralise Spain. This is certainly the objective of tax minister Cristobal Montoro, since many in the Partido Popular are already very fed up with the fact we insist on using our own language, and doing things our own way (like banning bull fighting).

“And while Spain’s overall fiscal status is nowhere near as dire as Italy’s, it has another problem all its own, as the new budget minister, Cristóbal Montoro, made clear Friday: serious budget shortfalls in its 17 autonomous regions, which have spent recklessly in the past decade”.

It is also striking how the article also draws attention to spending issues in the community of Andalusia (which is the only community the socialist PSOE really controls now, and which the PP hope to win in elections in the spring) while there is no real mention of communities like Valencia, or Galicia, which are controlled by the PP and where there are plenty of examples which could be mentioned, like the phantom airport in Castellon, built under the eager eyes of former Valencian President Francisco Camps, who had to resign and is now facing corruption charges in a trial which is currently attracting a lot of media attention.

Now I am sure, as the Collectiu Emma people point out, there are many examples here in Catalonia of projects which were not needed (theAlguaire airport in Lleida would be one), but the key difference here is that Catalans overspent using their own money, while many regional governments (some of them ruled by the PP) did so using Catalan money. So it is curious, to say the least, that the author decided to kick the article off with a big picture (see above) of a prison in Catalonia to serve as the stylised example to epitomise the problem.

But there is another issue being raised here, since it is not clear whether all the attention which is being focused on the Figueres prison is not – in some warped way – a by-product of protests by prison staff unions against the all the reecent spending cutbacks. Searching around for background information, I discovered a most interesting article in El Pais (sympthetic to the Spanish socialist party PSOE) entitled “locos por ir a la carcel” (desparately seeking to go to prison). The gist of this article concerns the plight of a number of unemployed people who have passed the exams needed to have places in the prison service, but who can’t be offered work since the prison is not open.

What the El Pais article offers us is the view of a heartless Catalan government making swingeing cutbacks on important social projects. Far from putting the blame on the outgoing socialist lead catalan government who built the prison in the first place, the article blames the new justice department head, Pilar Fernández Bozal, who hasn’t opened because she hasn’t been able to obtain the funding needed. The impression I get is that in this game it is hard to win.

At the end of the day the lesson I would advise Suzanne Daly (or Angela Merkel if it comes to it) to learn from this whole affair is that nothing in Spain is exactly as it appears to be, and that few of the arguments politicians and so called “experts” advance are entirely innocent. Mostl “information” circulating in Spain is highly politicised. Really “independent” analysts are virtually unknown.

Government and opposition in Spain operate like a revolving door. Crickey, I even saw outgoing Minister in the Zapatero government Alfredo Rubalcaba on TV yesterday, openly criticising Mariano Rajoy’s government for all the cutbacks that have just been announced and for having no policy up to the task of dragging Spain out of its crisis, without even blushing or mentioning that the cuts in question were so big because his government overspent – or tolerated overspending – or that the policies the new government are following were basically identical with those which guided his own government.

Far from suggesting that the prison project was an extravagant excess, El Pais implies it is badly needed (since space in the Catalan prison system is extremely scarce), and my feeling is that with crime on the rise after 4 years of continuous crisis, El Pais is probably more right about this than the New York Times author is. Lesson to be learnt: simplistic answers to complex situations are rarely satisfactory. And if you want to come to Figueres and look for a spending white elephant, well, you need go no further than the high speed railway line linking the town with Barcelona. The track has been up and ready for around a couple of years now (see the bridge to nowhere in the photo above), but there is no sign of any train, since there is not sufficient money available to finish the job. But then this particular piece of short term redundancy was planned and executed by the central government on a live-now-pay-later basis, but that wouldn’t fit the story we are being sold, now would it?

Some interesting notes on the New York Times article from Edward Hugh

2012-01-01T13:24:00.000+01:00

Col·lectiu Emma's good friend, Edward Hugh, has also comented the NYT's article "As Spain Acts to Cut Deficit, Regional Debts Add to Woe" in his Facebook wall. We reproduce his interesting remarks here.

*******

I'm not really sure that Suzanne Daly of the New York Times may not have been been inadvertently taken for a ride with the article she wrote yesterday, which was purportedly on regional extravagance in Spain. Not that examples of such extravagance don't abound, its just that the example she choses to highlight in her article - the prison at Puig de Les Bases, Figueres (which just happens to be only a few kilometres from where I live) - is NOT an example of something that isn't needed, like a phantom airport, or a golf course where no one will ever play golf. The problem with Puig de Les Bases is not that there aren't prisoners waiting to be moved there from two outdated prisons which are scheduled to close, but that there isn't enough money to run the place if it opens. In fact Suzanne Daly notices this, but seems to get carried away with the force of her own rhetoric, and doesn't seem to catch the significance of the point.

"Evidence of the regional profligacy dots the countryside. On the top of a hill here in the birthplace of Salvador Dalí, in northeastern Spain sits a giant, empty penitentiary. But even without a single prisoner in residence, the prison is costing Spain’s heavily indebted regional government of Catalonia $1.3 million a month, largely in interest payments. If prisoners were actually moved in, it would cost an additional $2.6 million a month. So it sits empty, an object of ridicule around here, often referred to as the “spa.” "

So the question is, is this an example of regional profligacy, or an example of cuts which are biting? The issue goes deeper. Catalonia is a region which is seriously underfunded by the central government - indeed as was suggested by the regional minister of economics, Andreu Mas Colell, it looks suspiciously like the central government were not paying funds owing to some key regional governments to make the regional deficit look worse, and the central deficit look better. This point is picked up on by a group called Collectiu Emma, which spends it time correcting factual inaccuracies in the international press when it comes to Catalonia. As they say:

"One key point that is overlooked in your otherwise informative article on Spain's economic difficulties (As Spain Acts to Cut Deficit, Regional Debts Add to Woe, December 30, 2011) is that Spain is not a federal State. Under the country's fiscal arrangement taxes are collected by the central government, which will keep part of the proceeds for itself and distribute the rest among the regions to pay for the services that have been devolved. There is no correspondence between what the regions get to spend and the wealth they have generated."

"For the last year Catalonia, one of the most productive and most heavily taxed communities, has been undergoing painful cuts in services. And yet, the share of tax money that it contributes to the State and never comes back is estimated today at a staggering 8-9 per cent of its annual GDP. If Catalonia could use even part of those funds to finance essential services for its own population, it would have no deficit and no debt, and could even afford one or two extravagant schemes like those that other regions -and the central government itself- can enjoy as long as they are paid for with somebody else's money. Catalans would not mind a serious revision of the regional setup, but only if it envisages fiscal responsibility on the recipients' part, better control over their own money by those who have earned it and more transparent procedures by the central government".

http://emma-col-cat.blogspot.com/2011/12/public-reply-to-new-york-times-iv.html

Now one of the points Collectiu Emma didn't make, but could have, is that Catalonia is one of the few regional governments (and maybe the only one) which has responsibility for administering the prison service. Catalonia also received so little money from central government that it ran out in December (not because it is "extravagant" but because it is seriously underfunded) to such an extent that it was not able to pay all public servant salaries for December before the end of the year, so in fact one of the reasons the prison is lying idle is that the central government is not forwarding money it has a legal responsibility to transfer, and the reason it is doing this is to massage its own deficit, and encourage people like Susanne Daly to write the article she wrote.

It gets worse, since some of the "misinformation" about the situation in Catalonia has a deliberate political intent - to recentralise Spain. This is certainly the objective of tax minister Cristobal Montoro, since many in the Partido Popular are already very fed up with the fact we insist on using our own language, and doing things our own way (like banning bull fighting).

"And while Spain’s overall fiscal status is nowhere near as dire as Italy’s, it has another problem all its own, as the new budget minister, Cristóbal Montoro, made clear Friday: serious budget shortfalls in its 17 autonomous regions, which have spent recklessly in the past decade".

It is also striking how the article also draws attention to spending issues in the community of Andalusia (which is the only community the PSOE really controls now, and which the PP hope to win in elections in the spring) while there is no real mention of communities like Valencia, or Galicia, which are controlled by the PP and where there are plenty of examples which could be mentioned, like the phantom airport in Castellon, built under the eager eyes of former Valencian President Francisco Camps, who had to resign and is now facing corruption charges in a trial which is currently attracting a lot of media attention.

I am sure as Collectiu Emma point out, there are many examples here in Catalonia of projects which were not needed (the Alguaire airport in Lleida would be one), but the key difference here is that Catalans overspent using their own money, while many regional governments (some of them ruled by the PP) did so using Catalan money. So it is curious, to say the least, that the article kicks off with a big picture of a prison in Catalonia as the stylised example to epitomise the problem.

But there is more, since it is not clear whether all the attention which is being focused on the Figueres prison is not - in some warped way - a by-product of protests by prison staff unions against the spending cutbacks. Searching around for background information, I discovered a most interesting article in El Pais (sympthetic to the Spanish socialist party PSOE) entitled "locos por ir a la carcel" (desparate to go to prison):

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cataluna/Locos/ir/carcel/elpepiespcat/20110417elpcat_2/Tes

The gist of this article is the plight of a number of unemployed people who have passed the exams to have places in the prison service, but can't be offered work since the prison is not open. What we have here is the view of a heartless Catalan government making swinging cutbacks on important social projects. Far from putting the blame on the outgoing socialist lead catalan government who built the prison in the first place, the article blames the new justice department head, Pilar Fernández Bozal, who hasn't opened becuase she hasn't been able to obtain the funding needed to open the place.

The lesson I would advise Suzanne Daly to learn from this whole affair is that nothing in Spain is as it appears to be, and that few of the arguments politicians and so called "experts" advance are innocent, mostly information in Spain is highly politicised. Really "independent" analysts are virtually unknown. Crickey, I even saw outgoing Minister in the Zapatero government Alfredo Rubalcaba on TV today, criticising Mariano Rajoy's government for all the cutbacks he has just announced and for having no policy to come out of the crisis, without mentioning that the cuts were so big because his government overspent - or tolerated overspending - or that the policies the government were following were basically identical with those his own government had been following).

Far from suggesting that the prison project was extravagant, El Pais implies it is badly needed (since space in the Catalan prison system is extremely scarce), and my feeling is that with crime on the rise after 4 years of continuous crisis, El Pais is probably more right about this than the New York Times is.

A Public Reply to the New York Times (IV)

2011-12-31T14:11:00.001+01:00

Sirs,

One key point that is overlooked in your otherwise informative article on Spain's economic difficulties (As Spain Acts to Cut Deficit, Regional Debts Add to Woe, December 30, 2011) is that Spain is not a federal State. Under the country's fiscal arrangement taxes are collected by the central government, which will keep part of the proceeds for itself and distribute the rest among the regions to pay for the services that have been devolved. There is no correspondence between what the regions get to spend and the wealth they have generated.

For the last year Catalonia, one of the most productive and most heavily taxed communities, has been undergoing painful cuts in services. And yet, the share of tax money that it contributes to the State and never comes back is estimated today at a staggering 8-9 per cent of its annual GDP. If Catalonia could use even part of those funds to finance essential services for its own population, it would have no deficit and no debt, and could even afford one or two extravagant schemes like those that other regions -and the central government itself- can enjoy as long as they are paid for with somebody else's money. Catalans would not mind a serious revision of the regional setup, but only if it envisages fiscal responsibility on the recipients' part, better control over their own money by those who have earned it and more transparent procedures by the central government.

The Japanese press on the Catalan case - El cas català a la premsa japonesa

2011-12-16T19:56:00.002+01:00

The Japanese press on the Catalan case

We bring to your attention an article that was recently published in a major Japanese newspaper (link here), Mainichi Shimbun, focusing on the difficult relations between Spain and the Basque and Catalan peoples.

As regards Catalonia, the article refers to the growing support for independence, which is quickly becoming the most favored option in opinion polls. Also mentioned is the unfair and extremely harmful fiscal treatment by the Spanish government. Finally, Omnium president Muriel Casals is quoted commenting on the invisibility of the Catalan issue in the world, compared with the high profile achieved by the Basque problem, with its history of violence.

El cas català a la premsa japonesa

Fem difusió d´un article recent publicat a Mainichi Shimbun, un del principals diaris del Japó (link aquí), que tracta de les difícils relacions entre Espanya i els pobles basc i català.

Pel que fa a Catalunya, l´article menciona l´augment del suport a la independència, que s´està convertint en l'opció majoritària a les enquestes d´opinió. També fa referència al tracte fiscal injust i molt perjudicial per part del govern espanyol. Finalment, cita la presidenta d´Òmnium, Muriel Casals, que parla de la invisibilitat de la qüestió catalana al món, sobretot si es compara amb el ressò que ha tingut el problema basc, amb la seva història de violència.

スペイン：自治州、独立運動に変化

2011-12-16T19:10:00.001+01:00

(Article recomanat publicat al The Mainichi Daily News - link aquí)

スペイン：自治州、独立運動に変化

スペインのバスク、カタルーニャ両地方で、自治を巡る静かな変化が起きている。バスク自治州では、長年暴力で独立を訴えてきた「バスク祖国と自由（ＥＴＡ）」が武装活動の停止を宣言するなど穏健化の動きを見せる一方、関連政党が国会、地方議会で勢力を伸ばし、「暴力から政治へ」の動きが顕著だ。また、バルセロナを州都とするカタルーニャ自治州では、経済危機の影響もあり独立支持者が急増している。【スペイン北部・サンセバスチャン市などで宮川裕章】

◇バスク、ＥＴＡが穏健化　暴力から政治活動へ
「ここ数年で彼ら（ＥＴＡ）は変わった。テロのない安心感から、観光客も増えた」。フランス国境に近いバスク自治州サンセバスチャン市の旧市街にある軽飲食店で、店員のゴンザレスさん（４２）は笑顔を見せる。近所の店では９５年、地方議員がＥＴＡに射殺される事件も起きている。

だが今年５月の地方議会選挙で、非合法化されたＥＴＡの政治部門バタスナの元メンバーが加わった政党連合ビルデュから市長が誕生。２０日の下院選挙（定数３５０）でも、ビルデュの国政版にあたる政党連合アマイウルが初参加にかかわらず７議席を獲得した。「もう暴力で独立を求める時代じゃない。誰もが分かっている」。ゴンザレスさんは言う。

バスクの完全独立を目指すＥＴＡによるテロ犠牲者は、この４０年間で８００人を超える。だがＥＴＡは１０月２０日に「武装活動の最終的な停止」を宣言。ゴンザレスさんは「若者たちがＥＴＡに参加しなくなった。時代の流れだ」と話す。

バタスナ元メンバーとともに政党連合アマイウルを組む穏健独立派政党エウスコ・アルカルタスナ（ＥＡ）のウリサル総書記は「（旧バタスナのメンバーは）個人的に政党連合に参加しており、暴力を放棄したメンバーだから協力できる。今、アマイウルはＥＴＡと無関係だ」と話す。

だがサンセバスチャンから約２０キロの町サラウスでアマイウルの政治集会を訪ねると、その実像はウリサル氏の言葉とはやや違い、アマイウルとＥＴＡの関係は今なお根強いことをうかがわせた。

集会の冒頭、壇上に上がった男性は、テロ事件などで収監されているＥＴＡメンバーらの帰還を願う歌を歌い始めた。約１８０人の参加者が大きな手拍子を送る。そこはＥＴＡの集会そのものに見えた。

サンセバスチャン市の旧市街で兄を殺害され、今は別の町に移り住んだオルドニエスさん（５１）は「ＥＴＡは穏健化したのではなく、生き残り策として政界進出の道を選んだだけだ。むしろ彼らが堂々と政治の舞台に出て、支持者を増やしているのは納得できない」と話す。

◇カタルーニャ、支持派急増　経済危機で不公平感
一方、バスク同様に独自の文化、言語を持つカタルーニャ自治州では、住民の中に独立を肯定する意見が強まっている。比較的豊かな地方だけに、税収入が他地域に回されることに不満が高まっているようだ。

州都バルセロナは人口１６０万人のスペイン第２の都市。１０日には、市庁舎などが建ち並ぶ旧市街脇を、カタルーニャ語のプラカードを手に、自治州政府に「緊縮財政反対」を訴える約１００人のデモ隊が進んだ。

病院や教育機関の経費、人員削減。経済危機の波がカタルーニャにも押し寄せているのだ。

地下鉄では乗客の会話、車内の行き先表示、アナウンスはすべてがカタルーニャ語。住民はカタルーニャ語で義務教育を受け、「第二言語」としてスペイン語を習うだけに、住民に「カタルーニャ人」としての意識は強い。

こうした意識に最近、欧州を席巻する経済危機が加わり、住民の「独立心」に火が付いた。１０月の世論調査で州民の独立支持は４１％（不支持２３％）と経済危機前の０７年の３２％（同５１％）から大きく伸びた。政治社会研究院のマルセット教授は、「経済危機と、他州との経済的不公平感が背景になっている」と語る。

バスク自治州は、地元で徴収した税を地元で使えるが、カタルーニャ自治州は、国への納税分が国からの地方交付税を上回り、収支幅は全１７州で３番目に大きい。豊かな州の税収を貧しい州に回すことについては、州間格差の是正という点からの評価もあるが、ここにきての経済危機によって、「背に腹は代えられない」的反応が生まれているようだ。

カタルーニャの文化を保護する活動を続ける団体「オムニウム」代表のカザルスさん（６６）は、「これまで経済先進地域のカタルーニャはスペインの他の地域より多く税金を払い、他地域の発展に貢献してきた。でももうそんな余裕は私たちにない。ＥＴＡのような暴力活動のあるバスク自治州で自治権拡大が進み、一方の私たちの声はいつまでたっても世界に届かないのは大きな矛盾です」と嘆いた。

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

■ことば

◇バスク地方
スペイン北部のバスク、ナバーラ両自治州と仏南西部にわたる地域を指し、両自治州の人口は計約２８０万人。非西欧系のバスク語を持ち、豊富な鉱物資源で国内有数の重工業地帯として発展した。バスク自治州の１人当たり国内総生産（ＧＤＰ）３万１３００ユーロはマドリード州をしのぎ全国平均を約３割上回る。ＥＴＡはフランコ独裁政権下の１９５９年に発足。武装闘争で関係者約６００人が収監されている。

毎日新聞　2011年12月1日　東京朝刊

Another (recommended) reply to The Economist (by Miquel Ros)

2011-11-27T18:55:00.000+01:00

Col·lectiu Emma has replied to The Economist article "Big mandate, tight spot" ("A Public Reply to The Economist (VII)"), but we also want to recommend Miquel Ros' reply.

Dear Sir,

I find it rich that your correspondent blames the "regions" for everything bad that is happening in the Spanish economy (“Big mandate, tight spot” 24th November).

While we are still waiting for Mr.Rajoy to explain his economic programme (if he has any at all), Catalonia has been implementing a tough programme of fiscal austerity that has involved an across the board budget reduction of 10% (not even politically sensitive areas such as health and education have been spared). This effort comes on top of the already significant net contribution Catalonia makes to the Spanish treasury, the so called "fiscal gap", much larger in relative terms than the German contribution to the EU.

The fact is that there is absolutely no evidence that a more centralized government would be better able to solve Spain’s economic problems (if economic history is of any guide you could as well reach the opposite conclusion), moreover, your correspondent’s longing for “one country” is at odds with the realities on the ground in Catalonia and the Basque Country, where a growing share of the population, as shown in the result of successive elections and in regular opinion polls, is actually demanding more self-government, not less.

Finally, after reading your staunch defense of centralism and the unitary state as a superior form of government for Spain I was left in doubt as to whether you are soon going to recommend the same recipe for the European Union...just imagine a stronger Brussels abolishing such “annoyances” as common law or driving on the left for the sake of market integration...

Sincerely yours,

A Public Reply to The Economist (VII)

2011-11-27T18:51:00.000+01:00

When stating that "the new government in Madrid needs to claw back some powers from the regions" ("Big mandate, tight spot", November 26th 2011), your correspondent has taken a leaf out of the Spanish nationalists' book, overlooking in the process a very relevant point that The Economist itself had made only a few days before: "Transfers to Madrid from Catalonia [...] amount to 8-9% of the Catalan economy" ("Mañana is too late", November 19th 2011).

In fact, this refers only to the share of tax money that goes to the State's coffers and never finds its way back to Catalonia in the form of public services or investments. That, together with large EU handouts, has produced the fiscal windfall that Spanish governments have been enjoying for many years now and which has allowed several heavily subsidized regions to remain comfortably unproductive.

Considering how the funds have been used -or squandered, on high-speed trains to nowhere, for instance-, both by the regions and by the central government, Catalans should be the first to call for a complete overhaul of the devolution system, one that is based on fiscal responsibility on the side of those who get to spend the money and on a more direct control by those who have worked hard to earn it.

Edward Hugh on the current Eurozone crisis potential implications for Catalonia

2011-11-24T21:21:00.000+01:00

Edward Hugh is a good friend of Col·lectiu Emma. We strongly recommend an interview that the Barcelona International Network has made him about the causes of the current Eurozone crisis and its potential implications for Catalonia.

You can find the interview by clicking here, here, here and here.

We are reproducing here his opinions about Catalonia:

4.What specific effects are future developments likely to have on Catalonia? Given the substantial PP majority in the Spanish Parliament, do you see increasing political tension between a centralist nationalist government and a Catalan administration under increasing citizen pressure to exercise the right of self determination, or do you believe sufficient common ground will be found to make agreement and cooperation achievable to address the current economic issues?

Well, as you probably know the situation here in Catalonia is very difficult. The cutbacks in public spending here have been very severe, more or less 10% across the board including in key areas like health and education. Yet despite this the underfunding of the region is so severe that the government is not going to be able to comply with the 1.3% of GDP deficit target laid down for 2011 by the central government. This year's deficit is likely to be around 2.6% of Catalan GDP but the government in Barcelona has made no secret of this, since it always considered the proposed reduction too drastic to carry out in one year.

It is important to understand here that Catalonia has a large fiscal SURPLUS with the rest of Spain, maybe 8% of Catalan GDP. Catalonia is one of Spain's richest regions, and effectively subsidises spending in other parts of Spain. Most Catalans accept this, and accept that their region should make some contribution to balancing disequilibriums across the Spanish territory. What Catalan citizens cannot understand is the extent of their contribution, and why it is that their regions should be receiving swingeing health cuts while other areas seem to be able to avoid them whether by hook or by crook.

So this is a very unstable situation. Catalans are also pretty fed up with the lamentable efforts of the previous Zapatero administration to find solutions to the economic crisis and to find ways of improving their financing problems - it is important to remember that Catalonia is one of the richest and most productive regions in Southern Europe, yet Catalan debt is treated scarcely better than Greek debt by the financial markets. We do not deserve this.
My feeling is that the new Rajoy adminstration will go to some considerable lengths to try to avoid confrontation with the Catalan administration, and many Catalans will be ready and willing to respond to such overtures. I well remember close Mariano Rajoy adviser Baudilio Tomé saying to me, "Edward, you are one of those Catalans who recognises when Spain goes well, Catalonia goes well, and for Spain to go well, Catalonia has to go well." And yes I, like many others, take this view. The thing is, Spain isn't going well, and in the near future it is unlikely so to do.

In addition the new government's room for manoeuvre may be very constrained. The Catalan Parliament is preparing a new financing proposal, but in the short term anything which improves Catalonia's situation is inevitably going to make the position in some other parts of Spain worse, so this is going to be an aspiration which it will be hard for a Spanish nationalist party to fulfil.

So while in the short term there will be conciliation, in the longer run confrontation would seem to be far more likely, given the diametrically opposed aspirations of the various parties. Naturally, any kind of disorderly Euro disintegration would add to these strains enormously. I recently attended an experts' meeting on the legal background to state creation. It was really fascinating stuff, but what I was most surprised to learn was that in the event of a Catalan declaration of independence, and absent an amicable agreement between Spain and the new state, the liability for servicing existing debt issued by the Spanish state would fall on Spain and Spain alone. This would mean that the country without the Catalan financial contribution would be virtually immediately bankrupt. This is a daunting thought, and should serve to concentrate everyone's minds in the months and years to come. Catalonia could easily finance itself and live up to its responsibilities outside Spain. The same cannot be said of the parent country absent Catalan financing. I think it's high time for a change of mindset in Spain about this reality, and time that Catalonia's problems were treated with the respect and importance which they deserve.

Launch of “What Catalans Want. Could Catalonia become Europe’s Next State?” in the UK

2011-11-11T20:07:00.000+01:00

(We want to extend to our friends the following invitation)

This is an invitation for you to attend the launch in the UK of the book “What Catalans Want. Could Catalonia become Europe’s Next State?”. The launch will take place in the course of the 57th Anglo-Catalan Society Anual Conference which is to be held at Queen Mary’s, University of London, (Mucci’s room) on Friday 25th November at 19.45. The book will be presented by professor Montserrat Guibernau and ex-Catalan Government Delegate in the UK, Xavier Solano. We'd be delighted if you could come.

“What Catalans Want” has been described as a “a brilliant new collection of interviews of leading Catalan politicians, academics, artists, and activists who grapple with the thorny question of the future of Catalonia within or without the Spanish state”. Toni Strubell, MP, writer, and academic asks difficult questions of diverse personalities including former Catalan President Jordi Pujol, Columbia University economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin, documentarian Montserrat Armengou, and writer Matthew Tree, while Lluís Brunet illustrates the book with striking full-color photographs. Reading “What Catalans Want” is the perfect way to understand what's going on in Catalonia today.

Toni Strubell was elected to the Catalan Parliament in November, 2010. Born into an Anglo-Catalan family (he was born in Oxford in 1952) Strubell spent his formative years in Oxford and was greatly influenced by his grandfather, Josep Trueta, a Catalan-born professor of orthopedic surgery at Oxford University, who helped save thousands of lives by introducing revolutionary surgery for wounded Allied soldiers during World War II. In 1946 Trueta wrote “The Spirit of Catalonia”, a book aimed at explaining the plight of the Catalan people under Franco to English-speaking society. In some ways, “What Catalans Want” can be seen as a sequel to that book. Toni Strubell was awarded Catalonia's prestigious Saint George's Cross in 2002 in part for his work recovering Catalan documents plundered by Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

The Father of the Spanish Constitution Jokes about Bombing Civilians

2011-11-02T19:04:00.002+01:00

(Press release from Cercle Català de Negocis, a business organization that defends Catalonia independence)

“I do not know how many times it was necessary to bomb Barcelona. This time things will be solved without having to do so.” — Gregorio Peces-Barba

“Freedom of speech cannot be invoked to protect offensiveness and disdain towards persons, territories, and communities.” — Catalan Bar Council

Last Thursday, at the 10th Convention of Spanish National Bar in Cadiz, Gregorio Peces-Barba, one of the most prominent fathers of the Spanish Constitution, joked about bombing Barcelona in a reference to Catalonia's ongoing independence process. “We are in better shape than in the past. I do not know how many times it was necessary to bomb Barcelona. This time things will be solved without having to do so.”

During his speech, Peces-Barba mused in an allusion to the Catalan and Portuguese wars of secession of the 17th century: “What would have happened had we kept Portugal instead of Catalonia?” “We probably would have been better off with the Portuguese,” he quipped.

Representatives of the Catalan Bar Council left the room in protest and later stated in a press release: “Respect for freedom of speech cannot be used to protect offensiveness and disdain towards persons, territories, and communities.”

The Spanish Socialist Party, currently in government, considered his comments “inappropriate.” No member from the Portuguese government has made any comment yet.

The Spanish politician later added in a radio interview that joking about the Catalan bombings is not the same as joking about the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War or the bombings perpetrated by the Basque terrorist group, ETA, which has recently called for a definitive ceasefire and a start of negotiations with the French and Spanish governments. Peces-Barba also told the interviewer that Catalans are “oversensitive people and should have a better sense of humor.” He later apologized to those that might have felt his first words to be offensive.

As some of his Socialist Party colleagues pointed out, Gregorio Peces-Barba may have unwittingly helped the growing independence movement in Catalonia. In a recent government opinion poll, about 46% of the citizens of Catalonia said that they would support independence. Though it is one of the wealthiest and most industrialized regions in Spain, Catalonia has had a fiscal deficit of around 10% of its GDP for several decades, which makes its tax burden one of the highest in Europe. This is one of the most controversial issues between Catalonia and Spain, the other being the persecution of the Catalan language and culture since the 17th Century.

Recommended Conference: Building a New State (November 3rd, 2011)

2011-10-25T21:13:00.000+02:00

We recommend the international conference organised by Sobirania i Justícia (Sovereignty and Justice) on the theme of "Building a New State", featuring prestigious professors, lawyers and economists from around the world.

Guest speakers include Mr. Charles E. Ehrlich, international public law and development expert; Ms. Ana Stanic, principal of E&A Law, London; Mr. Patrick Dumberry, professor at Ottawa University; and Mr. Crles Boix, professor at Princeton University.

The conference will seek answers to the following questions:

What will happen the day after the independence of Catalonia?
Will Catalonia be able to apply the decisions made by the International Court of Justice about Kosovo?
What agreements will have to be negotiated with the Spanish government, and what issues would arise?
How will the economic consequences of the separation be discussed?
Will Catalonia undertake the international treaties signed by Spain?

The conference will also attempt to shed some light on D-Day +1, the day after Catalonia's independence from Spain.

You can find more information and the program by clicking here.

Place: Palau Robert, Barcelona (Catalonia)
Date: November, 3rd of 2011
RSVP: protocol@sij.cat

Article recomanat a The Guardian: "Spanish centenarian Moisès Broggi sets sight on senate"

2011-10-22T14:09:00.000+02:00

Recomanem l'article "Spanish centenarian Moisès Broggi sets sight on senate" publicat a The Guardian, que parla de la candidatura del Dr. Broggi a les eleccions al senat espanyol i explica part de la seva trajectòria.

Ens sembla destacable que el corresponsal de The Guardian, Giles Tremlett, que normalment dóna una visió negativa de Catalunya, doni avui una visió neutra.

És una llàstima però que Giles Tremlett no expliqui millor el paper del Doctor Broggi durant la guerra, la repressió que va patir després, i el seu paper durant el franquisme i les seves opinions clares i desacomplexadament independentistes ara.

Poc a poc.

On the BBC note about bullfights in Catalonia

2011-09-25T20:21:00.000+02:00

Regarding the BBC note on what we hope will be the last bullfight in Barcelona ("Bullfighting in Barcelona to end with Catalonia ban", 24 September 2011), we would like to point out that, contrary to what is implied in the story, bullfights are becoming impopular not only among "Catalan nationalists" but all over Spain.

http://www.slideshare.net/Mouriz/estudio-sobre-la-aficin-por-los-toros-en-espaa-presentation

Although we were hoping that this matter would have been laid to rest by now, we would like to direct interested readers to some previous comments that we´ve made about it (see here, here, here or here).

An article on the subject in today´s New York Times is also worth a look: "In Catalonia, a Last Day of Bullfighting".

LANGUAGE IMMERSION: A SUCCESS STORY IN CATALONIA...

2011-09-03T21:58:00.002+02:00

(Post originally published on December 23, 2010)

"Language immersion is a method of teaching a second language (also called L2, or the target language) in which the target language is used for instruction. Unlike a more traditional language course, where the target language is simply the subject material, language immersion uses the target language as a teaching tool, surrounding or "immersing" students in the second language. In-class activities, such as math, science, social studies, and history, and those outside of the class, such as meals or everyday tasks, are conducted in the target language. "From Wikipedia, entry on “Language Immersion”

The debate on school and language models is ultimately a debate on a model of society. A cohesive society shares, first of all, a common language allowing its members to cooperate in building a project for their future; and this must be based on a dialogue between cultures if that society, as is the case in Catalonia, is made up of members of an original local population and newcomers from all over the world.

In 1983 the regional authorities agreed that in the Catalan school system children would not be segregated on account of their parents’ language. Instead, following a method that had been successfully implemented in Quebec, all children were to be schooled in one common language, regardless of what they spoke at home. The learning of basic language skills in the early years (including reading and writing) is done in Catalan. Between the ages of 5 and 8, Castilian is progressively introduced, both orally and in writing. While Castilian and Catalan are taught in primary and secondary education, Catalan is the vehicular language for most courses, and at the end of their schooling students will have acquired an equivalent knowledge of both Catalan and Castilian. A third language (usually English) has recently been introduced in many centers at the pre-school or primary levels.

Although the program was launched at a time when most non-Catalan speakers had Castilian as their mother tongue, it has proved to be a wise choice considering that, twenty-seven years later, there are in Catalonia thousands of children of immigrants from all parts of the world, and not only from Castilian-speaking areas or countries. More than 100 languages are represented today in Catalan schools, and children speaking those languages at home need to be integrated fast through a common language. In an effort to respond to this additional challenge for the education system, special classrooms have been set up in ordinary schools in order to make the transition easier for children from such diverse backgrounds and to speed up the process of socialization in their new environment.

The immersion program has been generally well received, and indeed it couldn’t have succeeded without the active support of non-Catalan-speaking families, involving a strong commitment to their children’s all-round education. That has also contributed to generating among immigrant, non-Catalan-speaking families, through their children, a positive view of the language of the land and a stronger sense of belonging in their new society.

However, the striking success achieved through this line of action could be overturned. Since its inception, the priority given to the Catalan language in the school system has been taken as a special target by the Spanish nationalist camp. As part of its long-standing crusade against the normalization of Catalan, the doggedly centralist Partido Popular went as far as to submit to the European Parliament a proposal aiming to undermine Catalonia’s inclusive approach in the name of a superior right of parents to choose the language in which their children should be educated. It was assumed that this language would be Castilian, thus opening the door for Castilian speakers to avoid learning Catalan.

In March 2009, the EP voted to reject that proposal, acting on the principles that “it is vital to safeguard multilingualism in countries or regions in which two or more official languages coexist”, and that “children should, in their own interest, be able to speak the language of the country in which they live to ensure that they are not subject to discrimination in the course of their education or subsequent training and are capable of taking part in all activities on an equal basis”. The EP reiterated “its longstanding commitment to thepromotion of language learning, multilingualism and linguistic diversity in the European Union, including regional and minority languages, as these are cultural assets that must be safeguarded and nurtured”, as well as “the importance of promoting and supporting the development of innovative pedagogical models and approaches for language teaching in order to encourage the acquisition of language skills and to raise awareness and motivation among citizens” (emphasis added).

On the other hand, hundreds of studies conducted in Canada have proved that several common criticisms of the immersion method are completely unfounded. Results show, among other things, that: as regards literacy, immersion students catch up with their monolingual peers after the first few years; immersion programs have no negative effects on spoken skills in the first language; early immersion students acquire almost-native-like proficiency in passive skill (listening and reading) comprehension of the second language by the age of 11; early immersion students are more successful in listening and reading proficiency than partial and late immersion students; immersion programs have no negative effects on the cognitive development of the students; monolingual peers perform better in sciences and math at an early age, but immersion students eventually catch up with, and in some cases outperform, their monolingual peers.

Findings such as these from academic studies and the decisions adopted in European political fora should have been enough to settle the matter, but facts have never been an obstacle for Spanish nationalists, who have now turned to their own court system for help in a renewed campaign against the Catalan language. Quite productively, as it seems: in 2010, as a spin-off from the Constitutional Court’s highly restrictive ruling on the Catalan self-government charter as regards linguistic matters, several Catalan norms and policies have been challenged and overruled by Spanish courts. Some fear that these are just the early salvoes of a long-term offensive intended to roll back the gains made by Catalans on the language front, and a prelude to the reinstatement of Castilian at the center of Catalan public life.

...AND THE FAILURE OF A SEGREGATED SYSTEM: THE CASE OF VALENCIA

The negative effects of the two-track education system that some would like to impose in Catalonia can be seen in the neighboring region of Valencia, where schoolchildren are segregated according to the language they speak at home. The theory is that parents can freely choose the language in which their children will be educated –Castilian or the Valencian modality of Catalan. In practice, however, the system is strongly biased in favor of Castilian, and those opting for the Valencian tracks face all kinds of administrative obstacles and limitations. Even though the actual demand is much higher, only 30% of children can be accommodated on the Valencian tracks. The result is a deepening split in society along linguistic lines and a retreat of the language of the land in areas where it used to be predominant not very long ago. Which sounds a lot like the scenario that Spanish nationalism has in mind for Catalonia as well.

JCM
This article is based on a report by Prof. Joan Badia i Pujol, originally published in Catalan in Òmnium magazine.
Information regarding the European Parliament’s position on this matter has been kindly provided by Oriol Junqueras, MEP, and his aides Jordi Bacardit and Xavier Garcia Gabaldà.
Information on the results of the immersion method in Canada is taken from Colin Baker: Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (1993), Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, quoted on Wikipedia, entry on Language Immersion.

The End of Jacobinism? Minorities, States, and Violence, by Immanuel Wallerstein

2011-09-02T19:24:00.000+02:00

(Recommended article written by Immanuel Wallerstein)

There is no state in the modern world without “minorities.” Or to put it another way, there is in every state some group that is socially defined as the high status group, whether this is defined by race, religion, language, ethnicity, or some combination of these attributes. And there are always others who do not share these attributes. The “minorities” almost always have less access to economic, political, and socio-cultural rights. They are in that elementary sense oppressed and feel that they are oppressed. Usually they seek in one way or another to obtain the equal status to which they feel they are entitled as citizens of the state. A minority is not a numerical concept. There are some “minorities” that constitute the majority of the citizenry.

(Read the full article by clicking here)

The Spanish Soccer Civil War

2011-08-23T16:21:00.002+02:00

(Publicat al Huffington Post, una de les webs de notícies i opinió de és prestigi als Estats Units)

"The Spanish Soccer Civil War", by Alan Black

When a self-righteous man becomes obsessed with a powerful enemy, flames are almost a certainty. Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho, self-described as "the special one," is setting fire to Spanish soccer with dangerous fireworks that some fear may spark a bigger conflagration on the parched tinder of that fractured entity called Spain.

In this Spanish soccer civil war the insurrectionist, Mourinho, who is not even Spanish, he is Portuguese, has morphed into the Madridista Generalissimo battling against the rival aspirations of Catalonia, Spain's restive eastern province, symbolically embossed in the spirit and institution of FC Barcelona, the world's greatest soccer team, pride of the Catalan nation. The most recent match up between the clubs ended in a punch up with players and coaches brawling. Mourinho was photographed lancing his finger in the eye of a Barcelona assistant during the melee. Three players were shown red cards. Post-game, Mourinho threw gasoline on the flames by belittling Barcelona, a chariot of fire he has ridden since being appointed coach of Real in 2010. Diplomacy seems to be dead. Peace impossible. As if the hurt of history never healed, seven decades after the last shot in the Spanish Civil War was fired.

Barcelona coach Josep Guardiola, a frequent target of Mourinho's abuse, fears the symbolic rage of the soccer contest could breach the stadium and hit the streets. Volatility is not only spewing from the soccer vent. The nation is in crisis: huge sovereign debt, mass unemployment, people getting poorer and facing grim austerity packages. As the pressure on the soccer gauge hits the exploding point, is it a forewarning that Spain itself may rupture?

Certainly in Catalonia, the moves towards self determination have been growing in recent years. FC Barcelona is a lightning rod in the drive for autonomy from Spain. In the past, the club has sponsored programs to expand the use of the Catalan language. Its foreign players are expected to know the local culture; the symbols and flag of the Catalan nation are visible at the Nou Camp, the club's stadium. Conservative Madrid and Spanish nationalists have been irked. With Barca dominating Real on the field, and Barca players comprising the core of the world champions Spanish national team, Catalonia is now pulling more strings than ever in Spain's destiny.

Many will be hoping wiser heads will prevail in this battle for dominance in Spanish soccer. The "special one" needs to become the "cooler one." Barcelona may have to search for its own hand of peace, hard for a club that was attacked and suppressed by Generalissimo Franco's fascist troops during the Civil War, harder still when Real Madrid were ostensibly Franco's team. Memory is long in Spain. And grudges continue to bake.

The Sunday Telegraph on the grim fiscal situation of Spain's municipalities

2011-08-22T20:16:00.000+02:00

We can only agree with Harriet Alexander's account of the straits that Spanish town councils find themselves in after years of carefree spending ("The hilltop Spanish town overshadowed by a debt mountain", August 21, 2011). Our only reservation is that Catalan municipalities seem to be singled out, giving the impression that Catalonia is particularly at fault on this count. At least in Catalonia some of the mistakes of the past have been openly acknowledged and more responsible policies are already under way. As to the rest of the country, we shall have to wait until after the November parliamentary elections to find out about the real extent of the disaster.

El Sunday Telegraph comenta la penosa situació econòmica dels municipis espanyols

2011-08-22T20:15:00.000+02:00

En general hem d´estar d´acord amb la descripció que fa Harrriet Alexander ("The hilltop Spanish town overshadowed by a debt mountain", 21 d´agost de 2011) de les dificultats en què es troben els ajuntaments espanyols després d´anys de gastar de manera irresponsable. La nostra única reserva és que es destaquin els ajuntaments catalans i que es pugui tenir la impressió que aquestes coses passen més a Catalunya que en altres llocs. Almenys a Catalunya alguns dels errors del passat s´han reconegut obertament i s´han posat en marxa polítiques més assenyades. Pel que fa a la resta de l'estat, haurem d´esperar fins després de les eleccions parlamentàries del mes de novembre per conèixer l´autèntic abast del desastre.

Reply to The Times of India

2011-08-18T13:45:00.004+02:00

Dear sirs,

Regarding your article of August 16 2011 ("Spanish to enliven dahi handi contests in Mumbai"), we think that it's inaccurate to describe human towers (castells) as a "Spanish" tradition. Not unlike India, Spain is a multinational State, with several peoples speaking different languages, who all have their very different traditions and, indeed, very different perspectives on many things. One would be hard pressed to find a single tradition that is shared by all citizens in Spain. To most people in Spain, flamenco music, for example (a cultural expression of Andalusia, in the south), sounds as foreign as an Indian raga, and outside of Catalonia (the area around Barcelona, in the northeast) human towers are as unfamiliar as the Janmashtami festival. Thus, we feel it would have been more correct to refer to castells as a strictly Catalan tradition. More information about it can be found in this article ("Catalan human towers embark on an educational trip to India").

Having said this, we hope that the public in Mumbai will appreciate and enjoy the Catalans' performance.

Catalan human towers embark on an educational trip to India

2011-08-18T09:18:00.002+02:00

(Published at the Catalan News Agency)

Vilafranca del Penedès (ACN).- The Catalan group, Castells Vilafranca sees their trip to Mumbai as an opportunity not only to teach but also to learn, explained the group’s Vice President Francesc Bou, who pointed out that "the structures of Govinda (Indian human towers) are based more on balance than on force". The President of the group Miquel Farret characterised the exchange as a "window of opportunity" to explore new formations and techniques. Castellers de Vilafranca, from the Penedès county, will travel to India on Thursday although activities will not begin until Saturday.

The trip coincides with the Hindu festival of 'Janmaashtami' which marks the birth of the God Krishna. In line with Indian tradition, teams of human towers known as Govindas can be seen performing their art to celebrate the end of the festival. During this time the Catalan association will offer an Indian audience some of their most impressive structures such as a human tower eight stories high and cylindrical with a single spire of people and eight stories high balancing in the middle.

Catalan human towers, an “Intangible Heritage of Humanity”

Human Towers or “Castells” in Catalan language (literally meaning “castles”) are a rooted tradition in Catalonia. Originating in Valls near Tarragona, the tradition of building human structures is still very much alive today, probably more than ever before. The concept is simple: organizing teams into formations whereby the tower grows as each member successfully stands on their team-mates shoulders. The technique is much more complicated than this however and Catalan teams pride themselves on creating increasingly challenging structures. Exciting, frightening (towers often reach eight stories high), and ever entertaining, Castells were honoured in 2010 with UNESCO recognition, as a 'Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritable of Humanity.'

President of the Castellers de Vilafranca, Miquel Farret, said that his teams encounter with other Indian groups, in addition to strengthening ties between the two traditions, will also present an opportunity for developing on "a technical level" the performances of both parties.

The association from the Penedès County are said to be "very excited" to learn how the Indian Govinda buildings work. According to the President, while "our structures are based on compact and sturdy structures, they create their towers based on balance." This exchange can be "used to innovate on both sides and improve our standard" he added.

Miquel Farret said on Tuesday that the main presentation of Catalan towers will be on Saturday 22nd along with some of the best Indian Govinda's in the country. The Indian audience will see four impressive formations from the Catalan group: an eight story tower with four people to each level and a separate singular needle inside, a tower of eight stories with 'folre' (a second tier support base), a nine story tower with three people to a tier again with 'folre' and a singular pillar of seven stories.

According to Farret, the main objective of the trip is related to their activity as human tower builders, "to better prepare for St. Felix's feast day", the day of a major towers competition in Tarragona. The group will be in India from the 18th to the 25th August with mornings devoted to trials, while the afternoons will be free for cultural visits.

Declaring the towers as a sport

Miquel Farret quoted the Hindu newspaper "The Times of India" whilst explaining that the Indian Government has agreed to consider reclassifying the Govinda (castles) as a sport. The proposal, according to the President of Castellers Vilafranca, "is interesting" because, if approved, the sports minister wants to increase resources for the groups, and increase the dissemination of this tradition thus securing its future. According Farret, "this is an open debate."

Supportive aspect of the trip

"Smiles of Bombay" is an NGO that, since 2005, has focused its action to fight against poverty, respect for human rights and equal opportunities in the city of Mumbai. According to its CEO, Alexanda Haglund, during the stay in India, the Castellers Vilafranca will visit the school Yashodhan to see the work being done here. This school of 800 students will host a performance by the group Tower of Penedès.

The feast of Janmaashtami

The religious festival Janmaashtami is better known in Mumbai as 'Dahi Handi', although the practice of human towers, better known in India as Govinda, is now considered a local sport in its own right. Govinda is also the name for the boys involved in building human towers who are grouped in pairs.

The "hand" is a clay pot full of butter milk which is suspended at high altitude in the street before the start of the festival. The boy climbs the top of the human pyramid to break the "hand" hitting it with a blunt object, until the pot smashes, releasing the butter milk which covers the whole party. This symbolizes success achieved through unity. In Mumbai some 700 groups compete for more than 4,000 "Hands".

Reply to Frommer's Travel

2011-08-15T21:02:00.000+02:00

(El bon amic del Col·lectiu Emma, Miquel Strubell, ha escrit a Frommer's Travel referit a l'article que va publicar fa uns dies "World's 10 Best Cities for Outdoor Dining")

Great to see Barcelona described as "One of best cities in the world: Barcelona".

Just one thing. Given you write "Miami, Florida" not "Miami, USA", and "London, England" not "London, United Kingdom", I am a little surprised you don't write "Barcelona, Catalonia". After all, Barcelona is the capital city!

In fact Catalonia is nowhere to be seen in the text. Even Bruges is described as "Flemish capital" in the text, if not in the heading.

I hope it isn't too late to put things right...

World's 10 Best Cities for Outdoor Dining

2011-08-11T23:23:00.002+02:00

(Recommended article: "World's 10 Best Cities for Outdoor Dining")

One of best cities in the world: Barcelona

Barcelona, Spain

There's no shortage of sidewalk cafés in the lively waterfront city of Barcelona, where a warm, dry climate draws both locals and visitors outdoors. While many of these venues remain packed during summer months, it's still possible to find a quiet tucked-away garden or a rooftop terrace offering amazing city views.

Where to Eat Outside: Prices are better and crowds lessen the further you get from Barcelona's central boulevard, La Rambla. For beachside tapas, head to the seafront neighborhood of Barceloneta.

(You can read the full article and discover the 10 cities by clicking here).

Ma cosa vogliono?

2011-08-04T19:48:00.000+02:00

(Post de Marco Giralucci publicat a SpahettiBCN)

Ma cosa vogliono?

Marco Giralucci

il 30 luglio 2011

L’autore Toni Strubell ha chiesto a trentaquattro persone di esprimere la propria opinione sulla Catalogna. Non tutti vivono qui, provengono da molti settori della vita pubblica, ed hanno avuto l’occasione di parlare della situazione attuale e del futuro.

Il libro “What Catalans want, could catalonia become Europe’s next state?” è stato presentato ufficialmente all’Institut d’Estudis Catalans il 22 luglio fra gli altri anche dall’ex presidente della Generalitat Jordi Pujol e i professori Joan Ramon Resina (Università di Stanford) ed Henry Ettinghausen (Southampton). Fra il pubblico -3 50 persone per un libro sono molte – molti degli intervistati ne libro, fra i quali Matthew Tree.

Il risultato tenta di spiegare “quello che vogliono i catalani”, edito in inglese, con fotografie di Lluís Brunet, e un prologo dello scrittore irlandese Colm Tóibín.

Si tratta di un’ottima introduzione alla realtà sociale e politica della Catalogna. Appare in un momento particolare, in cui la crisi economica ha messo in seria discussione l’immagine tradizionale della Catalogna come “oasi” di soddisfazione economica, politica, civica e di welfare.

Contemporaneamente gli attriti con lo stato spagnolo si fanno sempre più aspri e la percentuale di catalani che voterebbero “SI” ad un eventuale referendum per l’indipendenza sfiora il 40%.

Il libro è diretto a chi non vive in questo paese, a chi lo visita da turista o per lavoro e si ferma per poco tempo.

Esiste anche l’edizione elettronica su Amazon US e Amazon UK.

Anteprima del libro da scaricare

A highly recommended book: What Catalans Want

2011-07-22T20:47:00.001+02:00

Our good friend Toni Strubell has asked thirty-four people to speak their minds about Catalonia. Over the course of one year, twenty-nine Catalans from different walks of life -some of them living in other countries- and five non-Catalans living in Catalonia were given the chance to talk frankly, each from his or her own professional perspective, about the country's present situation and the options for its future. The result is "What Catalans Want", a beautifully-produced book with photographs by Lluís Brunet and a prologue by Irish author Cólm Tóibín. We think that it's an excellent introduction to the social, cultural and political realities of Catalonia for the English-speaking public.

Print or electronic versions of the book can be ordered online from the publisher at:

http://www.cataloniapress.com/?p=129

Catalonia's President Aims to Lead in Taming Spain's Deficit

2011-07-18T11:46:00.003+02:00

(Recommended article in the Wall Street Journal: "Catalonia's President Aims to Lead in Taming Spain's Deficit" - a Catalan view on the Spanish economic problems)

By JONATHAN HOUSE

BARCELONA — The powerful leader of Spain's Catalonia region is vowing to do his share to cut the country's towering budget deficit, no matter the political cost, but is also calling on the central government in Madrid to push ahead with major unfinished economic reforms.

Cutting the budget deficits of Spain's regions is one part of the country's challenge, along with narrowing the central government's deficit and recapitalizing parts of its banking system, as it seeks to convince financial markets of its creditworthiness.

Spain has come under scrutiny from investors again as the euro zone's debt crisis has escalated over the past week. Spanish bond prices, like those of Italy, have suffered a selloff amid mounting concern over the festering debt crisis centered on Greece.

Last week, Catalonia's government started talks with unions to extend the working hours of public-sector employees in the northeastern region, while pushing forward with controversial plans to cut jobs and close some public-health-system facilities.

"Catalonia is providing an example of how to face the problems and provide solutions, even if they are solutions that provoke social backlashes," Catalonia President Artur Mas said in an interview last week in the Palau de la Generalitat, a medieval palace in what used to be Barcelona's Jewish quarter. "We are willing to assume these backlashes."

Mr. Mas wields considerable political and economic clout in a highly decentralized country in which regions control more than one-third of spending and basic services like health and education. Catalonia is the second most populous of Spain's 17 regions and has the biggest economy, as well as its own language and a history of struggles against Madrid for greater autonomy. Furthermore, Mr. Mas's Convergence and Union party of moderate Catalan nationalists is the third-biggest force in the Spanish Parliament and has been providing important support to the embattled minority government of Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

In the waning days of Mr. Zapatero's term—his four years are up in March—Mr. Mas is using his clout to try to ensure the prime minister stays the course with overhauls to the country's ailing economy. Although Spain's biggest opposition party, the conservative Popular Party, is calling for early elections, Mr. Mas said he would like to see the government finish the cleanup of a banking system suffering from the collapse of a decadelong housing boom and the overhaul of a rigid wage-bargaining system contributing to the country's 21% unemployment rate.

But, he warned, "If we see there isn't an agenda for reforms in October or November, there will have to be elections this fall."

The Catalan leader is also pushing for a relaxation of central government restrictions on its debt issuance. Despite a draconian 2011 budget that cuts expenditure by 10%, Catalonia is forecasting a budget deficit equal to 2.7% of its gross domestic product, twice Madrid's mandated target of 1.3%. Failure to comply with the target means that Madrid clamps down on debt issuance in an effort to force greater budget cuts. Madrid hasn't been allowing Catalonia much long-term debt issuance, forcing it to rely primarily on more expensive short-term debt instruments.

Catalonia has pledged it will meet its 1.3%-of-GDP target for 2012. Mr. Mas said that commitment, plus the "strong efforts" it is making to cut costs in 2011 should persuade the central government to allow it to issue cheaper long-term debt to refinance a €3 billion ($4.25 billion) one-year bond that matures in November. "I think we could have some good news on this front in September or October," Mr. Mas said.

Sebastien Hay, analyst at Moody's Investors Service in Madrid, said being able to refinance the €3 billion bond on favorable terms is the "key issue" for Catalonia at the moment. Moody's earlier this year downgraded Catalonia to A3 from A2, citing the region's budget overruns and increasing financing difficulties.

Mr. Mas's government says it cannot meet its 2011 deficit target, maintaining that the financial situation it found when it came to power in December was much worse than expected. Mr. Mas's ouster of the government of local Socialist party leader José Montilla marked a point of inflection for the Socialists' national political fortunes. Undermined by the deep economic crisis, the Socialists went on to lose control of six more regions in May and opinion polls show Mariano Rajoy's Popular Party would win a resounding victory if national elections were held today.

In addition, the new Catalonia government's move to sharply widen the expected budget deficit given by the outgoing authorities has had a knock-on effect. Many other new regional governments are now threatening to do the same. Mr. Mas said that he understood such revisions were "disquieting" for investors but that the central government has room to compensate for regional budget overruns again this year, like it did last year. "My impression is that Spain will comply with its 6%-of-GDP deficit target," he said. Last year, Spain had an overall budget deficit of just over 9% of GDP.

Catalonia has also led the regional austerity push with some of the country's most painful budget cuts. Its plans to cut funding to the treasured public-health service by 6% have triggered a strong popular backlash. On Wednesday, more than one hundred white-smocked hospital workers gathered in front of the Palau de la Generalitat to protest the closure of the small Dos de Maig hospital. Straining to make herself overheard over blowing whistles, Sandra Marin said local citizens are alarmed at the prospect of the closure of the 50-bed facility and its 410 workers are worried about their jobs. "They've said we will be relocated, but given the state of the Catalan health system, we're not too optimistic," said the 37-year-old lung specialist.

Era caldo, era caldo…

2011-07-13T17:48:00.001+02:00

(Post de Marco Giralucci publicat a SpahettiBCN)

Il 10 luglio del 2010, l’anno scorso, faceva un bel caldo umido. Un sabato in cui i barcellonesi che possono se ne vanno fuori città, come ogni fine settimana. Nessuno avrebbe immaginato che più di un milione di persone sarebbe sceso in piazza per rivendicare la libertà di decidere il proprio futuro: un milione, come due terzi degli abitanti di Barcellona si fossero riversati contemporaneamente lungo tutto il Passeig de Gràcia.

Nemmeno gli organizzatori, fra cui Omnium Cultural – movimento per la difesa della lingua e cultura catalane – che stavano lavorando da tempo per organizzare una manifestazione sull’autodeterminazione. Le adesioni continuavano ad arrivare, ma il lavoro di propaganda più grosso l’aveva fatto il tribunale costituzionale spagnolo: proprio qualche settimana prima – accettando il ricorso del Partido Popular e del difensore del popolo – emetteva la sentenza che tagliava parti importantissime dello Statuto d’Autonomia della Catalogna. L’uso preferenziale della lingua catalana nella pubblica amministrazione, la definizione di nazionalità e l’unità indissolubile di Spagna risultavano limitati, cambiati o annullati.

Per completare l’opera, un paio di giorni prima della manifestazione, il tribunale ebbe la bella idea di pubblicare il testo ufficiale della sentenza: sembrava fatto apposta. La pubblicità più efficace all’indipendentismo catalano la fanno proprio i nazionalisti spagnoli.

Il risultato di questa singolare campagna fu l’adesione alla manifestazione da parte dei partiti politici – esclusi PP e Ciutadans – e delle istituzioni in blocco: i presidenti e tutti gli ex presidenti ancora in vita della Generalitat e del Parlament de Catalunya, dirigenti politici e sindacali, giornalisti e soprattutto il popolo catalano: famiglie intere, giovani, bambini, vecchi in sedia a rotelle – visti con i nostri occhi – arrivarono da tutto il paese per manifestare, pacificamente ma con determinazione, il diritto a decidere il proprio futuro.

Un milione di persone che, alla fine, non riuscirono quasi a muoversi. La manifestazione rimase per ore inchiodata: il percorso previsto era praticamente pieno fino al punto d’arrivo. Il risultato però aveva superato qualsiasi aspettativa e molte cose, da allora, sarebbero cambiate.Il fatto importante, oltre all’impressionante partecipazione, fu che lo slogan con cui si era convocata la manifestazione “siamo una nazione, siamo noi a decidere!” si vide travolto da quello, molto meno sfumato di “Indipendenza” e da una predominanza di “stellade“, le bandiere catalane con le quattro righe rosse e la stella ispirate alla bandiera cubana che – si deve ricordare – fu colonia spagnola.

Dopo un anno viene spontaneo chiedersi cosa sia cambiato.Molte e complesse le risposte: le elezioni hanno sconvolto il mondo dei partiti: il PSC ha fatto naufragio e cerca un nuovo capitano, Esquerra Repúblicana ripone in Oriol Junqueras la speranza di sopravvivere, gli Eco-Socialisti restano stazionari e i Popolari crescono e in qualche comune entrano come forza di governo. Tutti in minoranza di fronte a una grande Convergència i Unió che comprende molte sensibilità, ma rimanda l’azione al 2012, dopo le elezioni generali.

L’indipendenza, in cambio, è passata dall’essere speranza di pochi ad argomento quotidiano, accettato come opzione senza la diffidenza di pochi mesi fa. I referendum autogestiti – ricordiamo l’ondata di consultazioni dal dicembre 2009 all’aprile 2011 – ma anche le inchieste ufficiali incaricate dalla Generalitat dimostrano che chi è cambiato veramente sono i catalani, che adesso voterebbero si all’indipendenza per un 43%, anche se con molti distinguo. La Catalogna di oggi è una società complessa, sia demograficamente che ideologicamente però oggi l’asse portante si è spostato sull’indipendentismo sociologico. Quando e come si trasformerà in politico, vedremo.

National Day celebrations in other parts of Europe

2011-07-12T17:08:00.002+02:00

(Recommended article by Fiona Govan published at the Daily Telegraph: "National Day celebrations in other parts of Europe")

National Day celebrations in other parts of Europe
By Fiona Govan
2:17PM BST 11 Jul 2011

The Catalans

Catalan's have their own national day, la diada, on September 11, a date commemorating the 1714 siege of Barcelona by the Bourbon monarchy which led to the annexation of the region and the loss of Catalan self-rule.

Banned during the Franco years the secular bank holiday sees Catalans out on the streets draped in the Senyera Â the crimson and gold striped Catalan flag Â singing the national anthem Els Segadors. The day is often used for demonstrations and political rallies by Catalan nationalists and there have been violent clashes. The first march following the death of Gen Franco in 1975 brought more than 1 million Catalans on to the streets demanding the reinstatement of the Catalan parliament.

The Basques

(...)

The Bretons

(...)

Northern Italians

(...)

(You can read the full article by clicking here: "National Day celebrations in other parts of Europe")

El Col·lectiu Emma, necessaris activistes

2011-07-01T07:31:00.001+02:00

(Article de Martí Estruch a Media.cat)

L’activisme de carrer és molt complicat de dur a terme de manera coherent i continuada. En primer lloc, perquè no és gens senzill arrencar la gent del sofà de casa i de la pantalla de televisió i de les moltes altres que ara li fan la competència. Però fins i tot si això s’aconsegueix, la facilitat amb què l’activisme pot derivar en accions i actituds inacceptables és molt gran. A vegades per la pròpia inèrcia del moviment, a vegades induït de manera més o menys encoberta pels adversaris. No cal dir que quan l’activisme defensa posicions contràries al statu quo, els mitjans de comunicació tradicionals s’encarreguen amablement de magnificar els errors i minimitzar els encerts.

A Catalunya hi ha un exemple d’activisme que des de la distància dels anys podem considerar globalment com una indubtable història d’èxit: el de la Crida a la Solidaritat, recordat tot just fa deu dies en un documental. A banda que va aconseguir alguns dels objectius que es proposava, la Crida va aportar una manera de fer fresca i nova a la Catalunya dels anys vuitanta, obrint els ulls a molta gent, engrescant-ne molta d’altra i acostant al pacifisme un moviment independentista que en aquella època s’emmirallava molt en el del País Basc.

Com no podia ser d’altra manera, l’activisme digital ha anat prenent el lloc a l’activisme de carrer. Els avantatges són clars: per començar, no cal arrencar ningú del sofà o les pantalles, ans el contrari. Els recursos necessaris, mínims, i les possibilitats, gairebé infinites. Aconseguir resultats efectius i reconeixement social, però, tampoc és automàtic: la competència i la diversitat de propostes són igualment infinites.

Trobo especialment interessants dos exemples d’activisme digital català lligat a l’àmbit dels mitjans de comunicació. El primer és el que va dur a terme durant uns quants anys, durant la passada dècada, el col·lectiu Contrastant. Es van fer famosos per ser els primers a posar seny i desmuntar les inflades xifres d’assistència a les manifestacions, que els mitjans de comunicació reproduïen –i massa sovint reprodueixen encara- de manera absolutament acrítica citant els organitzadors, òbviament parcials, i aportant com a molt un apunt a la baixa de la Guàrdia Urbana. Però Contrastant també era una plataforma de lectura crítica dels mitjans, de la qual aquest Media.cat n’ha recollit amb molt d’encert el testimoni.

L’altre exemple, encara actiu, és el del Col·lectiu Emma. S’autodefineixen com un grup de catalans que volen que el món ens conegui com som, no com diuen que som. Tenen l’antena parada al que la premsa internacional (sobretot del món anglosaxó) publica sobre Catalunya i vehiculen respostes quan creuen que la visió que es dóna sobre el país és esbiaixada. Tenint en compte el lloc de residència de la gran majoria de corresponsals estrangers que informen sobre Catalunya, això passa prou sovint. La Fira del Llibre de Frankfurt va fer que més d’un en prengués consciència. La importància de tenir un observatori crític dels mitjans internacionals, amb capacitat de reaccionar ràpidament i fer-ho en un anglès correctíssim, és superior al que la majoria s’imagina. De la imatge que Catalunya té al món en depèn, en gran part, la facilitat per trobar-hi aliats, en tots els àmbits.

"Independence would not be so harmful after all" (unpublished long reply at the Financial Times)

2011-06-23T07:20:00.005+02:00

(El Financial Times ha publicat una resposta "curta" - "Too bleak vision of Catalan secession"-dels professors de la UPF Xavier Cuadras-Morató i Modest Guinjoan, autors del llibre "Sense Espanya", a l'article del professor de l'IESE Pankaj Ghemawat "The ties that bind Catalonia", on donava arguments econòmics més que discutibles sobre la independència de Catalunya; adjuntem aquí la resposta "llarga").

Professor Pankaj Ghemawat presents a rather bleak vision of what might happen to the Catalan economy after a secession from Spain (“The ties that bind Catalonia”, June 17th, 2011). A 7 per cent reduction of GDP is not a minor bruise after all. Nevertheless, he is not giving the whole picture because, although he mentions Catalonia’s net fiscal transfers to the rest of Spain, he fails to provide the most relevant detail about them: they stand somewhere between 8,7 and 9,8 per cent of Catalan GDP (these are the latest estimates for 2005, coming from the Spanish and the Catalan government respectively). Apart from this first consideration, we would like to make three different additional points that might show a rather less pessimistic picture of the economy of an independent Catalonia.

First, Professor Ghemawat makes the hypothesis that secession would cause a two thirds drop in trade intensity between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. This figure is based, as far as we know, on results coming from research on the effects of independence on post-colonial trade. However, the data used in this research comes mainly from the dismantling of European colonial empires throughout the XXth century and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It is hard to draw any parallels between the economic, political, and social landscape in Catalonia today and that of African and Asian colonies fifty or sixty years ago or former Soviet republics in the 90’s, so this figure risks being a misrepresentation of the true reduction in trade intensity and should be taken with great caution.

Second, our own research on the economic consequences of secession focuses on the impact of a hypothetical trade boycott in the Spanish markets against Catalan products (and vice versa). We argue that this would be the main potential cause of a reduction of trade between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. Our conclusions indicate that the level of boycott needed to cause a drop of GDP close to 7 per cent is much higher than what could be reasonably expected, given previous similar episodes of boycotts due to political reasons both in Catalonia and elsewhere.

Third, and most important, the potential negative consequences of the reduction of Catalonia’s trade with Spain on Catalan GDP should be considered at worst an upper bound of what would occur if the Catalan economy were so inflexible that did not allow for any degree of trade diversion after the secession (by the way, this point is also applicable to our own research). Any reasonable macroeconomic model will tell you that output is determined in the medium run by factors such as the availability of labour, human and physical capital and public infrastructures, innovation potential of firms, entrepreneurial spirit, etc. Thus, it seems much more important for a secessionist country to make sure these growth factors will continue in place, rather than keeping the commercial ties with its former partners. Given the relationship between some of these factors and the level of public expenditures (e.g. public infrastructures and human capital), there is little doubt that the elimination of a net fiscal transfer to the rest of Spain of more or less 9 per cent of GDP would increase not only Catalonia’s income in the short run, but its growth prospects in the medium run.

Xavier Cuadras-Morató and Modest Guinjoan are Associate Professor and Lecturer at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) and authors of the book “Sense Espanya. Balanç econòmic de la independència”, 2011 (Ed. Pòrtic).Pòrtic).

"Too bleak vision of Catalan secession" (published reply at the Financial Times)

2011-06-23T07:11:00.003+02:00

(Fa uns dies el professor de l'IESE Pankaj Ghemawat va publicar l'article "The ties that bind Catalonia" on donava arguments econòmics més que discutibles sobre la independència de Catalunya; els professors de la UPF Xavier Cuadras-Morató i Modest Guinjoan, autors del llibre "Sense Espanya" han enviat la següent resposta que ha estat publicada al Finacial Times: "Too bleak vision of Catalan secession").

Professor Pankaj Ghemawat presents a rather bleak vision of what might happen to the Catalan economy after a secession from Spain (“The ties that bind Catalonia”, June 17th, 2011). A 7 per cent reduction of GDP is not a minor bruise. Nevertheless, he fails to mention that Catalonia’s net fiscal transfers to the rest of Spain stand somewhere between 8,7 and 9,8 per cent of GDP. Apart from this, we would like to make three additional points:

First, Professor Ghemawat hypothesis of a two thirds drop in trade intensity between Catalonia and Spain is based on results from research on the effects of independence on post-colonial trade. Yet, it is hard to draw any parallels between colonial empires episodes throughout XXth century and Catalonia today and, therefore, this figure should be taken with great caution.

Second, our own research on the consequences of secession is focused on a trade boycott in the Spanish markets against Catalan products, probably the main potential cause of a reduction of trade. According to our conclusions the boycott needed to cause a 7 per cent drop of GDP is much higher than what could be reasonably expected.

Third, the negative consequences of the reduction of trade on Catalan GDP should be considered an upper bound. Any reasonable macroeconomic model will tell you that output is determined in the medium run by the usual factors (availability of labour, human and physical capital, infrastructures, etc). Thus, it seems more important for a secessionist country to make sure these factors will continue in place, rather than keeping the commercial ties with former partners. Given the relationship between some of these factors and public expenditures, the elimination of the net fiscal transfer would increase not only Catalonia’s income in the short run, but its growth prospects in the medium run.

La Catalogna e il rating della Spagna

2011-06-15T23:06:00.001+02:00

(Article recomanat de l'amic Marco Giralucci a Catalogna Oggi)

Prendiamo spunto dall’articolo apparso su Il Sole 24 ore del 7 giugno 2011: “La Catalogna pesa sul rating della Spagna” che, a nostro avviso, non è completo perché alle dichiarazioni di Moody’s ne sono seguite altre, dell’UE, che ne smentiscono titolo e contenuto, e delle quali suIl Sole non c’è traccia.
http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/notizie/2011-06-07/moodys-catalogna-pesa-rating-063856.shtml?uuid=AaijVkdD
L’articolo riporta l’opinione dell’agenzia Moody’s secondo cui “Il deficit previsto dalla Catalogna per il 2011 dimostra che il Governo spagnolo non dispone di strumenti efficaci per costringere le regioni autonome a rispettare gli obiettivi di riduzione del disavanzo” definendolo come “fuori controllo”.
Dal modo in cui le informazioni vengono presentate, i problemi di bilancio dello stato spagnolo sono responsabilità delle comunità autonome e, in particolare, della Catalogna.
Il giorno prima dell’uscita di questo articolo, lunedì 6 giugno, il presidente del governo della Catalogna Artur Mas aveva fatto visita a Bruxelles al presidente del Consiglio Europeo Herman Van Rompuy per spiegare la situazione di bilancio della Catalogna e dello sforzo enorme che il suo governo sta facendo per ridurre le spese.
Gran parte della questione risiede in un trasferimento di fondi che lo stato fa alle comunità autonome per bilanciare le diverse situazioni contributive. La Catalogna calcola di dover ricevere 1450 milioni di euro che però non può mettere in bilancio perché non è sicuro che vengano pagati quest’anno. Se così fosse, il deficit del 2,66% si ridurrebbe all’ 1,26% quindi al di sotto dell’obiettivo fissato.
Il successivo 9 giugno, infatti, la Commissione Europea attraverso il suo portavoce Amadeu Altafaj, ha specificato che la Catalogna ha “fatto i compiti per bene” e che sono le altre comunità spagnole che devono fare attenzione al debito: “Tutte le comunità autonome hanno lo stesso obbligo di osservare gli obiettivi concordati, però l’impegno che ci stanno mettendo non è lo stesso”. Il portavoce della Commissione Europea ha voluto tranquillizzare l’esecutivo catalano aggiungendo che “ridurre il bilancio del 10% in un solo anno è un’operazione di proporzioni inedite che evidentemente è apprezzato da parte di Bruxelles”.
Le agenzie di rating hanno subito rilevato la dichiarazione e lo stesso giorno l’agenzia Fitch ha corretto Moody’s togliendo importanza al debito pubblico della Catalogna ed ha assicurato che non rappresenta nessuna minaccia per lo stato spagnolo. Il direttore, della Fitch Douglas Renwik ha dichiarato che il debito delle comunità autonome è molto basso e il debito spagnolo è lontano da quello di Grecia, Irlanda e Portogallo.
http://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20110609/54168536680/la-ce-reconoce-el-mayor-esfuerzo-de-catalunya-para-reducir-el-deficit.html
http://www.lavanguardia.com/economia/20110609/54168537296/fitch-resta-importancia-a-la-deuda-autonomica-en-la-solvencia-de-espana.html
http://www.catalannewsagency.com/news/politics/european-commission-recognises-catalonia%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cbudget-cuts-unprecedented-proportions%E2%80%9D-red

Notes on Spanish public deficit and the regions’ responsibility

2011-06-08T21:12:00.002+02:00

There have been in the last few weeks repeated informations in the international press about the current economic difficulties in Spain. One generally accepted view seems to be that the regions -Catalonia is usually mentioned in that regard- are the main obstacle to the good management of the crisis. The central government, on the other hand, is presented as a responsible party that is by and large taking the appropriate adjustment measures. We in Col·lectiu Emma share the general concern over the precarious financial situation in Spain and over the role that the system of autonomous communities has had in bringing it about, but we would also like to draw attention to a few points that tend to be passed over in those reports.

For one thing, we believe that the central government is being let off the hook too easily. For years it has been unable or unwilling to implement structural reforms -a new framework for labor relations or a rationalization of public expenditure, for instance, as well as a serious overhaul of the devolution system- that are now long overdue. And it is still pushing on with extravagant programs -like the high-speed rail project- that it could hardly afford even when everything seemed to be going its way. It has also farmed out to the regions the provision of basic services like health and education, but hasn't given up complete control of the resources needed to pay for those services. It still collects taxes, which go to a central fund, then keeps a large percentage of the proceeds for its own operations and distributes the rest as it sees fit. Thus, it has at its disposal considerable amounts for general uses where there is much margin for adjustment. The funds managed by the regional authorities, on the other hand, tend to be earmarked for core services to their populations, with little scope for reductions without endangering essential programs.

We also believe that Catalonia is being unjustly singled out. Many things have been done wrong, but this is now acknowledged and work is underway to redress the situation. The administration responsible for the mismanagement of the last few years has been voted out and, based on the strong mandate that it received in the polls, the new regional government has taken some decisive -and sometimes unpopular- corrective action.

But that doesn't seem to be enough. Even after the severe budget cuts that are being implemented, the projected figure for the Catalan deficit in 2011 is 2.6% of GDP, which doubles the central government's target for the year. Significantly, however, the central government is refusing to make any advances on the payment of the so-called competitiveness fund for 2011, estimated in the amount of 1.45 billion euros. It is true that it isn't required by law to do so until after the closing of the fiscal year, but in the past those funds had been released as a matter of course to be used during the current periods. The simple expedient of entering that amount in the books before the funds are actually disbursed would have kept the proposed budget for 2011 within the 1.3% target, but, in the words of finance councillor Andreu Mas-Colell, the Catalan side will not doctor the accounts. In the end, it's all a matter of which budget that sum is credited to in 2011. As it is, it makes the central government's accounts look better while the blame for the deficit can be laid on the Catalans. The same is also true in the case of the Madrid community, which has already taken legal action against the central government over this matter. Professor Guillem López-Casasnovas, one of the Directors on the Board of the Spanish Central Bank, denounced in a recent article "a system where resources are unilaterally determined and funds advanced at the convenience of the state's budgetary balance".

On the matter of the regions' responsibility, one should also be careful not to lump together those whose productive base can allow them to overcome the crisis and those whose future will depend to a large extent on government handouts. Or those that are already taking some painful measures and those that this late in the game haven't yet started on a serious program of financial restraint for the coming period. We can agree that the system of autonomous communities has created overlapping administrative layers, a growing public sector in the regions without parallel reductions in the center and countless opportunities for pork-barrel projects, unjustifiable spending and across-the-board waste. Still, a distinction needs to be made between the productive communities that are essentially carrying the burden of an inefficient state organization and those that have been thriving on somebody else's money.

Catalans are right to call into question an unworkable arrangement that is largely sustained by their taxes. We can't insist enough on the fact that Catalonia's fiscal surplus with the central government amounts to a staggering 10% of the regional GDP -over 20 billion euros a year of Catalan money that the state reserves for its own ends. Without this burden, there would be no Catalan deficit. On the contrary, in the words of former IMF Chief Economist Kenneth Rogoff, "Catalonia, as an independent nation, would be one of the richest countries in the world". This opinion was echoed in a recent article in the Harvard Kennedy School Review and in the past Col·lectiu Emma has provided information that points in the same direction.

These are some of the matters that, to our mind, have not been getting enough attention in recent accounts of the situation in Spain. We are sure that a more thorough assessment would show that the root of the present problems is not in Catalonia, but rather in the prevailing structure of the Spanish state, with an inflated central government and a host of fiscally irresponsible regional governments draining the resources of a few productive communities.

Small Is Cute, Sexy, and Successful: Why Independence for Wales and Other Countries Makes Economic Sense

2011-06-06T21:59:00.001+02:00

Adam Price is a Fulbright Scholar and a 2011 Mid-Career Master in Public Administration candidate at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is a two-term former Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales) Member of Parliament where he represented Carmarthen East and Dinefwr.

The great French moralist André Gide’s last reported words were, “I love small nations. I love small numbers. The world will be saved by the few” (Kohr 1970). During the long boom of the 1990s and 2000s, that last-gasp proclamation took on an almost prophetic air. Small and nimble open economies like Ireland, Iceland, and the Baltic States became the poster boys of globalization. Countries the size of Norway topped every feel-good league table in existence from gross domestic product (GDP) per capita to indexes of innovation, happiness, and peace.

Small is successful (think Sweden), sexy (think Costa Rica), smart (think Singapore), even cool (think Iceland). Yet recently, something strange tends to happen every time there’s talk of carving a new independent country out of an old colonial one. Take Québec in Canada, for instance, or my own beloved Wales in the United Kingdom. Faced with the prospect of a people choosing its own destiny and charting its own course, the champions of the status quo gravely intone that such a move would not be economically viable. Without the colonial country as benefactor, we’re told, the small could never survive.

So, why the new pessimism? Well, now that economic conditions have turned, so has the tide of ideas. The travails of small countries have made big headlines worldwide in a series of Lehman Brothers–like moments. The sovereign debt crisis in Greece, the banking collapse in Iceland, and Ireland’s fall from “Celtic Tiger” grace have all led to a shift in the intellectual terms of trade. “Big is best” has replaced “small is beautiful” as the new global mantra. This was perhaps best summed up by an epithet attributed to Paul Volcker, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman (with a sideways nod to Roy Scheider’s character in the movie Jaws): “In turbulent times, it’s better to be on the bigger boat.”

Can the small survive and thrive through the present storm? How does country size affect economic performance? And what would independence do for a place like Wales? These are more than just academic questions for me. After almost a decade at the coalface of politics in the House of Commons as a Welsh Nationalist Member of Parliament, I came to the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (HKS) to find solid foundations for my lifelong dream. But size matters to all of us. My own continent of Europe is a patchwork mosaic of meso-economies and microeconomies. Where China and the United States are building supertankers, Europe is in flotilla formation—built to ride, not rule, the waves. Is it destined to flounder?

The Invisibility of Scale

For most of the twentieth century, economics was silent on the question of country size. A single conference in 1960 was the sum total of intellectual output on this issue during most of the postwar period (Robinson 1960). By contrast, intellectual revolutions of the 1980s, represented by new growth and new trade theory, were based on the idea of increasing returns to scale. The upshot was that large countries—where economies of scale seem more feasible—were predicted to do better. But the empirics pointed in a different direction. In fact, there is growing evidence of an inverse scale effect. As Xavier Sala-i-Martin of Columbia University—he of the leopard and zebra suits—put it some years ago, “as time goes by, the desirability of having smaller nations increases. And the economists who say so are not (I repeat, NOT) some crazy Catalan nationalists” (Sala-i-Martin 1998).

They are, in fact, mostly French nowadays: to be specific, the French Economic Observatory team headed by J-P. Fitoussi at the Parisian Institut d’Études Politiques (popularly known as Sciences Po), which has been conducting a five-year-long program supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR) on “country size and growth strategy.” In a remarkable series of papers, largely unnoticed in the English-speaking world, this new school of geoeconomists claims to have discovered a “size nexus” at work in the European economy, with smaller lead countries like Ireland and Finland outperforming larger laggards like Germany and France (Laurent and Le Cacheux 2010; Alouini 2010; Napoletano and Gaffard 2010).

My own analysis (carried out with the help of fellow HKS Student Ben Levinger) confirms the French results (Price and Levinger 2011). Using World Bank data, we found that small European Union (EU) countries (those with fewer than 15 million people) enjoyed a 50 percent increase in exports per capita between 2000 and 2008, compared to a 35 percent increase for larger states. The small, it seems, have gained disproportionately from the expansion of trade since the introduction of the euro. How has this trade bonus affected growth? Figure 1 shows small countries closing the growth gap by almost two-thirds, down from 35 percent to 14 percent, over a thirteen-year period. As Figure 2 shows, this small country premium has existed for decades, even for those countries that joined the European Economic Community at its inception.

Figure 1 — Change in GDP Per Capita, EU-27 (Sources: International Monetary Fund; calculations by author.)

Figure 2 — Real GDP Per Capita Change, EU Founders (Sources: International Monetary Fund; calculations by author.)

To understand the shape and strength of the relationship between size and economic performance, we compared average country growth rates and population between 1996 and 2007—the period of relative calm between the economic turbulence suffered by Eastern Europe following the fall of communism and before the onset of the global economic crisis. What we found in general was that the larger the country, the significantly slower the economic growth. In fact, over the last thirty years, among the Western European members of the EU, differences in population size alone (measured on a logarithmic scale) can account for 50 percent of the differences in average GDP per capita growth rates using a simple linear regression, with the mighty minnows once again outperforming the Big Five (UK, Italy, Germany, France, Spain). Following the recent economic crisis, this relationship simply broke down: from 2008 through the third quarter of 2010, small countries did no better (yet also no worse) than large countries. A rising tide lifts small boats faster, it seems, but they’re no more likely to sink in a storm.

The Big Advantages of the Small

The latest crisis aside, what might lie behind this remarkable story of small country success under normal economic circumstances? There are broadly three potential sources of small-scale advantage: openness to trade, social cohesion, and adaptability.

Openness to Trade

Due to the smaller size of their domestic market (relative to total income), small economies tend naturally to be more export-oriented than large countries (Dunning 2001). This means they are better positioned to benefit from the expansion of trade and are more skilled in responding to changing conditions, developing specialization in niche markets and internationalizing their businesses. As Nobel Laureate Gary Becker has argued:

In fact, small nations now have advantages in the competition for international markets. Economic efficiency requires them to concentrate on only a few products and services, so they often specialize in niches that are too small for large nations to fill. (Becker 1994)

Social Cohesion

Small countries are more socially homogeneous, more equal, easier to run, and therefore better governed. Stronger accountability and higher trust improve their ability to find social compromise, lowering the transaction costs and complexities of the policy-making process. This contrasts with larger countries where there often exists a disincentive to collective action.

Adaptability

Small countries’ vulnerability to exogenous shocks means they are better at adapting to change and implementing structural reform. Jeffrey Frankel, for example, has written of the role of small countries as global innovators (2010). This natural innovativity also extends to science and technology: Switzerland, for instance, has more Nobel Prizes per capita than anywhere else in the world and three universities in the world’s top 100 (Oswald 2008). See Table 1 for examples of small country innovations.

Table 1 — Great Little Innovators

Country	Policy Innovation
New Zealand	Inflation targeting (1990)
Chile	Private pensions (1990s)
Singapore	Congestion charging (1975)
Sweden	Keynesian demand management (1930s)
Estonia	Flat taxes (1994)
Costa Rica	Abolition of the military (1948)

The Flotilla Effect

There was a time when being small was a barrier to economic success. The actual problem may have been not so much in being small as being lonely—take, for example, a once flourishing Venice marooned by the sudden change in the trade routes to Asia. Today, Europe's small countries are at most two hours away from markets and minds measured in the hundreds of millions. The EU has undoubtedly provided important economic shelter for its smaller states without which the impact of the crisis would have been much graver. But with that important rider, it’s clear that in Europe over the last thirty years, small size is significantly correlated with higher growth. To return to the Volcker metaphor, in turbulent times, small countries can be said to behave more like a wood chip—tossed about on the waves but difficult to sink. When good times return, Europe’s flotilla of small boats may once again prove quicker and more adept at charting a new economic course than the supertankers that are all too often “too big to sail.”

The Independence Prospectus

What, then, of independence? How would newly formed small countries fare in the global economy?

We are fortunate in having at the heart of Europe a historical field trial in the economics of independence. Independent Luxembourg (population 500,000) and the neighboring Saarland region of Germany (population approximately 1 million) both have economies with roots in coal and steel. While Luxembourg was to become one of the founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the EU’s forerunner, the Saarlanders rejected the option of independent statehood and membership of the ECSC by two-to-one in a referendum in 1955. Both regions had to grapple with the painful restructuring of their steel industries, but while Luxembourg is now home to the global giant ArcelorMittal, the Saar steel industry is a pale shadow of its former self. The difference in growth rates for the independent nation of Luxembourg and the neighboring region that rejected independence is striking (see Figure 3).

Figure 3 — Real GDP Growth, Luxembourg and the Saarland (Sources: World Bank, Kim 2003, Eurostat.)

During the last thirty years, Luxembourg has pulled progressively ahead, outstripping economic growth in the Saarland by 2.5 to 3.5 percentage points a year on average. The cumulative effect has made Luxembourg one of the richest countries in the world and left Saarland the poorest German Land in the former West. If anyone still doubts the potential economic value of independence, they should take the short drive from the Grand Duchy to Saarbrücken: it pays to be a (small) country in your own right rather than just a region of some other state.

And what about my homeland of Wales? Since 1990, its per capita real-terms growth rate has been a lamentable 0.9 percent on average. If Wales had become a small independent country when the Berlin Wall fell rather than remaining a stateless nation, it might have done much better. Indeed, the model that Levinger and I have devised—a linear regression of growth on population—would predict an average annual growth rate of 2.6 percent for a country of Wales’s size. A free Wales might do better or worse depending on its choice of policies and the strengths of its institutions, but a growth rate similar to the current 0.9 percent would be an extreme outlier in a free-Wales scenario. Adding initial income as another variable gives our model even greater predictive power. Figure 4 shows the results of this simulation: Welsh people would be, on average, 39 percent “richer” had they constituted a small nation-state, not simply a region, over this time period, all things being equal. Wales could even expect, like Ireland and Denmark, to catch and surpass a now nonexistent “United Kingdom,” joining the ranks of the smart, the successful, and the small. There may be many plausible reasons for opposing Welsh independence, but the risk of impoverishment can no longer credibly be said the strongest.

Figure 4 — The Wales That Could Be? 2009 Gross Value Added (GVA) Per Capita (2000 US$) of EU-15 and Wales (Actual and Predicted from Model)

The question of size naturally looms large in a nation of three million that thinks itself too small to stand by itself. As Julio Cortázar debagged to Paris to be a better Argentinean, I came to Harvard to be a more effective Welshman. If my compatriots cannot be persuaded that sovereignty for a country the size of Iowa is an economically viable option, then statehood for Wales may always remain a pipe dream. Yet the message I will carry home is that the facts seem to be on our side. For once, we find ourselves swimming with the tide of history.

References

Alouini, Olfa. 2010. Taille des pays, performance économique et économie politique de la zone euro. Revue de l’OFCE 112(1): 191-212.

Becker, Gary S. 1994. Why so many mice are roaring. Businessweek, November 7.

Dunning, John. 2001. Resolving some paradoxes of the global economy: Small nations as trailblazers. In Globalization and the small open economy, edited by Daniel Van Den Bulcke and Alain Verbeke. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Frankel, Jeffrey. 2010. Some big ideas from small countries. Project Syndicate, August 15 (www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/frankel2/English).

Kim, Sunwoong. 2003. Lack of convergence across former West German states. Working Paper, August. Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin.

Kohr, Leopold. 1970. The breakdown of Great Britain. Conway Hall Lecture, October 6. London.

Laurent, Éloi, and Jacques Le Cacheux. 2010. Tailles des pays et stratégies de croissance. Revue de l’OFCE 112(1): 171-190.

Napoletano, Mauro, and Jean-Luc Gaffard. 2010. Performances et politiques de croissance. Un éclairage empirique à partir d'une étude de l'effet de la taille des pays et nouvelles réflexions théoriques. Revue de l'OFCE 112(1): 213-248.

Oswald, Andrew. 2008. What we can learn from the Swiss. The Independent, October 30.

Price, Adam, and Ben Levinger. 2011. The flotilla effect: Small economies through the eye of the storm. Research paper. Brussels: Greens/EFA Group, European Parliament.

Robinson, E.A.G., ed. 1960. Economic consequences of the size of nations. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Sala-i-Martin, Xavier. 1998. La indepedència de Catalunya: La viabilitat ecònomica . [The independence of Catalonia: The economic viability. Translated by Eva Guler.] Paper presented at Omnium Cultural conference, February.

Endnote

John Dunning (2001), for example, found the small countries in his sample (i.e., those with fewer than 10 million people) to have a trade/GDP ratio in 1995 of 111 percent, compared to the 62 percent ratio recorded for large to medium-sized countries.

Risultati delle Elezioni comunali di Barcellona

2011-05-25T01:09:00.001+02:00

(Article recomanat de l'amic Marco Giralucci al seu blog SpaghettiBCN)

Secondo la legge elettorale, il sindaco si elegge con la maggioranza assoluta, cioè la metà più uno dei consiglieri. Se però nessuno dei candidati la raggiunge in prima convocazione, la seconda volta basta essere il capo della lista più votata e questo è proprio il caso del nuovo sindaco di Barcellona Xavier Trias.

Per governare però serve una maggioranza più sostanziosa e Trias non ha, ad oggi, ancora chiarito se governerà in minoranza facendo accordi di volta in volta coi partiti presenti in consiglio, oppure farà la giunta con altri partiti.

Nel futuro parlamento cittadino con 41 consiglieri la lista della coalizioneConvergència i Unió Democratica de Catalunya capeggiata da Trias ha ottenuto15 seggi – tre più che nel 2007- seguita dal PSC con 11 – 3 in meno – e dalPartit Popular de Catalunya con 8, uno in più rispetto alle precedenti municipali.

Iniciativa per Catalunya Verd/ Esquerra Unida aumenta da 4 a 5 seggi mentre dimezza con 2 seggi la coalizione Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya con Unió per Barcelona.

La percentuale di partecipazione al voto è costante: con 1.163.367 di cittadini aventi diritto, il 52,1% è andato a votare. Qui per le municipali è normale ma secondo i parametri italiani abbastanza bassa.

I numeri dicono molto ma non tutto, aggiungiamo una nostra riflessione.
Dopo 32 anni di ininterrotto governo della città, i socialisti hanno perso la capitale della Catalogna e quasi sicuramente anche la Diputació cioè la provincia. I consiglieri provinciali non si votano direttamente ma li scelgono i comuni e, nella media, CIU potrà contare molto al momento dell’elezione del presidente.

Tenendo conto che tutta la Catalogna ha 7,5 milioni di abitanti dei quali 1,5 vive qui, si capisce che per i socialisti del PSC si tratta di una sconfitta epocale.

CIU è il partito vincitore a Barcellona, ma anche in tutte le capitali di comarca e in molti municipi minori. Lavorava da tempo a questa rivincita con un progetto più attento ai cittadini e meno all’immagine delle città.

Si deve sempre tener presente che nella comunità autonoma – da non confondere con una regione – della Catalogna il quadro politico è molto più articolato di quello bipolare PSOE-PP dello stato spagnolo nel suo complesso. Potremmo dire che la Catalogna non è monoteista ma sceglie i suoi governi mettendo insieme molte formazioni politiche. In questa comunità l’elemento indipendentista gioca un ruolo importante, fondamentale per capirne la realtà.

Con 8 seggi continua a migliorare e guadagna posizioni anche a Barcellona ilPPC, figlio diretto del Partito Popolare spagnolo, che in campagna elettorale ha accusato gli immigranti di riportare in Catalogna malattie da tempo sconfitte.

Iniciativa per Catalunya Verd nel suo programma ha posto molta attenzione al sociale, ha lavorato al governo a fianco dei socialisti ma nonostante aver migliorato la posizione con 5 seggi, passa sicuramente all’opposizione.

Il vero sconfitto, dopo il sindaco uscente, è Jordi Portabella di ERC che ha cercato di mettere insieme i cocci della sinistra indipendentista. Ha dimezzato i voti ed è stato messo all’angolo con due soli seggi.

Nessuna delle molte altre liste ha superato lo sbarramento del 5% per entrare in consiglio, ma le Candidature di Unità Popolare CUP hanno migliorato la performance e, come già a Girona e in diverse altre città minori, ce la faranno la prossima volta. Sommando i risultati in tutto il paese queste formazioni che, ricordiamo, partono dalla base dei quartieri e delle associazioni, hanno moltiplicato per cinque il numero dei consiglieri comunali.

Nell’area metropolitana di due milioni e mezzo di abitanti e nel resto della Catalogna i socialisti perdono sostenitori a favore del Partito Popolare – questo succede in tutta la Spagna – lo scettro del comando ai convergenti diCIU, Esquerra Republicana praticamente sparisce a vantaggio delle CUP che raccolgono una parte del voto indipendentista ma c’è dell’altro: entra e si consolida PxC – Plataforma per Catalunya, che raccoglie gli scontenti dei partiti che finora non hanno voluto parlare di immigrazione, e lo fa in chiave apertamente xenofoba.

Lionel Messi: Boy Genius

2011-05-22T17:53:00.001+02:00

Recommended reading about Barça (and a little bit about Catalonia) at The New York Times: "Lionel Messi: Boy Genius".

(excerpt)

(...) But now they played for club, not country. Temporary brotherhood fissured. Blood rivalry resumed. Madrid, the capital, was once the base of Franco’s dictatorship and is now the seat of Spain’s constitutional monarchy; Barcelona sits in the heart of the autonomous Catalan region, with its own language and cultural (and soccer) identity.

The Catalan kings

2011-05-21T16:41:00.002+02:00

Recommended reading about Barça (and a little bit about Catalonia) at "The Economist": "The Catalan kings".

(...)

Barça puts more emphasis than any other major team on growing its own players. Other football teams often resemble the United Nations—the Arsenal first eleven, for example, frequently includes just two native-born Britons. Barça, by contrast, is still dominated by local players, and Catalan is often spoken in the dressing room. Eight of the team’s leading players are products of its football school, La Masia. That includes Mr Messi, an Argentine who moved to Barcelona as a boy, and the team’s coach, Josep (“Pep”) Guardiola. La Masia is unique among football schools. It is a boarding school that puts as much emphasis on character-training as on footballing skills. The students are relentlessly instructed in the importance of team spirit, self-sacrifice and perseverance. They are also taught that Barça is “more than a club”: it is the embodiment of Catalan pride that kept the region’s spirit alive during the years when Spain groaned under the fascist Franco regime. Fans regularly sport banners proclaiming that “Catalonia is not Spain”.

(...)

The billion-dollar grudge match: The enormity of El Clasico

2011-04-27T22:31:00.003+02:00

(Recommended article at CNN: "The billion-dollar grudge match: The enormity of El Clasico")

(By Will Tidey, CNN) -- There are few rivalries in sport that capture the imagination like the coming together of Real Madrid and Barcelona -- a soccer match of such enormity that it has its own nickname: "El Clasico."

On the field, it is a billion-dollar grudge match between the two best teams in the football-mad country of Spain.

Off the field, it is a tale of two cities -- a clash of Castilian nationalism and Catalan pride; and a rivalry of cultures forged in the Spanish civil war and the reign of General Franco.

(...)

Barcelona and Real Madrid played for the first time in 1902, but the rivalry soon transcended the confines of a soccer match.

Barca came to represent the fight for Catalan independence from Spain, and a rejection of the nationalist regime that ruled the country from Madrid -- especially under the rule of Franco, who came to power at the culmination of the bloody Spanish Civil War in 1939.

"In Spain, the population of Catalonia don't consider themselves Spanish," said Adi-Oula Sebastian, editor of Barca fan site barcablaugranes.com.

"When the General Franco dictatorship forbade the use of regional dialects, the Camp Nou (Barcelona's home stadium) became one of the few places Catalans were allowed to speak their language, without having to fear repercussions."

Madrid were the all-powerful institution. They had political and royal backing -- the "Real" in their name, meaning "Royal," was a gift from King Alfonso XIII in 1920 -- and from the 1950s, boasted a collection of the world's best and most glamorous players.

(You can read the full article by clicking here).

St George's Day with a Catalan twist

2011-04-23T20:08:00.001+02:00

(By Matthew Tree published at The Guardian)

The patron saint of the country in which I live is Sant Jordi, his name adapted here to Catalan just as it has been to the respective tongues of the 11 other countries that have adopted this apparent dragon-slayer as their national mascot. In Catalonia, however, far from being an occasion for patriotic breast-beating – as still seems to be the case in England – April 23, at least since the 15th century, has been revered as the dia dels enamorats or lovers' day, on which the enamoured are supposed to give a blood-red rose to their beloveds.

Towards the end of the 1920s, Vicente Clavel, a Valencian resident of Barcelona, realising that Sant Jordi's deathday coincided with those of Cervantes and Shakespeare, decided to encourage people to give books as well as roses to their loved ones, an idea welcomed with open arms by his fellow publishers.

Since then, on Sant Jordi's day (even under Franco, when the open sale of Catalan language books was banned for 39 years), the citizens of Catalonia have flocked to the centres of their villages, towns and cities to get a rose and a book for their spouses, lovers, offspring or parents. In the capital (Barcelona), things never fail to reach a frenetic apogee, with the two main Ramblas and a fair slice of the Passeig de Gràcia stuffed to the gills with potential readers on the lookout for the latest titles and the writers who are signing them, while roses are hawked by dozens upon dozens of street vendors dotted among the bookstalls.

Writers are traditionally invited to kick off Sant Jordi's Day by assembling at the central Regina hotel for a collective breakfast followed by a mass photo shoot. I personally skip this occasion (which is rush-hour crowded; besides which, I never eat breakfast anyway) and head straight for my first allocated stand. (Publishers organise between six and eight separate signing sessions throughout the day per author).

These stands are of banqueting-hall length, with the writers squeezed together like wedding guests, that is to say, within elbowing distance. Which has the advantage, sometimes, of being placed next to an author you have long been wanting to meet, and the disadvantage, on occasion, of being obliged to cosy up with someone who belongs to a pretentious clique whose work you despise (and who, almost certainly, feels the same way about you). More rare – though it has happened to me more than twice – is the unsettling experience of finding yourself next to a Catalan media personality before whom hordes are queuing to obtain his TV spin-off while in front of your own pile of volumes, written without the cameras in mind, there stretches nothing but empty paving.

Throughout the day, the inevitable spectacle of strangers picking up your book, reading through the blurb, and then tossing it disdainfully back on the pile, is offset, thank the Lord, by the pleasantness (far more common) involved in meeting many chatty, previously unknown readers.

At the end of each hour, it is mandatory to leap up from your chair and half-sprint off to the next scheduled stand. Given that the signing sessions are chronologically sandwiched – so that the author signing from, say, four to five, is supposed to start his next signing from five to six, often at a stand several hundred yards away – writers have to barge red-faced and sweating through the crowds in an attempt to defy the rules that still govern time and space.

Sant Jordi's Day ends around twilight, which is when the booksellers start to wrap up the unsold produce then stand around smoking in exhausted gaggles, while the throngs quickly thin to next to nothing and discarded publishers' flyers lie scattered on the pavements' darkening shades of grey.

By nine o'clock, it is hard to believe that for the last 12 hours, hundreds of thousands of people have shifted their way along the boulevards of Barcelona, Girona, Tarragona, Lleida and all the smaller towns in between: families and lovers and groups of friends eyeing covers, inspecting rose petals, exchanging books, exchanging roses, all of it, nominally at least, in the name of love: family love, couple love, erotic love. There is, indeed, nothing like Catalonia's dia dels enamorats anywhere else on this planet. Saint Valentine, eat your heart out.

Former IMF Chief Economist says Catalonia would be “one of the richest countries in the world” if it were independent

2011-04-22T19:56:00.000+02:00

(From Catalan News Agency)

CNA / F. Javier Rodríguez Baena

Barcelona (ACN). “Catalonia, as an independent nation, would be one of the richest countries in the world”, stated the former IMF Chief Economist, Kenneth Rogoff, in an interview to Capital magazine, in which he reviews the Spain’s economic situation. Rogoff, currently professor at Harvard University, defends that Spain “has many strong points” such as “excellent companies and regions like Catalonia”, but he thinks that “there is a high probability that Spain may have to be rescued”. This would be the case, as “Greece, Ireland and Portugal would have to reorganise their debt. And when this happens, markets would go crazy” and the rescue would be almost unavoidable, explained Rogoff. If Europe did not rescue Spain in that case, the entire Eurozone would be at risk and even France could fall.

Rogoff said it is “unimaginable that Europe would leave Spain to go bankrupt without lending any help”. But, “if it was to suspend payments, things would not end this way. It would spread to Belgium, Italy... and France”. The prestigious economist warns today the Spanish debt is already at “a dangerous level to deal with but if it increases another 30%, then it would not be able to be governed in any way”. Rogoff warns Europe that it should set a “red line” in the case of Spain. The former economist says that the Spanish Government has not reacted fast enough, but admits that recent reforms have strengthened the country.

Pas endavant en l’Informe dels Drets Humans del Departament d’Estat dels EUA

2011-04-21T12:18:00.004+02:00

(post publicat al blog de Salvador Garcia, membre del Col·lectiu Emma)

Com sol passar en aquest país quan hi ha bones notícies, la difusió ha estat limitada (en premsa escrita, em sembla que només a l’ARA; en mitjans digitals destacaria l’article del Nació Digital).

Recordem: el Departament d’Estat dels EUA publica cada any un informe, estat a estat, on explica les violacions i denúncies de violacions dels drets humans del món. Aquest matís és important: explica tant violacions (clares i objectives) com denúncies, en les quals no es posiciona.

Els darrers anys aquest informe es feia ressò (entre molta altra informació) de denúncies de discriminacions a castellanoparlants a Catalunya i a les Illes Balears (és a dir, no que hi haguessin discriminacions, només denúncies; era un aclariment que s’hagués pogut resoldre només trucant a l’Ambaixada o al Consolat). I aquest informe era utilitzat pel Mundo i els seus col·legues per carregar contra la normalització lingüística.

L’aparició d’aquesta informació a l’informe estava fora de lloc: primer, perquè feia difusió de denúncies aïllades (amb una motivació clarament política i instigades pels enemics de sempre de la llengua catalana) que no tenen res a veure amb els drets humans en un informe sobre els drets humans; i segon, calia ser equànime, si sortien denúncies pel castellà havien de sortir denúncies també per la discriminació al català.

I amb això passava com fins fa un temps amb la premsa internacional: ens queixaven però el biaix continuava, perquè ningú feia res o, si ho feia, els resultats eren nuls. Però s’ha posat fil a l’agulla, amb resultats notables aquest any: fixa’t en l’informe de l’any passat i el que tot just s’acaba de publicar.

Informe del 2010 (publicat el 2011)

The controversy regarding official language policies continued, with some persons complaining that policies in Catalonia interfered with receiving an education in the country's majority language, Castilian Spanish. Likewise, there were instances of Catalan speakers raising concerns that the Catalan language was not equally favored.

On December 22, the Supreme Court ruled that Castilian Spanish must become a "vehicular language" or lingua franca in Catalonia's educational system. The decision involved three separate cases of Spanish-speaking parents pursuing legal action against the Catalan education system. The ruling came during the transition to the new Catalan government. Both the outgoing and incoming administrations defended the existing education model and maintained that the decision pertained to three individual cases and that no changes were needed in Catalan language policies. Catalan leaders in favor of the existing language-immersion model claimed that students could become equally proficient in Catalan and Spanish.

On September 14, the Catalan parliament approved a decree that will require new full-time professors at public and private universities to take a language examination before they are hired to prove that they have "C-level" (medium-high oral and writing communication level) proficiency in Catalan. The decree permits universities to exempt full-time research staff or professors teaching in a foreign language from the requirement. To prevent the loss of talented professors, universities can, in some cases, delay the test for up to two years after the actual date of hire. Some universities and educators criticized the decree as discriminatory, especially if the language of instruction is not Catalan.

Informe del 2009 (publicat el 2010)

The controversy regarding official language policies continued, with complaints that current policies offend the right to an education in the "mother tongue," or Castilian Spanish. In 2007 the ombudsman received approximately 100 complaints regarding Catalonia's linguistic policies, and in March 2008 the NGO Platform in Defense of the Freedom of Choice in Language Election filed a formal complaint against a school in the Basque Country. The school had refused to offer all classes in Spanish.

In April, 39 doctors at the sole hospital on Ibiza (one of the Balearic Islands) announced their decision to leave their jobs due to a new requirement that doctors be tested for fluency in Catalan. The decree, approved by the Balearic government on March 27, requires that doctors working in public service speak Catalan and provides a window of three years for them to learn it. The doctors' union asserted that the requirement was not for public benefit but rather the result of a "political obsession." In response to the decree, 2,500 persons participated in a demonstration protesting the Catalan language requirement.

According to security forces, 4,000 persons participated in a demonstration in Barcelona in September 2008 to protest the government's linguistic policies and to defend the right to have school classes taught in Castilian.

Podem estar contents però insatisfets (com en general a la vida): continua sent inadmissible incloure aquestes qüestions en un informe sobre els drets humans, però ja que s’inclou cal reconèixer que apareix en termes molt equilibrats. Minimitza (molt) la suposada discriminació del castellà, explica casos de discriminació del català, i es fa ressò de l’ampli consens a Catalunya en termes de normalització lingüística. Fins i tot El Mundo afirma que “EEUU suaviza su visión de la lingüística en España”.

I per què s’ha donat aquest canvi? Per vàries raons i iniciatives, i entre elles també algunes accions del Col·lectiu Emma.

De l’informe però cal lamentar-se que expliqui brots de xenofòbia a Catalunya representats per Garcia Albiol a Badalona i per Plataforma per Catalunya: no representen el sentiment i tarannà majoritari dels catalans, però apareixen a l’informe. Això sí que és fer mal a Catalunya.

I també lamento que apareguin l’increment de denúncies als Mossos d’Esquadra: no hi ha cap policia a l’estat més monitoritzada i, fins fa molt poc, menys defensada. Qui la faci la pagui, com ha passat fins ara, però suport absolut als Mossos. I per cert, que a la resta de l’estat adoptin el zel, com les càmeres a comissaries, que tenim aquí amb els Mossos d’Esquadra.

No estem (com a Col·lectiu Emma) exultants amb l’informe, però cal reconèixer que l’evolució és molt positiva. Tan de bo no aparegui temes de llengua en aquest informe en el futur però, si surt, que siguin equànimes com aquest any (i per exemple que també expliquin la situació de la llengua al País Valencià, ja sigui a les escoles o el tancament de TV3).

I com diem en el nostre comunicat, "volem agrair als representants del govern dels Estats Units que hagin tingut en compte i consignat en el seu informe el que és l'opinió majoritària a Catalunya" sobre la qüestió de la llengua.

Contents però insatisfets: i a continuar treballant!

Risposte a un giornale serio, La Stampa di Torino

2011-04-21T11:44:00.003+02:00

(Resposta de Marco Giralucci a La Stampa di Torino)

Il 15 aprile scorso, su La Stampa.it, è apparso un articolo dall'apparenza sportiva. All'estero si parla di Catalogna solo quando gioca il Barça o c'è qualche premio di motociclismo, quando Laporta fa qualche numeretto e poco più. Quando si tocca l'argomento Catalogna-Spagna cominciano i luoghi comuni e le inesattezze.

In fin dei conti l'importante è la notizia, gli approfondimenti interessano solo ad una minoranza dei lettori, ancora meno se siamo sul web. Basta un "clic" e in un decimo di secondo abbiamo pagato la nostra parte per leggere il giornale.

Peccato che in questo caso non ci sia nessuna notizia e non si tratti di un blog qualsiasi ma di una testata seria come La Stampa di Torino.

Non riportiamo l'articolo in questione, che potete leggere su http://www3.lastampa.it/sport/sezioni/calcio/lstp/397967/ e preferiamo rispondere ad otto affermazioni errate del signor Orighi, che ripetono una serie di luoghi comuni e spesso, non sempre, li argomentano con dati come minimo inesatti, quando non tendenziosi.

Ci sarebbe molto altro da dire sul danno che queste cose fanno alla Catalogna, alla sua immagine e alla sua dignità ma non vogliamo essere noiosi e ripetitivi.
Ecco le affermazioni di Orighi e le nostre argomentazioni:

“I catalani stanno perdendo la quinta partita, quella della leadership nel Paese...”
Per l’effetto di essere la capitale dello stato, Madrid gode di maggior considerazione interna e internazionale. Multinazionali con sede a Madrid 50%, con sede a Barcellona 27%

“Barcellona è stata fondata dai cartaginesi 2.241 anni fa...”
I primi insediamenti di cui c’è traccia archeologica e non leggendaria, sono iberi. Erano separati fra di loro e si chiamavano Barkeno e Laie. Se vogliamo parlare di fondazione nel vero senso della parola, dobbiamo arrivare alla Barcino romana del I secolo a.C.

“La Catalogna era il volano economico. Ma da tempo Madrid la insegue e sta per farle le scarpe. Il risultato dell'ultimo marzo registra un sostanziale pareggio”
Vero, con una differenza per quanto riguarda gli investimenti dello stato nelle due aree, tenendo conto che la città di Madrid ha una comunità autonoma solo per lei. Alcuni dati: aeroporti Madrid, costo finale € 6.200 milioni; Barcelona € 1.258 milioni. Treni obsoleti costruiti prima degli anni Ottanta in circolazione: Comunità di Madrid 9,52%, Catalogna 37,72%. Superstrade (gratuite) costruite 1985-2005: Madrid 600 km, Barcellona 20 km. In autostrade a pagamento invece è il contrario, per ogni 10000 catalani ci sono 0,92 km e per lo stesso numero di cittadini del resto dello stato 0,59 km. quindi quasi la metà.

“Madrid, ……dal ritorno alla democrazia nel ‘78, ha ceduto potere alla Catalogna: il 50% del gettito complessivo dell'Irpef...”
Queste ed altre tasse sono quanto stabilito dalla legge non per cedere potere ma per aver trasmesso le “competenze” sulla sanità, cultura, istruzione etc.

"Barcellona gestisce ……la magistratura”

Non è esatto, gestisce la giustizia nell’ambito del suo territorio, con giudici che comunque fanno una carriera statale. Uno dei problemi infatti è che molti di loro non sanno la lingua dei cittadini che giudicano, peraltro costituzionalmente riconosciuta.

"Il 25% dei catalani se ne vuole andare dalla Spagna...”
Su questo punto è molto difficile avere dati certi perché in Spagna è vietato fare referendum su questo argomento, a meno che non siano organizzati dallo stato che, evidentemente, non vuole mettere in discussione l’unità.
Certo è il successo di partecipazione al recente referendum senza valore legale organizzato da associazioni di cittadini senza fondi pubblici, che ha portato a votare gente di 573 comuni catalani.

Più imparziale è l’inchiesta realizzata dal Barometro della Comunicazione e la Cultura su 5.084 persone maggiori di 18 anni con la domanda “se domani si celebrasse un referendum sull’indipendenza della Catalogna, lei cosa voterebbe?”. Risultato 34% si, 30% no, 23 non so, 3% in bianco. (dati agenzia ufficiale www.fundacc.org)

"L’ex presidente “Pujol, ….. parlava in catalano sempre, e la tv era costretta, per farlo capire, a tradurlo in sovraimpressione”
Il catalano è lingua co-ufficiale in Catalogna, riconosciuta dalla costituzione spagnola e non è obbligatorio, fuori del territorio, conoscerla. Normale quindi sottotitolarla.

“Barcellona, progressista da sempre, non mantiene il ritmo della capitale, ... specchio dei tempi, i turisti vanno ormai più a Madrid che a Barcellona..."
”Dato incorretto: il turismo interno preferisce Madrid e quello internazionale Barcellona.

Sobre l'Informe de Drets Humans del Departament d'Estat dels EUA

2011-04-16T07:26:00.000+02:00

El Departament d’Estat dels Estat Units ha publicat el seu informe anual sobre els drets humans al món, corresponent a 2010. En anys anteriors algunes persones s´havien dirigit al Col•lectiu Emma per denunciar que en el capítol que tracta d´Espanya es reproduïen sistemàticament les opinions tendencioses d´alguns grups minoritaris, recollides per la premsa de Madrid, sobre una suposada persecució del castellà a Catalunya. Celebrem poder dir que aquest any la qüestió es tracta d´una manera més equilibrada. Continuem pensant que la qüestió lingüística a Catalunya està completament fora de lloc en un informe sobre drets humans, però aquest any es presenta també l´altre punt de vista i s´inclouen frases com les següents, que contraresten alguns dels arguments habituals de l´altra part:

“…hi ha hagut casos en què els catalanoparlants han expressat preocupació pel fet que la llengua catalana no rebés el mateix tracte de favor.”

“... tant el govern anterior com l´actual han defensat el model educatiu existent i sostenen que la decisió [del Tribunal Suprem, que declara l´espanyol llengua vehicular] es refereix a tres casos concrets i que no cal canviar la política lingüística catalana. Els líders catalans favorables a l´actual model d´immersió afirmen que els alumnes arriben a tenir el mateix nivell de coneixement del català i de l´espanyol.”

[Sobre els examens de català per a professors universitaris:] “El decret permet que les universitats eximeixin d´aquest requisit el personal de recerca de dedicació exclusiva o els professors que ensenyen en una llengua estrangera. Per no deixar-se perdre professors amb talent, les universitats poden, en alguns casos, ajornar l´examen per un període de fins a dos anys després de la data de contractació efectiva.”

Volem agraïr als representants del govern dels Estats Units que hagin tingut en compte i consignat en el seu informe el que és l´opinió majoritària a Catalunya sobre aquest tema.

About the US State Department Human Rights Report

2011-04-16T07:17:00.001+02:00

The US Department of State has issued its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2010. In previous years, Col•lectiu Emma had received complaints that some biased opinions expressed by certain small groups, and reproduced in the Madrid press, about an alleged persecution of the Spanish language in Catalonia, had been systematically included in the chapter on Spain. We are happy to see a more balanced treatment of this matter in the 2010 Report. We still believe that the linguistic question in Catalonia is out of place in a report on human rights, but in the current year an alternative point of view is presented, including the following sentences, which go a long way to counter some of the usual arguments from the other side:

“... there were instances of Catalan speakers raising concerns that the Catalan language was not equally favored."

“...outgoing and incoming administrations defended the existing education model and maintained that the [Supreme Court’s] decision [declaring Spanish a vehicular language in education] pertained to three individual cases and that no changes were needed in Catalan language policies. Catalan leaders in favor of the existing language-immersion model claimed that students could become equally proficient in Catalan and Spanish.”

“The decree [requiring university professors to be fluent in Catalan] permits universities to exempt full-time research staff or professors teaching in a foreign language from the requirement. To prevent the loss of talented professors, universities can, in some cases, delay the test for up to two years after the actual date of hire…”

We would like to thank the US Government representatives for having taken into account and included in the report what is undoubtedly the majority opinion in Catalonia on this matter.

Batalla (complicada) a la premsa internacional

2011-04-12T20:26:00.001+02:00

(Article public en el blog de Salvador Garcia, promotor del Col·lectiu Emma) Des del Col·lectiu Emma portem mesos avisant que la premsa internacional estava "comprant" l'argument de Madrid de que la culpa de tots els mals de l'economia espanyola i les seves finances públiques són les autonomies (com aquí, aquí, aquí o aquí).

Hem parlat amb ells, els hem explicat l'espoli (i han fet difusió), han estat molt comprensius... però sembla que estem perdent la batalla. Un exemple, l'editorial del Financial Times de la setmana passada "Spain on track as Zapatero bows out" on explica que Espanya està fent els deures tot i que "central government’s fiscal retrenchment efforts are undermined by indiscipline in autonomous Spanish regions such as Catalonia and Valencia".

Anunciar que Catalunya no complirà l'objectiu de dèficit de l'1,3% del PIB, com fa uns dies explicava el Wall Street Journal (amb foto del President Mas inclosa), sense explicar-ne clarament els motius, no ajuda, ja que no transmetem una imatge de rigorositat. I el proper juny, quan aflorin nous dèficits i deutes ocults d'autonomies i ajuntaments, aquesta percepció s'agreujarà. I no oblidem que la causa de fons és l'espoli, però també l'incompliment dels objectius de dèficit públic l'any passat per part de la Generalitat. És a dir, cal denunciar l'espoli però alhora recuperar la credibilitat en la gestió dels diners públics.

Què fer? Feina interna i externa.

La interna, pedagogia de l'espoli. I acabar-ho amb un referèndum sobre el concert econòmic (com estic reclamanat des del 2008, com aquí, aquí, aquí, aquí, aquí o aquí). Les protestes per les retallades només acaben de començar i aniran a més, a molt més. En el camí hi haurà molta gent emprenyada: cal explicar cap a on dirigir les culpes i, sobretot, transmetre quin és el projecte de futur

I externa, pedagogia i credibilitat. El discurs de l'espoli l'ha d'adoptar el Govern, amb xifres clares i objectives. Per quan un document sobre les balances fiscals en anglès? I alhora credibilitat: explicar en positiu el que volem fer. Enlloc de dir que no complirem amb els objectius de dèficit, dir que els complirem sempre que el Govern espanyol compleixi la llei (aka fons de competitivitat).

La batalla amb la premsa i inversors internacionals està complicada. O es reacciona de forma clara, contundent (i en la direcció correcta!) o es confirmaran els pitjors escenaris de la tempesta perfecta.

P.D. Per cert: darrerament el Col·lectiu Emma fa menys respostes públiques. La raó és que s'estan dirigint els esforços a interaccions més personals i directes (que alhora resulten més efectives). Ho comento sobretot de cara als nostres col·laboradors en la redacció de les respostes, que en molts casos fa temps que no contactem (justament per aquesta raó).

Catalan News Agency: news, texts, videos and more (in English) about Catalonia

2011-04-12T12:09:00.002+02:00

If you want to get news, texts or videos in English about Catalonia, we strongly recommend you to visit the website of the Catalan News Agency.

Examples of recent news published at the Catalan News Agency are:

2011 tourist perspectives for Catalonia and Barcelona are “exceptional” and records could be broken

Win against Almeria confirms Barça’s eight point lead (3-1)

An autobiography from Salvador Dalí’s muse reveals a surprising side of Gala

The Catalan Government will not open delegations in Mexico, China and Morocco for the moment

And recent opinions:

A Road Map for Catalan Culture in New York, by Mary Ann Newman

A new dawn for the Mediterranean, by Jordi Vaquer

Congratulations to the Catalan News Agency for bringing news and opinions in English to the world.

Barcellona ha deciso

2011-04-11T22:11:00.001+02:00

(Article recomanat del blog SpaguettiBCN de l'amic Marco Giralucci)

257.645 Votanti fanno di Barcellona la capitale del “Dret de decidir”.
La capitale catalana rompe il tabú sul fatto che le grandi città siano terreno difficile per un referendum indipendentista.
Più di settemila volontari hanno assicurato un funzionamento pacifico, democratico e perfetto delle operazioni di voto.
Quando l’11 settembre 2009 questa avventura è cominciata quasi per caso, nata spontaneamente da un gruppo di cittadini di Arenys de Munt – che di anime ne ha ottomila e ne ha portate a votare 2671- scrissi il mio primo articolo sulla politica di questo paese.
Avevo capito che era successo qualcosa di diverso ma non sapevo quasi nulla – a parte la bella immagine che tutti ne abbiamo, a condizione che si tratti di un paese lontano – del sentimento di autodeterminazione di un popolo.
In quest’anno e mezzo ho cercato di parlare con tutta la gente possibile, di leggere quello che ho potuto, di scrivere quello che ho saputo. Niente, però, mi ha dato la sensazione di questi giorni vedendo da vicino i volontari che raccolgono voti per un referendum che si sono dovuti inventare dal nulla. E che hanno portato a termine, con precisione e coerenza.
Senza retorica e senza voler fare l’analista politico, da italiano che vive in Catalogna, posso dire che qualcosa è veramente cambiato. Dopo che il 21,37% dei barcellonesi, ma anche di molti altri comuni che ieri 10 aprile, hanno deciso che un referendum si può fare su qualsiasi argomento, per votare SI o NO, le cose non saranno più come prima. Per tutti, compresi noi italiani che adesso dobbiamo prepararci per i nostri del 12 e 13 giugno.
Il blog di Marco Giralucci: Catalogna Oggi

El front diplomàtic, l'assignatura pendent

2011-04-10T09:05:00.003+02:00

Recomanem l'article de Marc Colomer al diari ARA "El front diplomàtic, l'assignatura pendent", on s'explica la necessitat que des de Catalunya s'aconsegueixin aliances internacionals per tal d'aconseguir el reconixement d'un possible futur estat català.

Igualment volem destacar la part de l'article que parla del Col·lectiu Emma:

En qualsevol cas, les complicitats internacionals que cultivi Catalunya seran determinants. Ja existeixen organitzacions en xarxa, com el col·lectiu Emma, pendent de tot el que publica la premsa internacional sobre Catalunya, per matisar i contrastar qualsevol visió esbiaixada del país, una tasca pedagògica imprescindible en qualsevol procés de recerca de complicitats.

Ells són el més semblant al front diplomàtic internacional del moviment independentista català. Una assignatura encara pendent.

Newsletter of the Delegation of the Government of Catalonia to the United States of America

2011-04-04T23:57:00.000+02:00

El Col·lectiu Emma és un grup de catalans no partidista i totalment independent del Govern. No rebem ni rebem mai cap diner públic (efectivament, ho paguem tot de la nostra butxaca!).

Des d'aquesta independència i llibertat volem recomanar el newsletter de la Delegació del Govern als Estats Units, on explica interessants iniciatives que s'han realitzat a Califòrnia, Florida, Nova York i Washington, i felicitar al seu director, Andrew Davis, per la tascar que està realitzant.

Link al newsletter (newsletter's link)

Major European rugby event to be held on April 9th at Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium – and an occasion to denounce a dictator’s wanton act of exclusion

2011-04-03T23:14:00.002+02:00

A sold-out crowd of 55,000 is expected at Barcelona's Olympic Stadium on April 9th for the Heineken Cup quarterfinals match between the 2008-2009 French champions, Perpignan's USAP, and Rugby Club Toulonnais.

This major sporting event will be held for the first time outside of France as a result of a collaboration agreement signed last January between USAP and the city's soccer giant Barça. Rugby is extremely popular in the Catalan area of France, and giving the public in Barcelona a chance to watch Perpignan's powerhouse will certainly contribute to the promotion of what is still a minority sport south of the border.

This will also be an occasion to support Catalan rugby's demand of official international recognition. In fact, the Catalan Rugby Federation was one of the 13 founding members of the European Rugby Association (FIRA), established in Paris in 1934. In 1941, however, General Franco's dictatorship dissolved all independent sports associations and in 1945 all sports activities, incuding international representation, were put under the authority of a centralized government department.

All efforts made since then by the Catalan Federation to regain its rightful status as a full member of the European Association have failed, including a case brought before the French courts in 2006 and dismissed on appeal in 2010. During the proceedings, lawyers representing the Spanish Federation had no qualms about invoking the laws passed under the dictatorship - and never repealed to this day - to justify the Catalans' continued exclusion.

In 1992 Barcelona's Olympic Stadium was officially named after former Catalan President Lluís Companys, who was arrested while in exile in France in 1940 and handed over to the Francoist police by the Gestapo. After a summary court martial, he was executed by a firing squad in Montjuïc castle. To this day, every Spanish government has refused to nullify that illegitimate death sentence or even to apologize for what can only be described as a state crime.

More information about the match, the stadium, USAP, Catalan rugby and the effects of the 1939-1975 dictatorship that can still be felt in Spanish society can be found at:

http://fr.usap.fr/
http://www.stadiumguide.com/montjuic.htm
http://www.seleccions.cat/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11884
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/28/spain-lingering-legacy-franco?INTCMP=SRCH

La grande manifestation sportive européenne qu’est le match de rugby du 9 avril au stade olympique de Barcelone est aussi l’occasion de dénoncer la...

2011-04-03T23:09:00.006+02:00

LA GRANDE MANIFESTATION SPORTIVE EUROPÉENNE QU'EST LE MATCH DE RUGBY DU 9 AVRIL AU STADE OLYMPIQUE DE BARCELONE EST AUSSI L'OCCASION DE DÉNONCER LA DÉCISION ARBITRAIRE D'UN DICTATEUR.

Le quart-de-finale de l'H Cup entre l'USAP de Perpignan, champion de France 2008-2009, et le Rugby Club Toulonnais se jouera à guichet fermé le 9 avril prochain au stade olympique de Barcelone qui pense accueillir ce jour-là quelque 55 000 spectateurs.

Cet événement sportif se déroulera pour la première fois hors de France, grâce à l'accord de collaboration conclu en janvier dernier entre l'USAP et le grand club de football de la ville, le Barça.

Le rugby est très populaire dans la région catalane française et le fait d'offrir au public de Barcelone l'occasion de voir jouer la célèbre équipe de Perpignan devrait contribuer à mieux faire connaitre ce sport qui reste encore très minoritaire au sud des Pyrénées.

Cela sera aussi l'occasion de manifester son soutien à la demande de la Fédération catalane de rugby d'être officiellement reconnue au niveau international.

De fait, la Fédération catalane de rugby a été l'un des 13 membres fondateurs de la Fédération internationale de rugby amateur (FIRA), créée à Paris en 1934.

En 1941 toutefois, la dictature du Général Franco décide de dissoudre toutes les associations sportives indépendantes et, en 1945, de placer toutes les activités sportives, y compris la représentation auprès des instances internationales, sous le contrôle d'une autorité ministérielle centrale.

Tous les efforts de la Fédération catalane pour retrouver son statut de membre à part entière de l'Association européenne de rugby (FIRA–AER) ont jusqu'à maintenant échoué, y compris la demande dont elle a saisi les tribunaux français en 2006. En 2010, la Cour d'appel de Paris l'a en effet finalement déboutée de ses demandes en appel.

Pendant l'audience, les avocats représentant la Fédération espagnole de rugby n'ont pas hésité à invoquer les lois adoptées sous la dictature – et jamais abrogées depuis – pour justifier l'exclusion des Catalans.

En 1992, le stade olympique de Barcelone a été officiellement renommé stade Lluís Companys, en mémoire de l'ancien président de la Catalogne qui a été arrêté en 1940 alors qu'il était en exil en France et livré par la Gestapo à la police franquiste. Après un jugement sommaire prononcé par un tribunal militaire, il a été fusillé au château de
Montjuïc. Les gouvernements espagnols successifs ont tous refusé d'annuler la condamnation à mort et même d'offrir des excuses pour ce qu'il faut bien qualifer de crime d'État.

Pour plus d'information sur le match, le stade, l'USAP, le rugby catalan, et les effects persistants de la dictature (1939-1975) sur la société espagnole actuelle, consulter:

http://fr.usap.fr/
http://www.stadiumguide.com/montjuic.htm
http://www.seleccions.cat/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11884
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/28/spain-lingering-legacy-franco?INTCMP=SRCH

Texte de la décision de la Cour d'appel:
http://www.rugby.cat/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Sent%C3%A8ncia-Par%C3%ADs-apel%C2%B7laci%C3%B3.pdf

Catalunya, el seu dèficit, i un apunt de l'espoli i del Col·lectiu Emma, al New York Times

2011-03-31T22:32:00.005+02:00

Tal i com va fer el Financial Times fa uns dies, el New York Times parla del dèficit i deute català en l'article "Deficits in Regions Compound Fears About Spain" de Raphael Minder.

L'article inclou dades molt negatives però malauradament certes sobre Catalunya: l'incomplent de l'objectiu de dèficit públic del 2010, el gran pes del deute català sobre el total deute de les CCAA de l'estat espanyol, o la comparació de Catalunya amb Grècia.

Volem remarcar però almenys tres aspectes positius de l'article:

La denúncia del Conseller Mas-Colell del doble estàndar de ZP, que anuncia mesures que paguen les CCAA
L'explicació del potencial de Catalunya per part de l'empresari Joaquim Boixareu
Com explica que hi ha catalans que expliquen la situació actual per l'espoli fiscal de Catalunya, com apareix en aquest apartat de la notícia:

The problem, many local commentators claim, lies not with past extravagance or mismanagement but with a national financing system that has left Catalonia contributing the equivalent of 10 percent of its G.D.P. to support poorer regions through taxes collected by the central government in Madrid.

“There is increasing recognition across Spain that the mathematics of financing regionalism don’t work out,” said Salvador Garcia Ruiz, one of the founders of Emma Initiative, an association promoting Catalan interests. “And we’re the first to agree because we’re the ones who’ve been paying for this party.”

El Col·lectiu Emma, com la majoria dels catalans, diem prou a l'espoli. I sabem, com cada vegada sap més gent, que només hi ha una forma d'acabar amb l'espoli: la llibertat.

La capacitat autodestructiva dels catalans

2011-03-29T15:25:00.006+02:00

(Article publicat per l'amic del Col·lectiu Emma Quim Torra a la web d'El Matí).

La nostra capacitat autodestructiva no té límits, o jo no sé veure'ls encara. La gàbia en què l'autonomia ha convertit Catalunya genera una sèrie de comportaments que només es deuen trobar en alguna tribu caníbal de l'Amazònia. Nosaltres no portem parracs que ens tapin els baixos però ho compensem amb una irascibilitat i agror notables. Vivim en el temor de no ser res i acabem per no ser més que uns atemorits.

Tot això ve a lloc perquè l'altre dia en Salvador Garcia-Ruiz, un d'aquests luxes que de tant en tant el nostre país ens regala, impulsor del Col.lectiu Emma, em comentava l'excel.lent reportatge que el Financial Times va dedicar a Barcelona i Catalunya el proppassat 22 de març sota el títol: “Barcelona, Innovative and creative business”. Vostès en sabien alguna cosa? Oi que no? Jo tampoc.

Home, si estiguéssim parlant del diari local d'Arkansas o de Puerto Rico, mirin, què volen que els digui. Però resulta que un dels diaris més influents del món dedica un especial a Catalunya, n'elogia el seu caràcter emprenedor, intenta explicar-lo al món, es desfà en elogis de seu patrimoni i cultura, i aquí el tema passa desapercebut i silenciat.

El que té de dramàtic aquest exemple és que estem tan acostumats a queixar-nos -i jo el primer- de què ningú no ens fa cas, que no existim o que només ens veuen com un tros d'Espanya, que quan algú s'endinsa en la nostra ànima i intenta explicar-la, i ho fa de cara i conscientment, i ens descobreix i ens explica de manera feliç, resulta que l'obsequiem amb un dels nostres comportaments més nostrats: la indiferència total. Com si anéssim sobrats, com si esperéssim només un comentari en contra per aleshores autoindignar-nos i exercitar, dins de la gàbia, aquella autoimmolació que tant ens agrada. Algun dels titulars del Financial Times van ser:

Art and industry make for a gaudy mix
Automotive: From car door panels to hybrid batteries
Globalisation has forced traditional manufacturers to explore new avenues
Hub faces intense competition
Sport: The goal is success without the debt
La Caixa: Lender weathers storm. Bank remains a dominant financial power in the city.
Entrepreneurs talk: City vibrant despite economic stagnation
Trade fairs: Conferences provide €2.5bn boost to city
Private management helps city-owned Fira cope with tough economic times
A literary hub built on rich history and skills
The city’s role as a publishing centre
Fashion retailing: Local textile tradition has gone global
Ferran Adrià: Reinventing the gourmet Architecture: A well constructed city by design
Uncontained passion and sensible wisdom

Diu en Salva que “només en flagelem i lamentem quan parlen malament de nosaltres i obviem quan ho fan bé”. I té tota la raó del món. Potser ni nosaltres en som conscients, coses de viure en la gàbia.

"Catalonia resists ‘mad’ austerity" al Financial Times

2011-03-29T07:37:00.003+02:00

Victor Mallet ha escrit un interessant article al Financial Times que recomanem: "Catalonia resists ‘mad’ austerity".

Trobem remarcable que el Financial Times expliqui l'immens dèficit fiscal de Catalunya (que quantifica en un 9%), i que compari les aportacions de Catalunya a Espanya a les que fins ara ha fet la Unió Europea:

He (President Mas) called for a new deal to reduce the 9 per cent of GDP that he said Catalonia transferred to the rest of Spain each year.

“It’s impossible that some regions should put this money on the table for ever without anything changing,” he said, comparing the withdrawal of European Union aid funds for Spain in 2013 to the cuts he hoped to achieve in Catalan transfers to the rest of Spain.

“What happens in Europe should happen in Spain,” he said. “In Spain, people have been living beyond their means. In Catalonia, we’re living below our means.”

Tan de bo més mitjans i institucions catalanes denunciessin i quantifiquessin més sovint l'espoli fiscal català com ho fa avui el Financial Times.

Per últim, volem aprofitar per lamentar que l'excel·lent reportatge que el Financial Times va publicar la setmana passada sobre Barcelona i Catalunya no va tenir cap ressó a la premsa catalana: només en flagelem i lamentem quan parlen malament de nosaltres i obviem quan ho fan bé (un link amb una reflexió al respecte).

Don't Vote (No votis) - Catalan with English subs

2011-03-25T17:52:00.003+01:00

Don't Vote (No votis) - Catalan with English subs from Belisarius on Vimeo.

P.S. What do you think about the video arguments for no voting on the non-official independence referendum in Barcelona on April 10th? FYI, these are the arguments used by Spanish unionists (just check any newspaper). Who is afraid of democracy?

Barcelona, innovació, creativitat (i un apunt del Col·lectiu Emma) al Financial Times

2011-03-21T22:23:00.004+01:00

El Financial Times ha publicat un interessant reportatge sobre innovació i creativitat a Barcelona: "BARCELONA: INNOVATIVE AND CREATIVE BUSINESS".

El reportatge és molt positiu: tot el món coneix avui una mica més i millor el potencial de Barcelona i de Catalunya gràcies al Financial Times.

Per exemple en l'article "Art and industry make for a gaudy mix" Victor Mallet explica com Catalunya va ser un precursor de la democràcia amb el Consell de Cent i com aquesta innovació continua avui dia. Així en el reportatge apareixen múltiples exemples d'innovació, emprenedoria i vitalitat a Barcelona i Catalunya.

En el reportatge també apareix el membre del Col·lectiu Emma Salvador Garcia en l'article "Entrepreneurs talk: City vibrant despite economic stagnation" afirmant, respecte a per què hi ha emprenedoria a Barcelona i Catalunya:

The crucial factors for Barcelona and Catalonia, says Salvador Garcia, a banker and former film entrepreneur, are its “entrepreneurial spirit” and “a kind of innovation atmosphere”.

Volem felicitar a Victor Mallet, corresponsal del Financial Times, per aquest reportatge.

Barcelona votes on Catalan Independence - Presentation in New York

2011-03-17T22:26:00.000+01:00

Members of the organization ‘Barcelona Decideix’ (Barcelona Decides) will provide details of the referenda for Catalan independence from Spain, which set off in Arenys de Munt in September 2009, spread all over Catalonia in 2010, and will end in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, on April 10th, 2011.

“Barcelona Decideix” will present this initiative in New York, with the support of the Catalan Institute of America.

Date: Saturday, March 19th, 2011 at 11:30 AM
Location: Liederkranz Foundation
Address: 6 East 87th Street (between 5th Ave and Madison Ave), New York

So far, the results to the question "Do you agree that Catalonia should become a sovereign democratic country, member of the European Union?" have been consistently in favor of the Catalan independence from Spain, with over 90% support. These polls have already been held in 532 towns in Catalonia. All residents are allowed to vote, including immigrants and young people age 16 and older. Turnouts have been successful all over, topping high participation in smaller villages and more moderate numbers in larger towns. More than 600,000 citizens have voted so far.

Now it is Barcelona’s turn. Its 1'5 million inhabitants will complete a process that is considered to be the first step towards a large-scale referendum to be officially organized by the Catalan Parliament. Advanced balloting has already started; a first round in 'La Barceloneta', a traditionally low turnout blue-collar district, had a 20% participation. A second round was held in the district of ‘Gràcia’, with a turnout of 33.6%. Vote canvassing is proceeding and thousands of votes have already been accounted. Due to the fact that Spain does not allow the Catalan autonomous government or the various city councils to call for an official vote on self-determination, grassroots movements have been organizing these referenda, in full compliance with legal requirements. Most Catalan parties are supporting this initiative, among them the moderate Catalan nationalist party 'Convergència i Unió', now heading the Catalan government.

More than 100 international observers have witnessed this process so far, providing testimony of ‘good democratic practices’, and many more, from very different nationalities, will be in Barcelona to monitor the referendum on April 10th. As a final comment, we would like to note the success of this civic movement on placing Catalonia's Independence debate in the very center of the political stage. Thus, last week (March 10th, 2011) the Catalan Parliament approved, by a large majority (85 against 47), a motion reaffirming Catalonia’s undeniable right to self-determination and giving support to the referenda on Catalonia’s independence organized by civic platforms such as ‘Barcelona Decideix’ in Barcelona.

We are delighted to invite you to this event at the Liederkranz Foundation this Saturday March 19th, 2011.

Looking forward to meeting you.

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions:
Anna Arqué, Head International Relations, Barcelona Decideix
anna.arque@yahoo.co.uk
Tel: +34 676409126

Elisenda Paluzie, International Relations Officer, Barcelona Decideix
epaluzie@ub.edu
Tel: +34 679 684 456

You may also contact:
Joan Salavedra, President of the Catalan Institute of America
joan.salavedra@friendsofcatalonia.com
Tel: 201-914-2859

www.barcelonadecideix.cat

From The New York Times: "Might not be a bad idea to start learning some Catalan"

2011-03-16T22:13:00.002+01:00

Recommended article about Catalan wines published at the New York Times: "Spaniards of Distinction From Priorat".

The article finishes with the following recommendation: "Might not be a bad idea to start learning some Catalan".

And we have another recommendation: enjoy Catalan wines!

“Catalonia is not to be blamed for Moody’s downgrading of Spanish debt”

2011-03-11T20:52:00.001+01:00

(From Catalan News Agency)

CNA / Laura Pous

London (ACN).- The day Moody’s rating agency downgraded the Spanish Government’s long term debt, experts in regional fiscal redistribution met in London and discussed the Spanish case and, in particular, the Autonomous Communities’s self-governing . Their main conclusion is that Catalonia is not to be blamed for Spain’s public deficit, the accumulated public debt and the overall state of the finance sector. The think tank Chatham House organised the conference ‘Devolution in a Globalised World’. In a debate chaired by professor Alan Trench from the University College of London (UCL), experts in economics and regional fiscal redistribution discussed the Spanish model, Catalonia’s fiscal autonomy and its responsibility in the rating of the Spanish public debt. According to Trench, the solution for the Spanish case is to promote a “large fiscal devolution” that would make Catalonia have a separate debt from the Spanish State administration. Trench also thinks that Catalonia should have the capacity to collect all the taxes in relation to all the services it has to provide to the Catalan citizens.

“Spain created a system in which, despite the fact that many taxes are partially devolved [decentralised] and that those tax collections finance the autonomous communities, the large part of the control is in the Central State’s hands”, Trench said to CNA. According to the academic, some Autonomous Communities have been transformed into “expenditure agencies” more than into governments “responsible not only for providing services, but also for getting the money to pay for them”. According to Trench, the fact that Autonomous Communities such as Catalonia do not have a total control on its funding “provokes risks”, as they have to assume an “important expenditure in public services”, such as Education or Healthcare. “The answer to this issue is similar to the one adopted in Canada, where there is a large-level of fiscal devolution and [provinces] have the power to issue bonds into the market in their own right”, emphasised Trench. To reach this solution, the Spanish State “should be able to give away the tax collection and its competences on taxes, in order to set those according to the functional responsibilities” of Catalonia.

Professor Joep Konings from the Belgian University of Leuven underlined that Moody’s downgrading of the Spanish debt is “related to market speculation”. He insisted that Autonomous Communities cannot be blamed for the crisis. “It is a domino. First it was Greece, then Ireland and Portugal will be in the same situation pretty soon”, explained Konings. “The next in the list is Spain”, he added. “I don’t think it has anything to do with centralisation or decentralisation within Spain”, indicated the expert in regional economies.

The chairman of the think tank ‘Reform Scotland’, Ben Thompson, thinks that neither Catalonia or the other Autonomous Communities can be blamed for decisions that, in most of the cases, have been taken by the Spanish Government. According to him, Catalonia should have a larger control over its public finances. “If we had had more responsibility at local level, in the United Kingdom we would not have ended up spending 30% more than what we collect at the central government level”, he lamented. “There is a series of responsibilities that small countries need to take, and I think they carry a greater efficiency”, ensured Thompson. For Alan Trench, Spain’s problem is not the devolution process having gone too far, but the contrary. According to Trench, the current problems regarding regional fiscal distribution, the Autonomous Communties’ funding and the Spanish public debt is that “the constitutional reforms went quite far, but not far enough”.

“Spain”, a normal country?

2011-03-08T23:09:00.001+01:00

(Article from Col·lectiu Emma's good friend Enric Bou, published at the Catalan News Agency)

A childish controversy erupted a few weeks ago regarding the use of minority languages in the Spanish “Senate.” For the first time since the restoration of democracy (a mere 35 years ago...) a senator from the Catalan group Entesa [a left-wing “Catalanist” coalition], Ramon Aleu, used Catalan in a plenary session. This event brought out a nasty response (which was forseeable) from the two highest representatives of the People's Party, who came out with banal and insulting comments such as suggesting that this was not something that happened in any “normal country” and that this was an unnecessary expense because everyone already understood Spanish. Languages, they claimed, in a snide attempt to sound like students of linguistics, should be “for communicating and not for creating problems.” We can blame the way things are today on these professional “agitators”, on the irreversible xenophobia of the majority of Spaniards, but also on the way the Transition itself was negotiated. We were caught flat-footed. Successive coup d’etats, both strong and weak, have been eroding the pluralist fervor that was alive in Spain during the final years of the dictatorship, when young people from Granada would sing Lluís Llach [a Catalan song-writer] as if he were one of their own, half understanding the lyrics of his songs.

Many years ago two illustrious Catalan members of the Spanish Real Academia, Martí de Riquer and Pere Gimferrer, proposed that all middle school students should have some knowledge of the other common languages in Spain. They also encouraged that the television stations that were not Spanish (TV3, ETB, Canal 9, etc.) could be seen outside of their respective territories. All in vain. The response was silence, rejection and oblivion, public contempt for diversity in the name of unquestionable Francoist principles of the “one, great and free land.” Very few Spanish universities still teach Catalan philology today. The situation improves slightly once outside of the Spanish State, where many foreign language philology departments are keeping the study of Catalan alive. This is happening with considerable success in Germany and Hungary, and with increasing interest in Great Britain and the United States. Now that there is so much talk of budget cuts, what a “normal country” would do would be to capitalize on its available resources. Several directors of the Instituto Cervantes, an institution that is funded by all Spanish taxpayers, have dared to think in terms of a Spain that is “not provincial or Castilian”, but plural, one told me. But this doesn’t happen as often as it should. Unfortunately, the Cervantes Institutes of New York, New Delhi, Berlin and very few others are exceptions. You don’t need to be a 1968 revolutionary (“Imagination takes power!”) to think about promoting Catalan culture through Hispanic Studies centers or Spanish cultural institutions. Would that be something an abnormal country would do?

When I drive through British Colombia, 5000 km from Montreal, all the highway signs are bilingual and if a traffic cop stops me and I address him in French, he answers me in the same language. But of course, as is well known, Canada is an abnormal country.

by Enric Bou

Professor and Chair of Hispanic Studies at Brown University (USA). Member of the Editorial Board of In-Transit.

"Barcelona, Catalonia" by Matthew Tree

2011-03-07T22:19:00.002+01:00

(via Elisabeth Castro)

Soon to be published by Cookwood Press in digital and print editions, Barcelona, Catalonia is a collection of Matthew Tree's incisive essays and live video presentations about life, language, and politics in Catalonia, as told through the eyes of a Catalan-speaking Englishman, or an English-speaking Catalan, depending on your vantage point, and his.

Matthew’s honesty and keen observations combined with his sharp wit and mastery of language (two languages!) give the reader a unique and compelling vision of Catalonia, rarely uncovered by the casual visitor, as he discusses what he promises is the next new state in Europe and its relationship with the state it currently belongs to. But Matthew does not limit himself to the purely political; he also gives us an insider’s view of real life in Barcelona, from doctor’s visits to shopping trips, through to finding one’s own voice in another culture and language.

If you’d like a review copy or for us to notify you when Barcelona, Catalonia is available for purchase, just send a note to info@cookwood.com.

I simboli danno ancora fastidio

2011-02-28T00:45:00.005+01:00

(publicat per l'amic del Col·lectiu Emma Marco Giralucci al seu blog CATALOGNAoggi)

Una domenica di fine febbraio piena di sole, in mezzo ai turisti e ai barcellonesi a passeggio sulla salita del Palau Nacional, sede del MNAC, si è finalmente inaugurata la ricostruzione del monumento delle 4 colonne di Puig i Cadafalch.

Era stato abbattuto solo per essere simbolo di identità catalana, da Miguel Primo de Rivera nel 1928 che, come tutti i dittatori, credeva di piegare un popolo con la forza delle armi e con la distruzione dei suoi simboli.

Oggi possiamo dire che non ce l'hanno fatta. Lui, Francisco Franco, e nemmeno - giusto trent'anni fa nel 1981 - il colonnello Tejero che entró sparando nell'aula parlamentare de Las Cortes di Madrid.

La storia è stata crudele ed ha lasciato sul terreno molti morti ma alla fine ha prevalso la democrazia.

Per questo non si riesce a capire il motivo di tante difficoltà, distinguo, opinioni discrepanti. Dopo che tutte le difficoltà sembravano superate, al momento di decidere la dedica proposta dalle associazioni, che indicava le colonne come "memoria dei patrioti catalani di tutti i tempi", il comune di Barcellona ha glissato sui martiri scrivendo sulla base di una delle colonne:

"Restituzione, come atto di memoria storica, delle quattro colonne demolite dalla dittatura nel 1928 per il loro carattere di simbolo di Catalogna".

A questa celebrazione c'eravamo anche noi.

C'era festa, con la Coral Sant Jordi, i Castellers di Barcelona, ma c'era qualcosa che non andava, un certo disagio.

Il sindaco Hereu fischiato, anche se educatamente.

Le associazioni che hanno protestato, anche se educatamente.

Il pubblico presente gridava "independencia", educatamente.

L'impressione rimasta è un po' amara, cerimonia austera o fredda?

Non sarà, per caso, che i simboli diano ancora fastidio a qualcuno?

Noi pensiamo di si

Infants raised in bilingual environments can distinguish unfamiliar languages: UBC research

2011-02-25T21:04:00.000+01:00

(Interesting article published at Web Newswire)

Infants raised in households where Spanish and Catalan are spoken can discriminate between English and French just by watching people speak, even though they have never been exposed to these new languages before, according to University of British Columbia psychologist Janet Werker.

Presented today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, Werker’s latest findings provide further evidence that exposure to two native languages contributes to the development of perceptual sensitivity that extends beyond their mother tongues.

Werker has previously shown that bilingual infants can discern different native languages at four, six and eight months after birth. While monolingual babies have the ability to discern two languages at four and six months, they can no longer do so at eight months.

In Werker’s latest study with Prof. Núria Sebastián-Gallés from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, infants of four and six months were shown silent videos of talking faces speaking English and French. They found that babies growing up bilingual with Spanish and Catalan – a Romance language spoken in Andorra and Catalonia – were able to distinguish between English and French simply through facial cues, even though they had never before seen speakers of either language.

“The fact that this perceptual vigilance extends even to two unfamiliar languages suggests that it’s not just the characteristics of the native languages that bilingual infants have learned about, but that they appear to have also developed a more general perceptual vigilance,” says Werker, Canada Research Chair in Psychology and director of UBC’s Infant Studies Centre.

“These findings, together with our previous work on newborn infants, provide even stronger evidence that human infants are equally prepared to grow up bilingual as they are monolingual,” Werker adds. “The task of language separation is something they are prepared to do from birth – with bilinguals increasingly adept over time.”

Native Son Returns to Guide Catalonia's Research Through Spain's Troubled Economy

2011-02-24T22:10:00.000+01:00

(Col·lectiu Emma recommends the following article about Conseller Mas-Colell from ScienceInsider: "Native Son Returns to Guide Catalonia's Research Through Spain's Troubled Economy")

Noted mathematical economist Andreu Mas-Colell, who resigned his position as secretary general of the European Research Council (ERC) last September, is returning to his native Catalonia to help the region through the economic turmoil enveloping Spain. In January, he was appointed head of Catalonia's newly created economy and knowledge department, which will now have authority over the region's economic policies, its research and development strategies, and its universities. Mas-Colell faces a difficult task, as Catalonia is more than €10 billion in debt.

"There's a fiscal problem at the regional, Spanish, and, I would say, European level that forces us to a retrenchment in our budget that will affect many aspects of public services, including universities and research," Mas-Colell tells ScienceInsider. The economist can't promise that cuts won't be made to research funding, but he believes that placing the region's universities and its R&D centers within the new department will highlight their importance to the economy and may provide some advantages for science during these lean times. "We will be able to fine-tune the type of policies that ensure the good operation of research," he says.

The current situation of science in Catalonia is not bad, Mas-Colell says. "For example, it has been very successful in scientific terms as measured by the number of the highly competitive ERC grants obtained in the region in the last call," he says. "Now we need to ensure the continuity of the current policies and funding."

In the 2010 ERC Advanced Grant competition, seven out of 13 grants awarded to senior-level researchers in Spain went to ones at Catalonian research centers such the International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CINME) and the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology, both in Barcelona. One of the reasons for such success, according to Mas-Colell, is that many Catalan research centers have more flexible management policies than the ones run by the Spanish National Research Council, which are under the umbrella of Spain's Science and Innovation Ministry and are often stifled in red tape. Historically, many permanent scientific positions at Spanish universities and research institutions are within the civil service system, a situation that many in Spain argue reduces competitiveness among the nation's scientific community as the civil service offers few incentives to excellence and productivity. "Many Catalan centres don't hire scientists as civil servants," Mas-Colell notes.

The former Harvard University professor points out that research centres in other Spanish regions with similar flexibility in their hiring policies, such as the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid, are also producing a lot of good science. "From an outside point of view, it's clear the type of centre which gives better results," Mas-Colell states.

Another characteristic of the Catalonian research centers is that they have a close relationship with universities, Mas-Colell says—all of the centers have university representation on their boards, "The centers generate scientific and economic resources for the university, and together they create a bigger critical mass of staff and resources," he explains.

With his new job, Mas-Colell is returning to the Catalonia regional government (and to his Barcelona birthplace). From 2000 to 2003, he was the Catalan Minister of Universities, Research and Information Society. During that time, in 2000, he secured the funds for the creation of a program, the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), designed to attract top-notch senior scientists to the region. Modeled in the image of Anglo-Saxon tenure track programs, ICREA offers competitive permanent contracts, but it has received some criticism by scientists because it does not provide dedicated money for researchers to start-up a new lab, as often is offered elsewhere. Mas-Colell defends the program as the best that Catalonia can afford. "Sure, the start-up package would go well. But we have the resources that we have. The philosophy of ICREA is that the program gives employment stability and salary to the researcher, but the rest has to be put by the host institution," he says. "This is a way to make sure that the host institution is really committed to the scientist's project and doesn't take advantage of the researcher's own resources; it can't be free, it needs to cost something to the institution." One sign that ICREA is working for Catalonia: Many of its researchers have been awarded with ERC grants. (Thirty-two percent of the winning proposals from Spain, and 57% of those from Catalonia, were submitted by ICREA researchers.)

But what about younger scientists, from Catalonia or the rest of Spain, who have gone abroad to develop their talents? They don't qualify for ICREA, and many of them complain about the difficulties of going back to Spain. The Ramon y Cajal (RyC) program, created by the Spanish Central Administration with the goal of attracting international young researchers, does offer 5-year contracts, but the subsequent permanent jobs available to RyC investigators are few and, often, within the civil service system. Mas-Colell says it makes sense for Spain's central government to focus on recruiting young scientists and for the regions, such as Catalonia, to focus on offering more permanent jobs at universities and local research centers. But if the current system still does not succeed in recruiting enough young, talented scientists, the economist does not dismiss the possibility of Catalonia creating an ICREA-like program for more junior scientists.

Foreign correspondents choose Barcelona as the Mobile World Congress’ permanent host city

2011-02-15T22:26:00.001+01:00

(from Catalan News Agency)

CNA / J. Pueyo / JR Torné / L. Pous / A. Matamoros

Barcelona (ACN).- The foreign correspondents covering the Mobile World Congress would prefer the congress to stay in Barcelona. The Mobile World Congress will finish its current contract with Barcelona’s Trade Fair (Fira de Barcelona) in 2012 and the decision on where to celebrate the congress in 2013 and onwards is to be taken in the next few weeks. Barcelona is one of the three strongest candidates, together with Milan and Munich. In the Mobile World Congress there are more than 2,400 registered journalists and it has global news coverage, corresponding to the importance of the world’s leading congress on cell phone technology.

At the Mobile World Congress (MWC), professionals come from 192 countries across the globe. The press conference is a mosaic of nationalities, where English is clearly the dominant language. Among the journalists, there is a unanimous consensus of the congress’ importance at an international level. The question about Barcelona continuity does not surprise anyone.

The editor of RCRWireless News Tracy Ford thinks that Barcelona is a good place to celebrate the MWC, although she states that would also like Paris as she has never been there before. Ford told CNA that all the professionals covering issues on wireless communications in the United States have come to the congress. In fact, in the case of the media she works for, which has its headquarters in Austin (Texas), up to 6 people travelled to Barcelona to cover the event. She added that there is no professional who is a specialist in this field that would miss the congress’ “5 days of madness”, where “many things happen, it is useful to meet people and many press releases are issued”.

Tatsuya Kurosaka, who attended the congress representing CNET Japan (one of the sector’s leading media), said that the congress’ impact on the Asian country is “very important”. It is particularly important at a moment when Japanese companies are trying to build “their own economy” regarding the intelligent mobile phone devices or ‘smart phones’. When asked about the future host city of the MWC, Kurosaka said that travelling to Barcelona or another European city would be the same for him in terms of travel distance. “There is a very big distance with Japan, but I love that the congess is organised in Barcelona”, he stated. Kurosaka appreciated that in the congress he can find “information not only from the Western world, but also from South-American, Asian, and new world countries”.

The European competition

Massimiliano Spiccia, from the Italian blog specialised in mobile phone technology Batista70Phone, affirmed that he “likes Barcelona a lot” as the MWC organising city, for its proximity to Italy and its “beauty”. However, he said that as an Italian citizen he would like to see the congress being organised in Milan. He “would be one hour by car away, it would be more comfortable”, he said. Spiccia told CNA that the Mobile World Congress’ impact on his country’s specialised press is very important. In fact, he emphasised that there is a lot of specialised Italian press, “especially a young audience that works on cell phone technology development”.

Ger de Gram works for the Dutch media Beste Product. He told CNA that in The Netherlands the market of technology journalism is “quite big”. He knows there is about 50 Dutch journalists registered at the MWC. “We are not a very big country, you can thus figure out” the congress’ importance, he said. “With a colleague we joke about coming on bike with the camera on our backs if the congress had to be celebrated in Amsterdam”, he said when asked about this possibility. However, he concluded that “maybe the congress belongs to Barcelona” as it has been organising it for many years now.

A greater variety than in the “tapas bars” writes a UK newspaper

Barcelona’s technology revolution also hits the UK press. The vast majority of prestigious UK media have special correspondents in the Catalan capital covering the event. Others, such as ‘The Guardian’, have a special blog on their website, which has a live coverage on the latest news of the MWC. The BBC dedicated several videos to Barcelona’s world event. On its website, an article states that the city offers “as much variety” of mobile phones as “tapas bars”. The British television recalls how 50,000 come to the city because of the event, in an “eclectic mix” of industry “veterans” and “high executives” from companies such as Twitter and Nokia.

Most of the British written press stressed the presentation in Barcelona of the first mobile phone with PlayStation, from Sony Ericsson, as one of the main attractions of the congress’ first day. ‘The Times’ special correspondent, Nic Fildes, wrote with quite some irony that Barcelona looked more like “a child toys’ convention” than “a serious meeting of the telecommunications industry”. The conferences and comments from the high executives present at the fair, such as Twitter’s CEO Nick Costolo, are behind some headlines on the UK media. ‘The Guardian’ dedicates an entire article to Costolo’s words, when he denied negotiations with Google for a 10 billion dollars sale. ‘The Daily Telegraph’ wrote on Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop’s keynote address. Besides, ‘The Financial Times’ analyses the large technological corporations’ alliances from an economic point of view.

‘The New York Times’, ‘The Washington Post’ and CNN

‘The International Herald Tribune’, the European edition of the ‘The New York Times’, dedicates a small news on the front-page related to the Mobile World Congress. It focuses on the European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes’s statement denouncing the “fraud” European consumers suffers with Internet connections via roaming.

On the digital edition of ‘The Washington Post’ three articles about the MWC could be read, all from Associated Press. One is about Microsoft’s intentions to make its Windows Mobile compatible with the Xbox, as well as to plan improvements in its web search engine and the speed while changing from one application to another. ‘The Washington Post’ also talks about the first mobile phone with a 3-D camera, from LG Electronics. Jim Boulden, from the CNN, made a news video piece on the MWC’s news, such as the PlayStation smartphone from Sony Ericsson.

Lliçons al Financial Times?

2011-02-10T16:38:00.002+01:00

(article publicat al blog de Salvador Garcia, membre del Col·lectiu Emma)

Fa uns dies el Financial Times va escriure un article sobre les finances de la Generalitat ("Catalonia seeks to raise €11bn in fresh debt") que vaig comentar al meu blog. Bàsicament escrivia que, tot i que hi havia una comparació que no m'agradava (la de Grècia amb Catalunya) l'article era prou objectiu: explicava les necessitats de finançament de la Generalitat, el seu dèficit i deute, i que paga amb retard als proveïdors. I sí, sembla que ens hem oblidat, també recordava el dèficit fiscal:

Catalans have long complained that their region is what Mr Mas-Colell calls “structurally underfunded” because of excessive transfers to poorer regions in accordance with the Spanish constitution.

Arran l'article he rebut alguns suggeriments de que el Col·lectiu Emma respongui aquest article perquè no dóna prou importància a l'espoli. Ho havíem de fer? El Victor Mallet ha parlat altres vegades de l'espoli (com aquí i aquí) i potser abans d'exigir-li res a ell, exigim que la pròpia Generalitat denunciï de forma clara i contundent l'espoli, no? I que actuï en conseqüència, és clar. Al respecte, gran article del sempre gran Carles Boix ("Recorte presupuestario y balanza fiscal"). Quina és segons la Generalitat la principal causa del dèficit de la Generalitat del 2010? La sanitat, i no pas l'espoli! Ah, i for the record, que no hi hagi resposta pública no vol dir que des del Col·lectiu Emma no fem res.

Avui m'ha arribat, via l'amic Edward Hugh, una entrevista que han fet al Victor Mallet a Catalunya Ràdio. He sentit vergonya aliena. Lliçons de periodisme al Financial Times?
Han retret al Financial Times la mala imatge que té Catalunya. No hi tenim els catalans res a veure? I la responsabilitat de l'anterior govern, després dels increments descomunals de dèficit i deute tot i afirmar que teníem un magnífic finançament, celebrat inclòs per un partit independentista?

També critiquen que Mallet no parli del dèficit fiscal de Catalunya. Cert que en aquest article no ho fa de forma explícita, però ho ha fet en el passat, com aquí i aquí, que parla dels 60€ milions d'espoli cada dia. El propi Mallet recomana al Fuentes que llegeixi els seus articles anteriors, abans d'entrevistar a ningú caldria saber què ha escrit en el passat, sobretot si se li volem donar lliçons de res. I per cert, quantes vegades recorden cada dia a Catalunya Ràdio i a altres mitjans els 60€ milions d'espoli al dia? I quan n'ha parlat la Generalitat, donant aquestes xifres?

I sí, la situació de les regions es percep en els mercats com el principal problema per complir els objectius de dèficit de l'estat espanyol i el Financial Times també ho diu (el que va motivar fa unes setmanes del Col·lectiu Emma). I si aquesta situació no és nova (des del Col·lectiu Emma ja avisàvem el passat estiu), per què des de Catalunya estem posant al crit ara? Hem descobert ara a la premsa internacional? Des del Col·lectiu Emma hem rebut molt suport, però cal dir-ho, moltes vegades ens hem sentit molt sols.

A mi aquest article em fa ràbia, molta ràbia. I em fa ràbia perquè el que diu és veritat. I tinguem-ho clar, això va del següent: la situació actual és fruit de la mala gestió i del finançament injust de Catalunya. Avui estem retallant les despeses de la Generalitat el 10%. Què estem fent avui ja per acabar amb l'espoli fiscal? Potser menys criticar al Financial Times i més actuar. O deixar que ens segueixin espoliant, però després no ens queixem.

Fa unes setmanes que torno a dormir. No és conya: durant molt de temps ho passava fatal, veia, parlava i escrivia sobre els problemes del dèficit i deute del català, amb poc ressó i amb la sensació que pocs veien i entenien la magnitud de la tragèdia. Alguns articles són vigents avui, com "Autononisme, entre la gestió i la fallida" del setembre fins al "Les finances de la Generalitat i i un escenari polític a futur" d'octubre on explicava que estàvem en el punt de mira internacional i que això podia tenir greus conseqüències sobre la nostra autonomia.

Ara estic més tranquil: la situació és igual de complexa però ara ja ho veu tothom. I ara només depèn dels catalans si volem continuar així o ho volem canviar. I si no ho canviem després no ens queixem al Financial Times de que ens espolien. I ja de pas, tampoc prentenem donar-li gaires lliçons de periodisme, o potser abans predicar amb exemple i rigorositat.

"Xiuxiuejava, She whispered", de Rowan Ricardo Phillips

2011-02-04T20:34:00.001+01:00

(Volem recomanar l´article "Xiuxiuejava, She whispered", del poeta i traductor nord-americà Rowan Ricardo Phillips, publicat a la revista literària anglesa Granta.)

Translation, at the best of times, should be a form of welcome. But for me, translating from Catalan into English sometimes feels more like a form of farewell. As I work I feel both languages equally alive, equally limber; equally conversant, competitive and playful. At these moments I am free from the immense gravitational pull of English and free from the centric tug of Spanish. If only, I think to myself in the middle of a translation, I could keep both the banality of ‘she whispered’ and the absurd beauty of the original word xiuxiuejava, how by a strange twist of fate the two words strongly hint at a rhyme, how simply cool the rangy assonance of a phrase as plain as ‘Ah! Ho haveu vist?’ (‘Ah! Have you seen it?’) is for the mouth and the mind. Has a more beautiful language ever flowered from Vulgar Latin than Catalan? This naked joy gained from the simultaneity betwixt and between two languages is the translator’s great pleasure and also, eventually, the translator’s great and inevitable loss. With Catalan I feel that loss rather sharply as the English version further comes into focus, options discarded, everything soon ossifying into the final draft and subsequent published translation. This is in part due to Catalan’s diaphanous literary status and our sad tendency to settle for the illusion of a single-tongued Spain: a mirage of a house with Castilian spackling its holes like sores. The result has been a very visitable but not entirely visible Spain. And now with economic crises everywhere you turn and fewer people visiting, Spain is clearly not well. It has sold itself until prosperous and now has spent itself to quick ruin. Let’s hope this is temporary. In the meantime, we readers should take this opportunity to get a better view inside of this imagined house. We should strip the walls and look at Spain as Spain really is, not as it’s practical for us to pretend it to be. Translation from the Catalan – as well as from Basque, Galician and the other languages of the peninsula – is one of the most useful and poignant vehicles through which to do so.

Yet translation by itself solves little. The work of translation is to act out everything and explain nothing. As your skin is not an explanation of who you are, a translation is hardly an explanation of another culture. I translate from Catalan to English not so that the latter stands in for the former but to encourage the English-language reader that much closer to Catalan culture. The rest is up to the will of the reader. May she or he strive to be a citizen of the world. This is precisely why translation is a form of farewell: it demands a letting go.

Tyrants have tried, legislators have tried – but nothing can glean a language from the face of the earth like translation. And thus although translation is essential to knowing who we are, how we live and what we have achieved, it should never become under any circumstances what will suffice.

Revista Time i la independència de Catalunya

2011-01-29T20:22:00.003+01:00

(via Naciodigital)

Iniciativa interessant d'Alexis Vizcaino:

La revista Time Magazine no ha situat Catalunya entre les 10 principals nacions aspirant a aconseguir un Estat Propi. En la llista apareixen el País Basc, Escòcia, Ossètia del Sud, el Tíbet, la Padània, Kurdistan, Quebec, el Sahara Occidental, Cascadia i Vermont.

Si penses que Catalunya hauria d'aparèixer en aquesta llista, pots enviar un email a la revista Time només omplint aquest formulari.

"Hablen español, already" (recommended article from The Economist)

2011-01-24T21:27:00.004+01:00

(Després de la polèmica sobre l'ús del català al senat espanyol i l'article de The Guardian "Lost in translation? Spanish senators allowed to debate in five languages", que va motivar la resposta del Col·letiu Emma, recomanem el següent article publicat a la web de The Economist: "Hablen español, already")

Hablen español, already
Jan 24th 2011, 18:50 by R.L.G. | NEW YORK

THERE are good reasons to debate what role minority languages should play in the countries where they are found. There are few reasons to be as snide about the question as Giles Tremlett was in the Guardian a few days ago, when Spain started allowing senators to debate in Basque, Valencian, Catalan and Galician:

The upper chamber of Spain's parliament has caused controversy by allowing senators to debate in five of the country's languages, with interpreters employed to turn their words into a tongue they all speak perfectly: Castilian Spanish.
On goes the snide: "critics" are quoted, and a scathing editorial. Then comes a scene in which Hispanophone senators are "forced" to pick up their earpieces when a senator speaks Catalan, an estimate on how much it'll cost, and a peevish quote from the conservative opposition leader: "Something like this would not happen in any normal country."

There then follows a fairly accurate description of the language situation in Spain: about 11% of the country speaks a minority language natively, and about a third of Spaniards know them and use them regularly. Unmentioned is the fact that these aren't unwelcome intrusions into a Spanish-speaking Eden, but indigenous languages spoken there since the Basques showed up in prehistory and Latin spun off Galician and Catalan before "Spain" existed. Also unmentioned is one of the reasons relatively few people master the minority languages: Francisco Franco's una bandera, una patria, una lengua policies, which forbade everything from Catalan names to shop-signs in Basque. These gave the minority regions enduring grievances, grievances which are inflamed when Castilian-speakers (and outsiders) treat them as pests for wanting to speak their own languages in their own country.

"Normal countries" that accommodate this include Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, South Africa (with 11 official languages), India and many others. Again, this is not to say that every minority should be given every privilege. But to say that senators should just speak the common language is to forget that that "common" language is a foreign language to many Spaniards. Remembering that, and taking grievances seriously, is the best way to keep them happily in Spain.

A Public Reply to The Guardian (IV)

2011-01-21T20:49:00.001+01:00

The subject of The Guardian’s latest report from Spain (“Lost in translation? Spanish senators allowed to debate in five languages”, January 19, 2011) is something that ought to be a routine occurrence –representatives being allowed to use their respective languages in what is supposed to be their own parliament– but the headlines and the bulk of the article have focused instead on the hostile reactions from the Spanish nationalist camp. And we feel that the views from that camp are presented as more reasonable than they really are.

We would like to highlight a few paragraphs, calling attention to aspects that your correspondent seems to have overlooked and that he might want to take into account for future reports:

“Spain's regional languages have long been a point of bitter conflict. Arguments have rumbled on for several decades over which languages should be used by school teachers, university lecturers and for everything from shop signs to place names.”

In reality, this has been going on for much longer than just decades. Spain, like Britain, Belgium or Switzerland, is a plurinational state, a fact that has never been fully acknowledged by the central power. All through history, Spanish governments have sought to reduce the country’s diverse peoples to an artificial uniformity, among other things by making the Castilian language compulsory for them all. That ages-old policy of imposition of one language and suppression of the others would be a good place to start looking for the sources of this particular conflict.

“The insistence of some regional governments on their civil servants speaking both Castilian and the local language has led to accusations that they exclude other Spaniards from jobs.”

Is it being implied that the right of Spanish civil servants to take up posts wherever they please, without having to adapt in any way to a different setting, should take precedence over the right of Catalan taxpayers to receive in their own language the services that they are so dearly paying for? Doesn’t that smack of colonialism?

“There is even a row over whether Catalan and Valencian should be considered separate languages or whether one is merely a dialect of the other.”

A mere phone call to any of the 18 universities in Britain that offer programmes in Catalan studies, or even to the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language in Madrid, would have informed your correspondent that the academic community unanimously considers Catalan, Valencian and Balearic to be variants of the same language. Why is it that every Spanish government, including Mr. Zapatero’s, seems to be taking its cues from the Valencian right wing on this matter?

“ ‘Something like this would not happen in any normal country’, said the People's party leader, Mariano Rajoy.”

One may wonder about Mr. Rajoy’s idea of a normal country. Did he have in mind Switzerland, where three official languages are freely used in the Federal Assembly –and everywhere else, for that matter– or Turkey, for instance, where the Kurdish language is suppressed and even the existence of the Kurdish people is negated?

Col·lectiu Emma has commented more fully on such matters in the past, and we are now in the process of compiling a dossier covering, among other things, the question of language. We would be happy to provide your Madrid correspondent with an advance copy of that dossier, where he would find information that might be of use for more complete and even-handed reports in the future.

Col·lectiu Emma

Cancel·lada la conferència a Vic

Conferència a Vic el 2 de febrer: "Catalunya al món: com som i no com diuen que som"

Recommended article in the Financial Times: "Catalonia demands new deal from Spain"

Regional governments are responsible for less than 20% of Spain’s debt and for 33% of its 2011 deficit

Catalogna in pillole

Lliçons al Financial Times? (II)

Spain’s Debt: The View From Barcelona

L'Emma busca amics

A Public Reply to the Financial Times (VII)

Recommended article: "The Rain In Spain Falls Mainly On The Journalists, It Seems", by Edward Hugh

The Rain In Spain Falls Mainly On The Journalists, It Seems

Some interesting notes on the New York Times article from Edward Hugh

A Public Reply to the New York Times (IV)

Recommended article on the New York Times: "A Catalan Christmas"

Recommended readings about Catalonia ("Catalan in the Classroom") - InTransit newsletter

The Japanese press on the Catalan case - El cas català a la premsa japonesa

スペイン：自治州、独立運動に変化

Another (recommended) reply to The Economist (by Miquel Ros)

A Public Reply to The Economist (VII)

Edward Hugh on the current Eurozone crisis potential implications for Catalonia

Launch of “What Catalans Want. Could Catalonia become Europe’s Next State?” in the UK

The Father of the Spanish Constitution Jokes about Bombing Civilians

Recommended Conference: Building a New State (November 3rd, 2011)

Article recomanat a The Guardian: "Spanish centenarian Moisès Broggi sets sight on senate"

On the BBC note about bullfights in Catalonia

LANGUAGE IMMERSION: A SUCCESS STORY IN CATALONIA...

The End of Jacobinism? Minorities, States, and Violence, by Immanuel Wallerstein

The Spanish Soccer Civil War

The Sunday Telegraph on the grim fiscal situation of Spain's municipalities

El Sunday Telegraph comenta la penosa situació econòmica dels municipis espanyols

Reply to The Times of India

Catalan human towers embark on an educational trip to India

Reply to Frommer's Travel

World's 10 Best Cities for Outdoor Dining

Barcelona, Spain

Ma cosa vogliono?

Ma cosa vogliono?

Recommended article on The Telegraph: "Catalan culture in France and Spain: Homage to both Catalonias"

A highly recommended book: What Catalans Want

Recommended article on the BBC News webpage

Catalonia's President Aims to Lead in Taming Spain's Deficit

Era caldo, era caldo…

National Day celebrations in other parts of Europe

El Col·lectiu Emma, necessaris activistes

"Independence would not be so harmful after all" (unpublished long reply at the Financial Times)

"Too bleak vision of Catalan secession" (published reply at the Financial Times)

La Catalogna e il rating della Spagna

Recommended readings about Catalonia ("The Spanish Fiscal Deficit Crisis") - InTransit newsletter

Notes on Spanish public deficit and the regions’ responsibility

Small Is Cute, Sexy, and Successful: Why Independence for Wales and Other Countries Makes Economic Sense

Risultati delle Elezioni comunali di Barcellona

Lionel Messi: Boy Genius

The Catalan kings

The billion-dollar grudge match: The enormity of El Clasico

St George's Day with a Catalan twist

Former IMF Chief Economist says Catalonia would be “one of the richest countries in the world” if it were independent

Pas endavant en l’Informe dels Drets Humans del Departament d’Estat dels EUA

Risposte a un giornale serio, La Stampa di Torino

Sobre l'Informe de Drets Humans del Departament d'Estat dels EUA

About the US State Department Human Rights Report

Batalla (complicada) a la premsa internacional

Catalan News Agency: news, texts, videos and more (in English) about Catalonia

Barcellona ha deciso

El front diplomàtic, l'assignatura pendent

Newsletter of the Delegation of the Government of Catalonia to the United States of America

Major European rugby event to be held on April 9th at Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium – and an occasion to denounce a dictator’s wanton act of exclusion

La grande manifestation sportive européenne qu’est le match de rugby du 9 avril au stade olympique de Barcelone est aussi l’occasion de dénoncer la...

Catalunya, el seu dèficit, i un apunt de l'espoli i del Col·lectiu Emma, al New York Times

La capacitat autodestructiva dels catalans

"Catalonia resists ‘mad’ austerity" al Financial Times

Don't Vote (No votis) - Catalan with English subs

Barcelona, innovació, creativitat (i un apunt del Col·lectiu Emma) al Financial Times

Barcelona votes on Catalan Independence - Presentation in New York

From The New York Times: "Might not be a bad idea to start learning some Catalan"

Recommended readings about Catalonia ("The Commonwealth of the South") - InTransit newsletter

“Catalonia is not to be blamed for Moody’s downgrading of Spanish debt”

“Spain”, a normal country?

"Barcelona, Catalonia" by Matthew Tree

I simboli danno ancora fastidio