To Our Readers
Spaniards leading a national surge in global business and politics, culture and the arts. As the country prepares for a pivotal election, TIME examines its striking creative burst
Posted Sunday, Feb. 29, 2004; 15.48GMT
Many in Catalonia and the Basque Country object to the very notion that it is up to Madrid to grant their autonomous governments more competencies. With long and complicated histories of special arrangements within Spain’s shifting polities, they prefer to see themselves as granting certain inherent rights to Madrid. It’s an incremental battle, and the regionalists often keep their final goals intentionally fuzzy. Galicia, which has a PP government, and Catalonia might favor a kind of united autonomies of Spain; but some in the Basque government hanker for outright independence and membership in the European Union.
So what about federalism, the simple notion of keeping a maximum of power close to home and the rest at the national level? South of the Pyrenees, that most elastic of terms meets its match. “In Spain, federalism is an endless etymological
Terrorism has become an excuse to negate dialogue ... The Spanish state has a tendency to absorb everything to the center
— IDOIA ZENAR- RUZABEITIA, Vice President, Basque government
discussion,” sighs Gustavo de Arístegui, a PP member of parliament from the Basque Country. Even Catalan President Pasqual Maragall, who calls himself “a federalist, not a nationalist,” admits it’s a loaded term. “In Spain, federalism means separatism; in the U.S., it means Washington,” he told TIME.
Whatever the definition, regional autonomy is a particularly unpleasant can of worms in Spanish politics, so it’s no surprise that the PP and PSOE each insists the other opened it. The PP points with horror (and a little electoral glee) to the clandestine meeting earlier this year between eta leaders and Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira, whose Republican Left Party is in a governing coalition with the Socialists in Catalonia. ETA’s Feb. 18 announcement that it would stop its campaign of violence, but only in Catalonia (perhaps as a result of that parley, although Carod-Rovira denied it), put a deftly cynical point on the PP’s argument that talking to terrorists leads to unsavory separate deals — and that the Socialists are tainted by association. Zapatero’s campaign was wounded by the events in Catalonia, which the Socialists insist have been exploited by the PP. Zapatero has vowed to teach the ruling party “a lesson” by forming a government “that does not make electoral hay out of terrorism, the constitution or the unity of Spain.”
The PP insists that the devolution of power has essentially gone far enough; indeed, under the 1978 constitution, says Arístegui, “Spain is now the most decentralized country in Europe” with 17 autonomías that administer some 60% of public spending. Even after the PP took power in 1996 under Aznar, almost total responsibility for health and education has been passed on to all of them. Beyond that, Catalans and Basques have their own police forces and civil law. The governments of the Basque Country and neighboring Navarre have almost complete fiscal authority; they set and collect their own taxes, renegotiating every few years an annual fee paid to Madrid for services provided by the national government.
Divide And Conquer [Mar. 1, 2004]
Basque terrorist group ETA throws a "message bomb" into the Spanish general-election campaign
Death Coast [Dec 2, 2002]
After an aging tanker sins off Spain, a vast slick of fuel oil destroys beaches, wildlife and fishermen's dreams. Could this disaster have been prevented?
They Came To Reign in Spain [Sep. 27, 2002]
You wait for a major sporting competition to come along, and three show up at the same time.
A Meeting Of Minds [Jul. 15, 2002]
European Union leaders meet in Seville to look for common ground on everything
Gaudí Mania [Apr. 26, 2002]
The work of controversial architect Antoni Gaudí is getting a fresh look as Spain marks the 150th anniversary of his birth
Bust In Madrid [Dec. 21, 2001]
A well-established al-Qaeda cell may have been directly involved in planning the U.S. terrorist attacks
Madrid: Living la Vida Loca [Nov. 12, 2001]
Madrileos like it late, loud and lively in their multitude of bars and restaurants
Mogadishu at 60 Miles an Hour Arms merchants are once again doing brisk business after a rapid change of power in this tough town, but so far the peace has held
The Year of The Nuke A rundown of the world's nuclear powerhouses, and what to expect in the coming months
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