Celestino Corbacho, currently the Spanish Minister of Labour and running 3rd in the lists for the Catalan Parliament for PSOE (the current party holding the power in the Spanish and Catalan governments) for next month’s elections has declared on a conference for “Fòrum Europa. Tribuna catalunya” in Barcelona that an eventual independence of Catalonia would be “a traumatic process” and that it “would not be peaceful”. (Link to news in catalan, here and here)
These astonishing declarations by someone in Corbacho’s position have already had a reaction. Catalan independentist party Reagrupament Independentista have urged Catalan President Montilla to rectify these serious threats (link in catalan).
Corbacho is the Spanish Minister of Work who has the dubious honour of holding the Ministry while Spanish unemployment rates have risen up to 20%, the highest in the European Union.
On the other hand, let’s not forget that the Spanish Constitution’s article number 8 explicitly says the army should intervene against secession attempts since its writing was heavily influenced by the structures of Franco’s regime.
However, since the Catalan process of independence is scrupulously democratic and peaceful the threat of violence against Catalonia from the Spanish state is completely out of line.
These sort of declarations are not new in Spain but not so frequent amongst politicians from such a high position as a Minister and they pose an intolerable threat to the Catalan people, which hold EU citizens status, and especially coming from the Minister of an EU member state and a supposed democracy.
What a nonsense! Corbacho spoke as candidate for the next Catalan parliament, and totally in line with his party’s stance on the issue (that going towards independence could be very disruptive) he warns of, but does not threaten with, a situation in which peace is no longer guaranteed.
I have the same opinion, am I threatening anybody?
Corbacho currently holds the position of Minister of Labour what has happened is extremely serious in a democracy, having a Minister threaten more than 7 million european citizens with the possibility of violence should they democratically decide for independence.
If Spain was a half serious country Corbacho would have been sacked on the spot and the Spanish legal system should have already opened a case against him with terrorism charges. But that won’t happen so we’ll have to prosecute him though international courts.
On the other hand, his speech only shows that the only argument the Spanish have left is fear, having lost the argumentative battle.
And if you agree with him you’ll also be morally responsible should anything happen during the secession process.
Yeah, yeah…. you might want to take into consideration whay mantle he wore when he said what he said.
Anyways, I still fail to see any threat.
And ne morally respomsible? For pointing out that when two nationalism fight over one territory there are heaps of precedents that this ends in bloodshed? For simply referring to history?
Are you out of your mind?
Bring me to the Hague, if you please.
More seriously, it’s you who needs this insane discussion, because like any nationalist anywhere in the world, what you need most is a bogeyman.
I know you’ll be disappointed, but there won’t be any violence from the Catalan side because we have no weapons and from the Spanish side I doubt they’ll use it (although they’ll shout, insult, threaten, scream and make a lot of noise).
They are perfectly aware that any kind of violence will legitimize (even more) and accelerate our secession and the price Spain would have to pay would be even higher than Catalonia’s independence. It’d be interesting to watch how quickly the Spanish stock market would fall should they try anything stupid or how fast companies would withdraw their investments.
So in this scenario it cannot be tolerated that Spanish politicians threaten us and I will denounce it from here as many times as it is necessary. If a Catalan politician had said anything like that he’d already be in the “Audiencia Nacional” accused with terrorist charges and the Spanish would have already started illegalizing Catalan parties. A clear case of double standards.
With regards to you. If I were you I would be more careful with you line of suggesting that this would be a violent process, someone might think you actually want that.
Albert, I think you may be onto something in your last sentence there…
Unionists will do what they can do, only fear! But we all know that they have the force of arms but we have the force of reason. And this is the major weakness of the Spaniards. How they can fight against a democratic act as is to vote to achieve independence and the liberty from Catalonia?
Mahatma Gandhi said:
Your enemy
First they ignore you
then laughs
and after t’ataca
finally win!