To my own astonishment, and after a full 36 hours of hard thinking to try and escape this conclusion, I am in intellectual honesty obliged to reconsider my lifelong support for the European Union, due to the unqualified backing of the EU Commission for the Spanish Government’s dreadful repression in Catalonia.
This is very difficult for me. I still much favour open immigration policy, and the majority of Brexiteers are motivated at base by racist anti-immigrant sentiment. Certainly many Brexiteers share in the right wing support for Rajoy’s actions, across Europe. I have been simply stunned by the willingness of right wingers across the internet, including on this blog, to justify the violence of the Spanish state on “law and order” grounds. It is a stark warning of what we might face in Scotland in our next move towards Independence, which I have always believed may be made without the consent of Westminster.
But not all who oppose the EU are right wing. There are others who oppose the EU on the grounds that it is simply another instrument of power of the global 1% and an enforcer of neo-liberalism. I had opposed this idea on the grounds it was confusing the policies of current EU states with the institution itself, that it ignored the EU’s strong guarantees of human rights, and its commitment to workers’ rights and consumer protection.
I have to admit today that I was wrong, and in fact the EU does indeed function to maintain the global political elite, and cares nothing for the people.
The Lisbon Treaty specifically incorporated the European Charter of Fundamental Rights into basic European Union law.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the Spanish Guardia Civil on Sunday contravened the following articles:
Article 1: The Right to Human Dignity
Article 6: The Right to Liberty or Security of Person
Article 11: Freedom of Expression and Information
Article 12: Freedom of Assembly and Association
Article 54: Prohibition of Abuse of Rights
I would argue that these were also breached:
Article 21: Non-discrimination
Article 22: Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Diversity
The European Commission is obliged to abide by this Charter by Article 51. Yet when the Spanish government committed the most egregious mass violation of human rights within the European Union for a great many years, the EU Commission deliberately chose to ignore completely its obligations under the European Charter of Fundamantal Rights in its response. The Commission’s actions shocked all of intellectual Europe, and represented a complete betrayal of the fundamental principles, obligations and basic documents of the European Union.
This is the result. The disgusting, smirking Margaritas Schinas of the European Commission refuses to face up to the intellectual vacuity of the EU’s position. He is also lying, because he claims to be limited in matters beyond the Commission’s competence, when he knows perfectly well that the EU Commission is ignoring its obligations under the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.
That video was a key factor in persuading me, after 44 years of actual enthusiasm for the EU, it is no longer an organisation which I can support.
900 people were so injured by the Guardia Civil that they had to go for formal medical treatment. Officers, in full riot gear, baton charged entirely peaceful lines of voters, smashed old ladies on the head with weapons, pulled young women by the hair and stamped on them on the ground, threw people down flights of stairs, fired rubber bullets into people sitting on the street and broke a woman’s fingers one by one.
To take the “legalistic” argument, even if you accept the referendum was illegal (and I shall come to that), that in no way necessitates that sort of violence. It could be argued the referendum’s result had no legal effect, but the act of the referendum itself is in that case a form of political demonstration. If that involved abuse of public funds, then legal consequences might follow. There was no cause at all to inflict mass violence on the voters. The actual violence was absolutely disproportionate, unprovoked and undoubtedly met the bar of gross and systematic human rights abuse by the Spanish state.
Yet the EU reacted as if no such abuse had ever happened at all, and the world had not seen it. The statement of the EU Commission totally ignored these absolutely shocking events, in favour of an unequivocal statement of absolute support for Rajoy:
Under the Spanish Constitution, yesterday’s vote in Catalonia was not legal.
For the European Commission, as President Juncker has reiterated repeatedly, this is an internal matter for Spain that has to be dealt with in line with the constitutional order of Spain.
We also reiterate the legal position held by this Commission as well as by its predecessors. If a referendum were to be organised in line with the Spanish Constitution it would mean that the territory leaving would find itself outside of the European Union.
Beyond the purely legal aspects of this matter, the Commission believes that these are times for unity and stability, not divisiveness and fragmentation.
We call on all relevant players to now move very swiftly from confrontation to dialogue. Violence can never be an instrument in politics. We trust the leadership of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to manage this difficult process in full respect of the Spanish Constitution and of the fundamental rights of citizens enshrined therein.
I speak fluent diplomatese, and this is an unusual statement in its fulsomeness. It contradicts itself by saying “this is an internal matter” but then adding “these are times for unity and stability, not divisiveness and fragmentation” which is an unequivocal statement of opposition to Catalan independence.
The Commission later claimed that to comment on the violence by the Spanish Authorities is beyond its competence, a plain lie due to Article 51 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. But what was in fact outwith Commission competence was this statement of opposition to Catalan independence.
It was also extremely unusual – in fact I cannot think of another example – of the EU Commission specifically to endorse by name Mariano Rajoy, let alone immediately after he had launched a gross human rights abuse.
Condemnation would have been too much to expect; but these gratuitous endorsements were a slap in the face to anybody with a concern for human rights in Europe. Also, in diplomatese, I should have expected the mildest of hidden rebukes in the statement; I would have been annoyed by “The Commission is sure the Spanish Government will continue to meet its obligations under the Charter of Fundamental Rights” as too weak, but it is the kind of thing I would have expected to see.
Instead Juncker chose to make no qualification at all in his support for Rajoy.
Perhaps as a former diplomat I put much more weight on these little things than might seem sensible, but to me they are the unmistakeable tells of what kind of right wing authoritarian institution the EU has become, and why I can no longer offer it my support.
I now want to turn to the wider question of whether the Catalonian referendum was indeed illegal. This argument must always come back to the Charter of the United Nations , which states at
Article 1 (2) To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
It is worth noting that there is no qualification at all on “self-determination of peoples”. It is not limited to decolonisation, as sometimes falsely claimed. The phrase is repeated in the separate UN Declaration on Decolonisation, as the principle plainly is applicable in that context. But it is not limited to that context and appears in the Charter outwith that context.
The question of what constitutes a “people” is a thorny one. NATO were sufficiently convinced the Kosovans were a “people” to go to war for their right to self-determination, while in terms of domestic law of Yugoslavia or Serbia their independence was every bit as illegal as Catalonian independence is under Spanish law. The purveyors of the “illegal” argument, in Spain and in the EU, have never deigned to us why the Kosovans are a “people” with the right to self-determination whereas the Catalans are not.
In this limited sense, NATO and the EU were right over Kosovo. If the Kosovans are a “people”, their right to self determination under the UN Charter could not be nullified by domestic Yugoslav or Serbian legislation. The same is true of the Catalans. If they are a “people”, Spanish domestic legislation cannot remove their right of self-determination. The rights conferred by the UN Charter are inalienable. A people can never give up its right of self-determination. Indeed, those arguing that the Catalans contracted into the current Spanish constitution are heading into a legal ambush as they have already admitted the Catalans are a people with the right of self-determination.
Indeed the Spanish constitution already admits Spain contains separate nationalities. The preamble of section 2 to the Spanish Constitution reads:
Section 2. The Constitution is based on the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation, the common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards; it recognizes and guarantees the right to self-government of the nationalities and regions of which it is composed and the solidarity among them all.
Remember, the right to self-determination is inalienable. Once you have acknowledged the existence of different nationalities, the Spanish Constitutional Court cannot legitimately deny their right to self-determination. What it can legitimately do is to judge on their constitutional arrangements within Spain. It cannot legitimately prevent them from determining to leave.
I do not see any doubt that the Catalans are a “people”. They have their own language. They have their own culture. Most importantly, there are over one thousand years of written records of their existence as a separate “people” with those attributes and an extremely long, if in some cases occasionally broken, history of their own institutions.
I do not think it is seriously arguable that the Catalans are not a “people”. It is also the answer to the frankly childish comparison, made by right wingers, to the South East of England breaking away. There is no legitimate argument that the South East of Englanders are a separate “people” in the sense of the UN Charter. The same applies to Northern Italy. Belgium, however, does include different peoples with the right of self-determination, should they choose to exercise it.
The fact that a “people” has the right of self-determination gives them, of course, the right to choose, including the right to choose to remain within their existing state. That right to choose was all the Catalonian government was seeking to offer. The Spanish government and courts are implementing a domestic law, but that domestic law is incompatible with overarching wider rights. As journalists point out in that EU Commission video above, the Turkish courts are correctly implementing domestic law in jailing journalists and academics. It is not enough for Spain to say it is implementing law when the law itself is illegitimate. Jews were “lawfully” rounded up in 1930’s Germany. Gandhi and Mandela were “lawfully” imprisoned.
I will never forget working in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as the South Africa (Political) officer in 1986, when the policy of the Thatcher government was explicit that black activists jailed under the apartheid laws were lawfully detained, and that apartheid forces breaking up illegal Soweto demonstrations, in precisely the manner seen against voters in Catalonia, were acting lawfully. Over thirty years, the acknowledgement of the overarching internationally guaranteed basic rights appeared to have made progress. But the EU Commission has just turned its back on all of that.
It is not just the Commission. Macron, May and Merkel have all declared unequivocally against Catalonian independence, while refusing to make any comment at all on the state violence as an “internal affair”. This from Guy Verhofstadt is as good as EU reaction gets, yet it is still entirely mendacious:
I don’t want to interfere in the domestic issues of Spain but I absolutely condemn what happened today in Catalonia.
On one hand, the separatist parties went forward with a so-called referendum that was forbidden by the Constitutional Court, knowing all too well that only a minority would participate as 60 % of the Catalans are against separation.
And on the other hand – even when based on court decisions – the use of disproportionate violence to stop this.
In the European Union we try to find solutions through political dialogue and with respect for the constitutional order as enshrined in the Treaties, especially in art. 4.
It’s high time for de-escalation. Only a negotiated solution in which all political parties, including the opposition in the Catalan Parliament, are involved and with respect for the Constitutional and legal order of the country, is the way forward.
Verhofstadt accepts without question the right of the Spanish Constitutional Court to deny the Catalan right to self-determination, and like every other EU source does not put an argument for that or even refer to the existence of that right or to the UN Charter. He claims, utterly tendentiously to know that 60% of the Catalan people oppose independence. That is plainly untrue. In the last Catalonian assembly elections, 48% voted for pro-Independence parties and another 5% for parties agnostic on the issue. On Sunday, 55% of the electorate voted. A quarter of those votes were confiscated by police, but the votes of 42% of the electorate could be counted and were 90% for Independence. There is no reason to suspect the confiscated ballots were any different. Verhofstadt does at least acknowledge the disproportionate violence to stop the referendum, thus correctly attributing the blame. This is the only statement I have seen from any EU source which contains any truth whatsoever.
To withdraw a lifetime of support for the EU is not a light decision. I have delayed it for hard consideration, so that the emotions aroused by the Spanish government violence could die down. I am also very confident, knowing how these things work, that Rajoy had briefed other EU leaders in advance that he was going to close down the referendum, and their statements of support had been pre-prepared. Diplomatic wheels grind slowly, and I assumed there would be some rowing back from these original statements once bureaucracies had time to react to the excessive violence. In fact there has been no significant softening of the hard line.
In itself, even this incident would not be enough to make me denounce my support for the European Union. But it illustrates, in a way that I cannot deny, an argument that has been repeatedly urged on me and which I have been attempting to deny. The principles of the European Union and indeed the content of its treaties are something I continue strongly to support. But the institution has in fact been overrun by the right wing cronyism of the neo-liberal political class, and no longer serves the principles for which it ostensibly stands. It is become simply an instrument of elite power against the people.
Today, and with a greater sadness than you can imagine, I withdraw my support for membership of the European Union.
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I continue urgently to need contributions to my defence in the libel action against me by Jake Wallis Simons, Associate Editor of Daily Mail online. You can see the court documents outlining the case here. I am threatened with bankruptcy and the end of this blog (not to mention a terrible effect on my young family). Support is greatly appreciated. An astonishing 4,000 people have now contributed a total of over £75,000. But that is still only halfway towards the £140,000 target. I realise it is astonishing that so much money can be needed, but that is the pernicious effect of England’s draconian libel laws, as explained here.
On a practical point, a number of people have said they are not members of Paypal so could not donate. After clicking on “Donate”, just below and left of the “Log In” button is a small “continue” link which enables you to donate by card without logging in.
For those who prefer not to pay online, you can send a cheque made out to me to Craig Murray, 89/14 Holyrood Road, Edinburgh, EH8 8BA. As regular readers know, it is a matter of pride to me that I never hide my address.
CM – “…due to the unqualified backing of the EU Commission for the Spanish Government’s dreadful repression in Catalonia.”
This doesn’t seem to be the whole truth to me. At the end, the EU Commission statement says:
” Violence can never be an instrument in politics. We trust the leadership of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to manage this difficult process in full respect of the Spanish Constitution and of the fundamental rights of citizens enshrined therein.”
i.e. the EU commission criticises the use of violence, and calls on Rajoy to respect the rights of citizens. Not getting beaten up by police when trying to vote is presumably one of those rights.
The start of the statement – “Under the Spanish Constitution, yesterday’s vote in Catalonia was not legal” – doesn’t seem to me to be a ringing endorsement of Rajoy’s position. It could be read as a sly dig at the Spanish constitution. It seems to me the Catalans could and should argue that the constitution in this matter is unreasonable, and that morally at least any unreasonable terms can be ignored, arguing that democracy advances by challenging unreasonable aspects of the constitution.
The MayThatch can’t start sounding off about the Spanish police’s thuggery against voters because of Brexit and Gibraltar.
Frontex turning back refugees to prison camps at gunpoint. The countless dead in the med. The poverty. None of that did it for you? But smack a few heads and you withdraw your support.
You open border nationalist types are funny.
A further complicating factor from the Suedeutsche Zeitung (3/10 at 21.52):-
“Rajoy hat auch die Unterstützung der Baskischen Nationalistischen Partei verloren, die bislang die Haushaltspolitik seines Minderheitskabinetts unterstützt hatte. In Madrid werden daher weitere vorgezogene Parlamentswahlen nicht ausgeschlossen.”
(Rajoy has lost the support of the Basque Nationalist Party, which until now had supported his minority cabinet. This doesn’t rule out a snap parliamentary election in Madrid)
If true, Rajoy might not have a majority for any further repression. Perhaps he’s got a billion Euros in his back pocket to bribe some biddable PSOE MPs.
I’m well in my cups, having been to a Catalan demo in Downing street,and then getting in to the tail end of a talk by Niel Kinnock at the Q.M College (UNI)) – but I will say ‘Welcome aboard’, Mate!
I can’t take in the whole blog comment, but I’ve got enough for now.
Before ya know it, you might actually revisit 9/11.
More to follow, Inshallah.
Stunned are you, idealist fool? Do you expect the French to support the Catalan separatists, whilst having Corsica to deal with? Or, should the Italians come to the rescue, as Lega Norde considers southern Italy a bit too black and Arab for its taste? Or should the Germans cry foul, having their Danish minority, the remanence of Bismark grabbing a piece of its northern neighbour?
Catalan should serve as a stark reminder to any government that gives a monkey’s about its territorial integrity that it all starts from allowing the locals to use the local language as the official one!
As for you still favouring the freedom of movement, besides manning cafes in metropolitan areas with transiting Easter Europeans, it has done nothing but stripping regional trade unions from their bargaining chip with the big business! As recently as 2016 construction workers in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, were in dispute with a Croatian firm called Duro Dakovic TEP, who were subcontracted to build a biomass power station.
The dispute was caused by Duro Dakovic who avoided paying industry rates to British-based workers by using a migrant labour force which, because of EU free movement legislation, they were only required to pay at minimum wage in the host country (roughly £7 per hour).
http://evolvepolitics.com/pro-eu-blairites-couldnt-care-less-workers-aim-ensure-big-business-always-wins/
The South African comparison is surely different (complete opposite) from the Catalonian situation. Generally, the whites of South Africa had all the power and wealth while the black population were excluded and oppressed. Catalonia is a wealthy state/region, one of the wealthiest in Spain. In fact Spain relies heavily on the tax that wealthy Catalonia provide which props up the less well off and poor states/regions of Spain. Am I correct in saying that many feel they give too much to Spain and get too little in return?
I have found myself questioning the whole idea of nationalism.
Also is it not so that the EU wishes to remain unified as a federal entity? They would never be in favour of seeing the break up of the likes of Spain just like they didnt want the break up of the UK. The effect on Spains economy would be catastrophic.
Finally, turning a blind eye to the thuggery of the Spainish Guardia/Gov riot squad exposed a lot about the mindset in Brussels.
Well CM, it did take you rather a long time to conclude that the EU is not the cuddly bear that many would like to make it out to be. My own discomfort began with the Commissions/ECB’s behaviour towards the PIIGS at the onset of the Euro Crisis in 2009, its behaviour towards Italy, Greece, then Cyprus & Greece again during 2010-2015 was the last straw for me, who, as an internationalist Socialist, could not support any organisation that forces austerity & economic hardship of many of its constituent populations. Regrettably, you keep maintaining many of those who voted for Brexit are racist, whilst the fact remains, many who opposed the EU were good ole international Socialists opposed to neoliberal economic proscriptions & neoconservative overseas policies best left at the borders of the USA. Glad that you have seen the light, which, is one reason I’ve always supported Scottish independence if it’s the will of the people, the same i shall support the Catalonians if independence and national self determination & the will of a majority of the Catalans.
Craig is writing some really dangerous stuff here but I have already read at least 3 chapters of his Togo book. He appears to have no fear. Do you realise what you are up against? Watch the film network made in 1976 and see what happened to him. He was only the actor in a film. He didn’t do anything wrong and his performance was amazing. Like any good actor he lived the part. Tony
The larger the governmental institution, the more anti-democratic it is. Look at the largest governing entities in the world today: US, EU, China, Russia, India, and you have to strain hard to see anything more than the facade of democracy. The nation-state has run its course as a useful form of human organization in the 21st century. The quicker they all die off, along with their predatory cousins, the multi-national corporations, the better.
Craig you are not Eric Cantona. You can’t do a flying kick against some racist Millwall supporter at Crystal Palace, without getting seriously told off. For a start you are not even French.
Are you aware of the many reported fake pictures of injured people?
Please analyze in depth the true dimension of the said violence that allegedly the Police inflicted on those who were performing and supporting an illegal Also reported people voting 4 or more times.
Some of the pictures and images correspond to a police action back in 2012.
At least Le Fígaro has documented this. http://mobile.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2017/10/02/violences-policieres-en-catalogne-attention-aux-images-trompeuses_5194905_4355770.html
Good, but you should have been reconsidering it after it’s handling of Greece and the rest of the PIIGS. I voted remain, I consider myself European, I support the idea of supranational European co-operation, I’m not anti-immigrant (although I think we should stop destablising third world countries and creating refugee waves) but we have to face the fact that the EU we actually have is very very troubling indeed. It’s changed, it’s no longer the non coercive, lending by example, type of organisation it started off as, it is now something used to enforce neoliberalism and punish transgressors, it’s undemocratic and obsessed with eastwards expansion for US geopolitical ends. Everything wrong with establishment politicians in EU member states is being magnafied by Brussels, because they are the ones who have been building it. This became clear back when they set out to punish Greece, this is not to say Greece itself is blameless, but that the Greek elite have conspired with the EU and corporate elite to rob the Greek people.
An instrument of punishment used by the establishment can never guarentee peace in Europe, it simply becomes a means of domination which will in the end breed defiance. The EU is part of the problem and has been for several years now.
My very thoughts. Of course the role of the EU in the dismembering of Yougoslavia precedes the vengeful treatment of Greece and was followed by the support for fascists in Ukraine. But these are not popular topics in this blog, at and the role of NATO and the EU in Kosovo is held as a great humanitarian event whereas it also led to a lot of ethnic cleansing by both sides.
Glad you ‘ve woken up Craig!
I think you have your left and right mixed up though.
” I think you have your left and right mixed up though ”
Trump and Clinton seem to have got them mixed up. May is for consolidating the inequality of society at the bottom and Corbyn is for consolidating the inequality of society at the top. ( Paying for PFI to manage capital infrastructure and paying again by taking responsibility for going it in government )
As I have said before it’s dead easy, like in Turkey, to have two competing very right-wing parties and no opposition at all. In Spain we seem to have an old right-wing party in power and new right-wing, neo-liberal Macron style banker party in Barcelona. I’m confused, and I don’t know anything about politics. how much more confused Craig must be, who has a PhD in them and believes in them too.
doing, sorry
Those with more strength quit after seeing what the EU did / is doing to Greece.
Craig, if you no longer support this Neoliberal organisation, then how can you passionately support the main argument for holding a 2nd Scottish independence referendum: that Scotland is being cut off from membership of said Neoliberal organisation?
C’mon that was Nicola Sturgeon’s gambit for hitting Tories with. Nobody believed it anyway because the EU has declared that any country breaking away from one of its members will automatically lose membership of the EU.
Before opening a shop you have to have capital. Before opening a country you have to have a currency. If your leech/parasite/colonial country manipulated you before by keeping the main road to your capital city as a single carriageway, how much more can they manipulate you by currency?
What Craig is complaining about, I believe, is the realisation that they’ve got you by the short and curlies either way, unless of course you want to join their NWO evil system, in which case, like Macron, they can make you a party out of nothing and get you elected before you even realise you are an emasculated con-man. It was ever so. Winston Churchill carved up Kurdistan like a carcase in 1918 for daring to dream that the Ottoman Caliphate might come their way. Erdogan wants Turkey’s balls back again, but I’m afraid they’ve already been eaten.
https://www.nad.ps/en/media-room/media-brief/not-new-phenomenon-references-apartheid-context-israelpalestine
Maybe slightly off topic but another country supported by the EU.
https://youtu.be/MlN9o3g-yuA
Farage gave it full welly yesterday at the EU, describing them as bullies. Juncker, just arms’ lengths away, studiously attended to his papers, pretending not to be listening.
Sorry that was the wrong link.
Can only find a link in the Express!
EU must condemn Catalonia violence! Farage rages at Brussels silence after chaos in Spain
NIGEL Farage has claimed the European Union is starting to “resemble the old Soviet Union” after refusing to condemn the violence by Spanish police that left more than 850 people injured amid unrest at the Catalan independence referendum.
/..
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/861793/catalonia-referendum-eu-nigel-farage-independence-spain-police-violence-barcelona
Wells Fargo rules , OK?
Gorbachev said this back in 2000 on a visit to London;’The European Union is the new Soviet collective’. Christopher Story editor of the Analyst and the International Currency Review may still be seen on this theme,despite his untimely and suspicious death, in several YouTube videos.
Thats certainly the way I see it! Were in big trouble from this EU trojan horse ideology. The politicians conform as long as the perks and decadence continues to flow there way…whats new!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFFm9kyeEx4
Well, yes. Of course Farage would be outraged that the EU isn’t interfering in the internal politics of an EU Member State.
Have cake & eat it, etc.
Its always been clear to me that the EU as it stands is a curates, good in parts, and that the bad parts (Greece’s debt, the likes of Orban and Erdogan, and now Rajoy’s dickishness) are unsurprising of how much of a work-in-progress the EU actually. Yes, the aristos and the profiteer sociopaths are well entrenched but other countervailing forces are building their strength, like here and Portugal. A Europe for the people is not simply a slogan but an aim – wanting to stay in the EU doesnt signify support for its power establishment. The EU must be reformed – the alternatives are disturbing.
First time that I’ve heard Turkey was in the EU, though it’s quite common for the most poorly informed Brexiters to think that it is.
Indeed. The EU is not an ideology. It is an institutional framework that will go in whatever direction voters want.
Well said Craig.
Sensibly written. Maybe the people of the European land mass should all speak to the European UNION.
WE ALSO should help this young man with his Defense against the Daily Fail.
Well written and I say with sadness eloquently puts into substantial words my own feelings. Perhaps the European parliament can speak for the people of Catalunya in a way that the EU commission chooses not to?
Dear Mr. Craig Murray,
once again an insightful analysis,
Allow me to correct you on one specific matter: NATO and EU did of course use false arguments to have an excuse to invade Kosovo, they did however not claim to protect the ‘Kosovans’, but claimed to protect the ‘ethnic Albanian people of Kosovo’. There are also ethnic Serb, Bosnian, Turkish, Roma minorities in Kosovo. There is no such thing as the ‘Kosovan people’, there are the Kosovo Albanian people, the Kosovo Serb people etcetera. Therefore, to be correct in this context you should write ‘Kosovo Albanian people’ instead of ‘Kosovans’. Most nationalist have a common name for their people, the language, the land, often the religion, like with the Macedonian people, Macedonian language, Macedonian territory. Same for Catalonia. In Kosovo the language however is not ‘Kosovan’ but Albanian, and the people are Albanian (in the ethnic sense, they are not ‘Albanian’ in the sense of ‘citizen of the country called Albania’. It’s complicated, I know.
Sincerely
I have read your blog, for some time now I have been wary of EU, my thoughts go back to 2014 when I felt that EU could have been if not supportive more accommodating of Scotland.
The actions in Catalonia at the weekend have made my mind up. To see such brutality waged on peaceful people of all ages by Spanish state was alarming and yes frightening.
Shocked at attitude of other EU nations and indeed I am now anti EU for the very reasons in your blog.
I believe EU is afraid as now they face Basques, Scotland, indeed other parts of EU where peoples have been kettled together under an assumed one country name.
Eventually you will withdraw your support for everything and everyone. Who is left to trust but Craig Murray? It will be lonely.
I am changing my view on the EU due to the events in Catalonia, Scotish Independence first, then take things from there.
Some geezer in Spain called Felipe who thinks there’s a God who has chosen to exalt him above his fellow humans with some quaint custom called kingship has said that the Catalan government was acting against the law. He didn’t say anything at all about the state violence.
Away and get a real job Felipe. This king job is distorting your views of the world. Go to a few cafés in Barcelona and meet some real people. Talk to them.
A real job!
Fuck that.
This one’s just fine.
The corrupt Spanish Royal family:
“The reputation of Spain’s royals has been tarnished by the publication of a series of text messages between Queen Letizia, her husband, and the boss of a troubled national bank accused of corruption.”
“when Juan Carlos was put on the throne by Franco in 1975, he was said to be stony broke. Now, his personal wealth is estimated at as much as $2 billion.”
“Money has always been the Achilles heel of the Spanish Royals, but when it was Juan Carlos, the older generation of Spaniards, who knew what he had done for the country, were prepared to look the other way.
However when Juan Carlos’s daughter, the Infanta Cristina, and her husband, Inaki Urdangarín, were accused of embezzling millions of euros in public funds through his charity the Noos Foundation, as Spain was in the grip of a savage recession, there was no such forbearance.”
“Urdangarín is accused of nine crimes including fraud and tax evasion with a combined possible jail sentence of 19-and-a-half years. Cristina is charged with two counts of being an accessory to tax fraud, which carry a combined sentence of up to eight years.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/texting-scandal-rocks-spains-king-and-queen
“On 10 June 2016 Prosecutor Pedro Horrach called for Urdangarin to be jailed for 19-and-a-half years and fined 980,000 euros. He was sentenced to six years and three months of jail and a fine of €512,000 on 17 February 2017”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iñaki_Urdangarin#Corruption_and_money_laundering
“On 17 February 2017, Cristina was acquitted of the charges”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanta_Cristina_of_Spain#Corruption_inquiry
Lubbly jubbly.
cont’d:
“it had been hoped that his (Juan Carlos) abdication in 2013 in favor of his son Felipe and his glamorous wife Letizia would create what courtiers termed a “firewall” between the corrupt past and the stain-free future.
Now, however, that ambition has been gravely tarnished by the publication of a series of text messages between Letizia, the king, and the boss of a troubled national bank accused of corruption.
In the text conversation, the queen pledges her support for Javier Lopez Madrid—a close friend of the king—and calls him her “yoga mate.”
The iMessage conversation, revealed by the online daily eldiario.es, dates back to October 2014. The businessman is among dozens accused of misusing bank funds for their personal use.
The scandal allegedly saw executives and board members at Caja Madrid and Bankia—the group whose near-collapse sparked an EU bailout of Spain’s financial sector—use credit cards given out by the banks to spend some €12 million ($13 million) on themselves.
“I wrote to you when the story on the credit cards came out…” Letizia wrote in her message, according to El Diario.
“We know who you are and you know who we are. We know each other, like each other, respect each other. To hell with the rest. Kisses yoga mate (miss you!!!)”
(The hashtag #CompiYogui—the term in Spanish used by Queen Letizia in her message of support and loosely translated as “yoga mate”—swiftly became the biggest trending topic on Twitter in Spain.)
Lopez then thanked her. “In future I will take extra precautions, we live in a very difficult country and I will be even more aware of my conduct.”
The king himself then reportedly joined the conversation, texting, “We do indeed!”
The texts threaten to undo all the good work Felipe has undertaken since ascending to the throne in June 2014, and to plant a fresh seed in the public mind that the new generation of royals may in fact be just as keen to benefit financially from power as Juan Carlos was.
“Juan Carlos always had a reputation of being very worried about money,” one member of Madrid society tells The Daily Beast, “Cristina and her grasping husband have been thoroughly exposed. The worry is that Felipe and Letizia may be seen as no different—which is unfair, as they are actually very straight, some even say boring. But boring is just what Spain needs right now.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/texting-scandal-rocks-spains-king-and-queen
Also a Spanish rap star called Valtonyc was sentenced by a Spanish court earlier this year to three and a half years in prison for insulting the crown in the lyrics of his songs. It really is a fascist country.
There is always a strong reaction from Madrid whenever the Catalans rise up witness Franco in the Spanish Civil War when the Anarchists held sway in Catalonia (read Orwell’s book “Homage to Catalonia”) and like all of us in the EU we act firstly in our own ways. The Spanish Police can be and are brutal when it suits the State to crack down on opposition when it feels threatened.
Hello
Long time lurker here. I’m glad to see that you, Craig Murray, have seen the European Union for what it is. Centralisation is a problem, it is always a bad thing, fundamentally dehuminising. It is worth remembering that the current global turmoil is deliberate, that high profile world leaders are often merely receptacles of blame, and the chess board is being kicked over so those responsible for the looming catastrophe can escape justice.
We are all made of psy-ops now.
Thank you for this blog, people sometimes say interesting things here.
It has to be said to all Lurkers, as you call yourself, that this kind of analytical discourse, conclusions and debates are under attack from Amber Rudd PLC, who now, under the guidance of failure Lynton Crosby, is smarting herself to become PM.
She wants to control the internet like no other and criminalise those who speak up.
Craigs current libel case is but a small part of such efforts to control us all, especially those who are critical.
Hence, please put your hands in your pocket and send him whatever you can afford. We need this kind of dialogue, more truth speakers and whistle blowers, not less.
If you want to have an alternative to the same same media copies on a daily basis, please support him.
There is no difference between the way that the elite acts against the people in the UK as it does in the EU. That does not make the case for leaving the EU. Rather that people across the EU including the UK should get rid of elitist power and replace it with meaningful democracy.
The new Tory or Labour elites are not the same as the old Tory or Labour elites and the next Tory or Labour elites will not be the same as the current ones. Politicians jockeying for power would not be my first choice for people to run the country. Everything is reduced to meaningless slogans. How do we get to meaningful democracy?
I don’t think your initial summary of how EU law interacts with human rights law is completely correct. Article 51 comes into play when EU countries are implementing EU law. I don’t see how the events in Spain have triggered an EU law issue. I say this without comment on the rest of your piece, which needs more digesting …
The argument is this. Article 51 obliges not only member states, but EU institutions to act in accordance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Commission was therefore not entitled to ignore those fundamental rights in its statement and actions in this case.
This is of course precisely why the term “fundamental rights” has been inserted by the Greens into the title of today’s European Parliament debate.
So you wish they’d put out a stronger statement of condemnation on the Spanish government’s violence against the voters? Well, fine, but I don’t think putting out words on areas outside one’s jurisdiction is really likely to have much practical effect on events on the ground. Their statement says that violence should not be part of politics. Failure to express that thought in a manner more to our liking does not constitute “unqualified backing” for those committing the violence, in my opinion, it says quite the opposite but quietly.
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Also by this argument any statement by an EU institution on any issue would bring into play the Charter purely by virtue being made by an EU institution. That would circumvent the intention of Article 51, which explicitly limits its own application to cases where EU law is triggered and specifically references the principle of subsidiarity. Again, I say this while sharing your disgust at the events in Catalonia. I just don’t think expecting the EU to speak up more forcibly is realistic or reasonable.