Spain's Chief Tries to Keep Risky Pledge to Catalonia
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By RENWICK McLEAN
Published: February 6, 2006
MADRID, Feb. 5 - The issue of how to keep the perpetually rebellious
region of Catalonia content within Spanish borders has vexed
generations of Spanish leaders, leading most to adopt hard-line
approaches.
But Prime Minister Jos=E9 Luis Rodr=EDguez Zapatero, a Socialist who came
to office in 2004 with a seemingly boundless faith in democratic
solutions, offered an open hand. He said he would accept demands for
more autonomy if they were approved by a majority of the Catalonian
Parliament.
On Monday, he will take up the awkward task of trying to make good on
that promise without alienating other parts of the country, as he
begins shepherding the Catalonian demands in the national Parliament.
The risks involved in Mr. Zapatero's promise became apparent in
September, when Catalonia replied to his offer with a series of demands
that directly challenge the central government's constitutional
authority over the northeastern region, which has 7 million of the
country's 44 million inhabitants.
The demands were part of a complex proposal, approved by 90 percent of
the Catalonian Parliament, that declared Catalonia a nation with
self-government powers not restricted by the Spanish Constitution.
A poll published by the newspaper El Pa=EDs in late January found that
nearly half of the Spaniards who responded felt the proposal threatened
to split Spain apart. It is not widely popular even in Mr. Zapatero's
Socialist Party.
Yet Mr. Zapatero has resisted pressure to reject the proposal outright
and has instead chosen to modify it through negotiations.
After receiving a briefing on its contents, Eduardo Zaplana of the
center-right Popular Party said at a news conference on Thursday that
the revised proposal still presented a risk to the nation's stability.
A central concern of Mr. Zaplana and other critics has been an
agreement on one point that Mr. Zapatero has made public - to let
Catalonia, among the richest of Spain's 17 regions, keep 50 percent of
its income taxes, up from 33 percent.
The concession drew requests from other regions for equal treatment,
which the government granted, fueling fears that the regions would seek
more control of their own funds, leaving the central government without
adequate resources.
With Spain already transferring powers to the European Union, the
simultaneous surrendering of money and authority to the regions
threatens to drive the Spanish government toward irrelevancy, Mr.
Zapatero's political opponents contend.
Anxiety over the issue is in the air here. "For the first time in my
life, I am worried about the future of Spain," said Francisco Javier de
la Mota, 30, a landscape architect who lives near Madrid.
He said that the uncertainty over Catalonia was inevitably a topic of
conversation when he gathered with friends, even those who did not
regularly follow politics.
Mr. Zapatero says fears of a fragmenting Spanish state are exaggerated,
conjured by his opponents in hopes of scaring the public into turning
against the Socialists, who lead the government, though without a
majority in Parliament.
To secure the votes necessary to pass legislation over the past two
years, Mr. Zapatero has regularly relied on the support of a Catalonian
separatist party, Esquerra Republicana. He defends his approach,
contending that there is no use denying greater autonomy to a region
whose leaders demand it with near unanimity.
He says that the proper response in a democratic Spain is to negotiate,
offer compromises and embrace the concept of a pluralistic country. He
insists that nothing in the revised proposal would enable the
Catalonians to challenge the authority of the central government.
But one of the chief Catalan negotiators, Artur Mas, president of
Converg=E8ncia i Uni=F3, the largest political group in Catalonia, has
already undercut his argument. He says the agreement with Mr. Zapatero
will allow Catalonia to address the Spanish government on equal terms.
Only days after the negotiations with Mr. Zapatero concluded, Mr. Mas
said his party would begin lobbying for additional freedoms.
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