Letter from "Your Europe Advice" on EU citizenship in an independent Catalonia

Letter from Your Europe Advice

Dear Sir/Madam, 

Please find below the reply to your enquiry. Please note that the advice given by Your Europe Advice is an independent advice and cannot be considered to be the opinion of the European Commission, of any other EU institution or its staff nor will this advice be binding upon the European Commission, any other EU or national institution. 

Your original enquiry was:

As a UK citizen líving in Spain (over 30 years) I'm wondering whether the residence status of my fellow citizens would change should Catalonia (where I reside) become independent. 

Reply from Your Europe Advice

Dear Sir, 

Thank you for getting in touch with Your Europe Advice. 

Your question relates to what status under EU law would an independent Catalunia acquire. 

Would it be outside the EU, or would it be inside the EU. 

Legal opinion is divided at the moment. 

The same issues concern Scotland and potentially other regions in Europe (Flanders?). 

The E.U. may be seen as a guarantor of economic stability, but can portions of member states secede within the E.U. framework? The simple answer is yes. Formally, states are sovereign, and it is legally possible for substate regions to secede. The E.U. institutional apparatus does not recognize the possibility of secession, but it does not legally preclude it. 

Seceding states, however, do not automatically enjoy treaty rights. It is the predecessor state that retains existing rights and memberships. To be admitted to the E.U., a nation must receive unanimous support among member states and be approved by a vote in the European Parliament. Could the seceding states win admission? More to the point, would the rump Spanish State seriously consider vetoing the admission of Catalonia into the EU fold? 

If such a case were to arise, the residence status of your fellow citizens (we assume you mean UK citizens?) would be that they would be residing in a third country. 

The European treaties provide that the status of E.U. citizenship is afforded to "every person holding the nationality of a member state" albeit that "citizenship of the union shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship." In the case of Ruiz Zambrano, the Court of Justice of the European Union said that national measures cannot deprive E.U. citizens of the "genuine enjoyment of the substance of the rights conferred by virtue of their status as citizens of the union." 

If Catalonia's independence cannot deprive its heretofore British national residents of their E.U. citizenship rights, then it makes political and legal sense for an independent Catalonia to be recognized as an E.U. member state. 

The question you raise is entirely hypothetical, but we hope this has clarified some of the questions you had. 

We hope this answers your query. 

We remain at your disposal, should you require further information. 

Your truly, 

Your Europe Advice. 

I recommend you read Jeremy Smith's post on Catalonia

I recommend you read Jeremy Smith's post "Pain in Spain, and the Catalan Cortes Zone" (1st October 2012), http://www.refractions.org/post/32710903100/pain-in-spain-and-the-catalan-cortes-zone

As his weblog has - quite legitimately - no space for comments, allow me to reply here, to beg to difer from several of his remarks.

As to the Constitutional Court judgment you rightly describe as "highly controversial", it is the Preamble as a whole that is devoid of any legal effect, which is why the Court didn't slash out any particular part of the text.

However, it was not that particular issue that brought out into the streets of central Barcelona over a million people on July 10 2010, but rather the rest of the judgment.  

Moreover, that particular, historic demonstration pailed before the scale and message of the September 11th demonstration this year,  which brought together up to 1,649,800 people according to one source, and 1·5 million according to the local authorities, a figure accepted by most of the international press. The know-how of the organisers, the grass-roots Assemblea Nacional Catalana, which is totally self-funding (and of which I am proud to be a founding member), was sufficient for all predictions to fall well short of what exactly happened.  The spectacular event was photographed for posterity by Lluís Brunet.

There was another big difference between the two:  the first was to put up a strong face as a reaction to the long overdue Constitutionasl Court judgment. The second one was for "Catalonia, a new State in Europe", and it was perfectly clear in the mind of every single person that attended or supported it, that the independence of Catalonia was its goal.

The headlines of La Vanguardia (which, as you know, is Barcelona-based and one of the most prestigious newspapers in Spain), read as  follows on June 26th, that is, over two months before the latest preo-independence demonstration: 

* El 51,1% de los catalanes votaría 'sí' a la independencia en un referéndum. El dato supone 8,2 puntos más que hace un año, el 21,1% votaría en contra -7,1 puntos menos-, otro 21,1% no iría a votar y los indecisos representarían el 4,7% (51·1% of Catalans would vote "yes" to independence in a referendum. This figure is up 8·2 percentage points on last year. 21·1% would vote against - 7·1 fewer percentage points -, another 21·1% would not go to vote, and 4·7% have not made up their mind)

Never, in the run-up to the (successful) Montenegro referendum did surveys come anywhere near these figures.

What is remarkable about Catalonia right now, and since September 11th, is people's collective self-confidence. Is there anywhere else in Europe whose hopes for the future are higher, whose enthusiasm is greater? 

Finally, you claim that Catalonia would have to apply for EU membership. You clearly tow the Madrid line here. So in response I am glad to resort, as you do, to Viviane Reding, of whom I have fond memories (she was the rapporteur for the December 1990 European Parliament Resolution (A-169) on Languages in the Community and the situation of Catalan, and I attended the session when it was put to the vote). During her recent stay in Andalusia, Madame Reding was interviewed by the Diario de Sevilla. The last two exchanges have to do with Catalonia.  

• Q -Cataluña plantea actualmente la posibilidad de independizarse. Pero si lo hace debería abandonar la UE y negociar su ingreso. Además, desde su salida habría un agujero en la libertad [de] circulación de personas y bienes en la Unión. (Catalonia is now the possibility of becoming independent. But if it does it would have to leave the EU and negotiate its admission. Moreover, there would be a hole in the freedom of movement of people and goods in the Union)
• A -No querría inmiscuirme en asuntos de política española, pero no pienso ni por un segundo que Cataluña quiera dejar la UE. Conozco a los catalanes desde hace mucho tiempo, he sido una de las pocas personas no catalanas en recibir la Cruz de Sant Jordi, y sé que su sentimiento es profundamente europeo. (I don't want to interfere in matters of Spanish politics, but I don't fo a moment think that Catalonia would want to leave the EU. I have known the Catalans for a long time, I am one of the few non-Catalans to have been awarded the Cross of St. George, and I know that there feelings are depply European.)s
• Q -No le pregunto por la posibilidad de que Cataluña quiera o no ser parte de la UE, sino por el proceso que se abre cuando dejen de serlo. Lo dice la Convención de Viena: el Estado resultante de un Estado matriz abandonará todos los organismos internacionales en los que la matriz esté representada. (I'm not asking you about the possibility of Catalonia wanting or not to belong to the UE, but for the process once it ceases to belong to it. The Vienna Convention says as much: the State resulting from the mother State will leave all international bodies in which the mother State is represented.)
• A -Vamos, hombre, la legislación internacional no dice nada que se parezca a eso. Por favor, resuelvan sus problemas de política interna en España. Yo confío en la mentalidad europea de los catalanes. (Come off it man, international legislation says nothing resembliung that. Please solve your problems of internal politics in Spain. I trust the European mentality of the Catalans).

Some European Union members do have some national skeletons in their cupboard, certainly (Scotland is a case in point). Maybe you could have written a similar article about the EU and Scotland, and maybe you have! But can the EU turn its back on the democratically expressed will of its peoples? Not if it wants to be credible. And I seriously doubt that the level of fiscal spoliation Catalonia's has had to endure for years is felt in other "wannabe" nations, as you put it. To lose 8·4% of Catalonia's GDP every year, over a long period, is utterly crippling, and has lasted so long that Catalonia has dropped from first to fourth place in terms of Spain's regional wealth as a direct result. 

Well before the economic crisis Catalans' welfare was under threat, and even more so now that Spain is dragging its heels miserably over infrastructures that should have been in place years ago. 

• The main road to France (which is used by 40,000 vehicles every day, largely lorries) still isn't a dual carriageway, and the road works have been completely stopped for years (how many of the 45 lives lost in this time are due to the condition of the road is open to dispute). In the meantime €998M have been earmarked this year for a dual carriageway linking Benavente to Palencia (pop. 19.187 and 82.626 respectively), in Castilla y León.
• The TGV from Barcelona to France is years behind schedule, while the high-speed railway line from Madrid to Galicia forges ahead. 
• The Mediterranean corridor to link up ports along the Spanish Mediterranean coast to the railway network north of the Pyrenees, is being held up, despite being an EU priority route for freight transport because of the strategic importance of trade witrh the Middle and Far East. The Spanish government persists in the idea of boring a hole through the widest part of the Pyrenees. 
• And the list goes on, without leaving the world of economics. 43% of the wealth tax in the whole of Spain is raised in Catalonia, for instance.

The fragmentation of the traditional European states has taken place throughout eastern Europe and quite frankly, what Europe will never allow is for potential internal conflicts to build up into civil wars. If 51% of the population of other stateless nations were to vote for independence, and only 21% against it, who could deny them the right to become states just like Denmark or Lithuania? However, the EUt needs to call Spain (and even an MEP!) and its threatening tones to order, at once.


Finally, I invite you, Mr. Smith, to spend half an hour watching a documentary, in English, on "Spain's Secret Conflict". Yes, you got it: it's Catalonia! You can find it, alongside other videos about the case of Catalonia, here.
 

MEPs protest to EU Council and Commission over dire situation for Catalan in the Balearic Islands

Source: Eurolang http://www.facebook.com/pages/Eurolang/174907085047

EUROLANG / EUROPEAN LANGUAGE EQUALITY NETWORK

PRESS RELEASE

MEPs protest to EU Council and Commission over dire situation for Catalan in the Balearic Islands
A cross-party grouping of MEPs led by the Hungarian MEPs Csaba Sogor (Hungarian minority, Romania) and Edit Bauer representing Hungarians in Slovakia (EPP), signed by EFA, ALDE and S&D Intergroup members, and after lobbying by Eurolang- ELEN and Obra Cultural Balear (OCB), have sent a formal tabled question to the EU Council and Commission protesting against measures that undermine Catalan in Illes Balears and which have resulted in an ongoing hunger strike by pensioner Jaume Bonet.

The letter asks whether the Commission, as 'Guardian of the Treaties', considers that the measures adopted by the Balearic government undermine "respect for linguistic diversity” and constitutes discrimination on the grounds of language, which under EU law is prohibited?

Furthermore, it asks the Commission what it intends to do in order to protect national minority rights in this situation.

The letter underlines that the measures adopted by the regional government contravene European standards on lesser used language protection found in the EU Lisbon Treaty, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the Council of Europe's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, all ratified by Spain.

It adds that the measures also break cross-party political consensus on Catalan promotion and undermine successful language regeneration.

That the letter has also the support of several members of the European Peoples Party, of which the PP Iles Balears government are members, is highly significant - a significance that will have resonance in European, national and regional political circles. It illustrates a new mood at the European level, under the ‘new European architecture for human rights,’ that it is no longer acceptable for governments to attack or undermine a regional language.

The PP government of Illes Balears, led by José Ramón Bauzá, voted a week ago to amend the law on Catalan normalisation which removes Catalan language requirements in order to work in the public administration. The move has been heavily criticised by NGOs for breaking a decades long cross-party political consensus on regenerating the language.

Specialists in the field of minority language rights have highlighted what they see as an abusive use of the concept of 'freedom' to implement policies (some not even included in the election manifesto) to annul existing measures seeking to guarantee minority language speakers' rights. Similar measures by the government in the hands of the same party, in Valencia, also based on the same principle, have also been accused of failing to support the language and its use by speakers.

So far there has been no reaction from the Balearic government while Senyor Bonet-Moll’s condition continues to weaken. He has lost 20 kilos (44 lbs), has a heart complaint, and has had his visiting hours restricted.

OCB are organising a mass demonstration against changes in the language law and in support of Jaume Bonet for Sunday 25th March in Palma.(Eurolang 2012)

ENDS

Editors Notes

ELEN is the new European level network working to promote lesser used languages replacing the well known EBLUL organisation.

Links
OCB http://www.ocb.cat
Eurolang http://www.facebook.com/pages/Eurolang/174907085047