Oriol Junqueras, the leader of the Catalan Republican Left
has a different media image from Vladimir Putin but when it comes to territorial
expansion there’s not much difference between them. Just as Putin wants to grab
bits of Ukraine because the people there speak Russian, the policy of pancatalism
involves the incorporation of a future independent Catalonia of three separate
parts of Spain (Valencia, the Balearic Islands and part of Aragon), part of
France (Languedoc-Roussillon, known as Catalunya Nord), the town of Alghero in Sardinia,
and all of Andorra.
According to the party’s programme for the European parliament
elections the first step will be
the recognition of the rights of the inhabitants of the rest
of the territories of the Catalan Lands to add Catalan nationality to Spanish nationality
if they want.
Yes, they’re going to start poaching citizens of other countries.
Won’t that make them popular!
These lands, we are told, must ‘be present’ in the process
that has started in Catalonia that will culminate with a new Catalan state in
the EU.
Being present in the process means clearly laying the foundations of future relations between the free Catalan nation and the nation that will continue under Spanish or French jurisdiction.
According to Junqueras:
the future Catalan Constitution will
have to include the definition and the complete framework of the nation, bearing
in mind especially aspects like the recognition of the national condition for
the citizens of the other territories who freely claim it or the inclusion a reunification
clause (as was done at the time in the constitutions of the German Federal Republic
and the Republic of Ireland.
What examples to give! The German example ignores the fact
that Germany had been partitioned after a war and had its capital under military
occupation till the fall of the Berlin Wall. And that, unusually, German citizenship
derives through descent (jus sanguinis), so the citizens of the GDR were
entitled to nationality anyway.
And what about Ireland? Yes indeed, the constitution of the Irish
Republic did indeed claim all of the island of Ireland as its territory, including
the six counties of Northern Ireland. That was, not surprisingly, a huge stumbling
block in Anglo-Irish relations. As part of the Good Friday Agreement, the claim
for reunification was removed by a complete amendment to clause 2, which now describes
the Irish nation as a community of individuals with a common identity rather
than as a territory.
Nationalists playing fast and loose with history? Now there’s
a surprise!
