When Joe Met Arthur

Can politicians ever just be friends, or will there always be more to the relationship? What was said between José and Artur when they took themselves off for a spot of lunch at Palma’s Bar Bosch? Did they pledge undying fraternal togetherness, and if so, what language did they use?

“When Harry Met Sally” posited the question about being friends. At one stage, disagreement as to the question and differing philosophies, following what Sally had taken as a pass by Harry (at an American diner take on Bar Bosch), led to them not seeing each other for several years.

José and Artur, respectively President Bauzá of the Balearics and President Mas of Catalonia, met in Palma the other day. They are more Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau than Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. The odd couple. They share certain things in common, but they don’t quite fit.

There is the Catalan thing. They both speak it, though José would prefer not to call it Catalan and would prefer that they spoke Castilian. There are the politics. Both the Partido Popular and Artur’s Convergència i Unió occupy some similar political terrain, but the PP is further to the right than the CiU. And then there is the independence question. It is here that they have very different philosophies. Though the CiU manages to downplay its separationist tendency, Mas is all for Catalan self-government; Bauzá most definitely isn’t.

What everyone of course wanted to know was what Mas made of Bauzá’s attitude towards Catalan. Everyone wanted to know, which is why he sidestepped the issue, other than to say that Catalan is our “common language”. Common to whom exactly?

Bauza’s Catalan is one of dialect and his argument is one that is dialectic; he and Mas agree to disagree as, for Bauzá, Castilian is the common language and the dialects of Catalan are specific to the individual Balearic islands, but ne’er should enter the language of Catalanism and independence.

Mind you, they probably didn’t discuss the matter in quite such terms, as they bit into an austerity-correct Catalan bread roll at Bar Bosch. Yet they were able to agree that the cultures of the Balearics and the language, or should this be languages, will be jointly promoted through the Ramon Llull Institute, and lent their support to the exhibition of the artist Joan Miró, a native of Catalonia but a resident of Mallorca, as it travels next year to London and Washington.

Far more important was that both Mas and Bauzá had the opportunity to slag off their respective predecessors. None of any of the current mess is our fault; here was some common ground, along with the dirty great holes full of debt and deficit in the ground beneath the Balearic and Catalonian presidents.

There was a chance for a touch of celebration. The Spanish Government and the European Union had just announced that they are going to pump God knows how many millions or billions into the so-called Mediterranean Corridor, a new high-speed rail link to connect Algeciras with France. Not that it is entirely clear quite how beneficial this will be for the Balearics, despite Bauzá having been firmly in favour. He says it will mean a reduction in the cost of imports. Possibly, though he might also want to have a word with maritime operators.

Odd couple they may be, but they are similar in having similar concerns. And odd it may be if a Catalonian government, albeit one that is of a conservative political bent, should offer a model to both Bauzá and his commandants at Partido Popular central office. Catalonia’s health service, as broke as that of the Balearics, is undergoing what amounts to a partial privatisation, though Mas rejects a system of “co-payment”, one that Bauzá’s master, Mariano Rajoy, has been accused of planning to introduce (paying to see a national health doctor, for example).

Of course, one doesn’t really know what Rajoy plans because he either doesn’t have any plans or, more likely, he’s keeping them firmly under wraps before unleashing them on an electorate that will have willingly voted for the slaughter. One doesn’t really know the full extent of Bauzá’s plans either. He had been asked (pressurised) by central office not to announce the Balearics budget until after the national elections, but he now will – on Monday.

When Joe met Arthur was a pleasant diversion before the pain is delivered. It was friendly enough. Maybe they will remain friends, but they will never agree on Catalanism, and when Rajoy wins, what might this mean for Catalonia? Friendly for now, but disagreement will not be far away.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The First Hundred Days

Because of the drawn-out process after elections, one is never entirely sure when a new Balearic government takes office. As José Bauzá was officially “acclaimed” as president on 18 June, then this is as good a date as any. The flexibility of the true timing of the taking of office does, though, make it difficult to agree on when the first one hundred days of office have been achieved. If 18 June it is, then 26 September marks the one-hundredth day.

The fascination with the first hundred days of a presidency or a government can be traced back to Franklin D. Roosevelt and to the laws he introduced to tackle the Depression which formed the basis of the “New Deal”. Ever since, it has been a benchmark period against which to judge new governments.

Generally, there isn’t great urgency to act swiftly. However, things are currently not entirely dissimilar to what Roosevelt had to confront in the early 1930s. It would be idiotic, for all manner of reasons, to compare Bauzá with Roosevelt, but he came into the presidency needing to move quickly. But what, if anything, has he achieved since taking command?

Primarily, he has succeeded unsurprisingly in alienating the unions, the Catalanists, the teachers, the broadcasters and the town halls. He has also succeeded in putting the fear of God up everyone by constantly referring to the legacy left behind by the last administration, i.e. he has seemingly picked huge numbers out of the air and labelled them as debt. He may of course be right, but there is more than just a suspicion that it is expedient for him to be over-egging things.

The remnants of the former PSOE administration, namely Francina Armengol, the ex-president of the Council of Mallorca, and one PSOE-ite who hasn’t jumped ship since the elections, have been berating Bauzá for doing a lot of talking and very little by way of initiating. This isn’t entirely true, as he has been going around with his new toy, the presidential hatchet, and taking it to the likes of TV Mallorca, the town halls’ funds and the unions’ worker representatives. Slashing and cutting things isn’t, however, the same as initiating things.

The little that has been positive has been coming out of the tourism ministry. One says positive, but behind the talk of hotel conversions, theme parks and some polo fields (for the all-important polo tourism), there is one thing missing: money, or government money at any rate.

When Carlos Delgado assumed the post of tourism minister, he said that the day of the grant was over. He has been saying this again. Private money is what will support the positive talk. And what positivity there is. Next year’s tourism season, aided by a flexible new tourism law, will herald a total turnaround of the economies of Mallorca and the islands. Or so says the minister.

Unfortunately, it won’t, as he went on to add that it will be three years before the new era of Balearics tourism starts. This also assumes that the various projects which are meant to be in the pipeline come to fruition. The necessary investment, largely by the main hotel chains, may indeed be forthcoming, but these chains are also investing elsewhere, in countries where there may be richer pickings and fewer obstacles to growth.

Even if this tourism positivity were to be realised and were there to be these new projects, what about the rest of Mallorca, other than hotel complexes (or indeed polo fields)? The town halls, starved of cash as it is, have now been told they won’t be getting the 16 million euros from the so-called local co-operation fund. Brand new complexes but a crumbling infrastructure doesn’t sound so positive.

Still, at least the tourism ministry is able to point to some action rather than the chop-chop of the cuts’ axe. But even its action is slow.

The new tourism law may, by the end of this year, be able to start its process of getting parliamentary approval. It depends on how negotiations have gone with various interested parties in the tourism sector. So, it may or may not be that after around 200 days the law gets somewhere near to the statute books.

Roosevelt was able to push through fifteen major law changes within his first 100 days. In Mallorca it would be unthinkable to get fifteen changes passed within 100 weeks. The process is interminable. Bauzá can’t really be blamed for this; it’s a system he’s lumbered with. His first 100 days may have achieved little, but it couldn’t have achieved much more.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Lorenzo’s Foil: The Catalan argument

What’s the difference between Jorge and Chicho Lorenzo? Jorge is world MotoGP champion and Chicho isn’t. Jorge was born in Mallorca and Chicho wasn’t. He is originally from Galicia, which may explain why he has been brandishing the sword of honour in defence of the Castilian language and jabbing at the armour of Catalan. Lorenzo’s foil is just a tip of the épée in the Catalan argument, but it has caused an almighty row.

Lorenzo took to Facebook to attack Catalanists. Facebook took the page down when the insults began to fly. The whole incident has caused a storm mainly because of who Lorenzo is: father of Jorge, one of Mallorca’s favourite sons along with Rafael Nadal. Pity the poor Mallorcan sportsman who has to contend with a father or a relative’s opinions. Nadal had to put up with uncle Toni slagging Parisians off by referring to their stupidity.

Lorenzo’s foil, which I suppose you could say was foiled by Facebook removing it, comes at a time when arms are being taken up in the Catalan cause. And what has brought the swords out of the sheaths, in addition to Chicho’s Facebook campaign, has been the announcement by Bauzá’s Partido Popular government that it is preparing a law that will remove the requirement for public officials to be able to speak Catalan.

To the fore in opposing this law change is the teaching union STEI-i. The Catalan argument is at its most pertinent in the education sector; it is here that the real battle exists and was always likely to become hugely controversial, given the PP’s aggressive and negative stance towards Catalan.

The rhetoric surrounding the Catalan argument is extreme. Both sides, pro- and anti-Catalanists, accuse the other of being fascists; Lorenzo has, for example. Fascist may be a strong affront in a nation that once had a fascist dictator, but its use just makes it the more difficult to those who look on and observe the argument to be sympathetic to either side. There is something decidedly puerile about the fascist insult.

Bauzá, to continue the connection to the good old days of fascism, is being characterised as being like Franco. Both before and after the May elections, I referred to concerns that a PP administration under Bauzá would create social tensions because of its apparent anti-Catalanism, but to compare Bauzá with El Caudillo is going too far.

Nevertheless, these tensions were always going to come to the surface, and the heat of the rhetoric is being cranked up with Bauzá also being accused of attempting “cultural genocide” (Lorenzo has made the same accusation in the other direction).

The Catalan argument isn’t as simple as just being either for or against Catalan or Castilian as the dominant language. If it were this simple, then it would be easier to comprehend. But language isn’t the main issue.

The fact that Bauzá and the PP (and Chicho Lorenzo, come to that), while favouring Castilian over Catalan, also defend the use of the Catalan dialects of the Balearics adds complexity to what is more an issue of nationhood: Spain as a nation and Catalonia as a wannabe nation. What has been referred to as the “Catalan imposition”, the requirement for speaking Catalan in the public sector, and the one the PP would scrap, is wrapped up in the wider context of Catalonia’s ambitions to be a nation and for there to be a union of Catalan lands, of which the Balearics would be one.

Language equals culture and culture equals language; the two go hand in hand. The genocide charge being levelled at Bauzá is fallacious in the sense that he has no problem with the use of Catalan dialects, and these dialects could be said to be more representative of local cultures than pure Catalan.

But dialects are spoken by minorities, they are not the tongues of nations. To approve of them is to approve of diversity, not of nationalist pretensions. It is approval that can be considered as being tacitly designed to undermine such pretensions and in accord with attitudes of the Partido Popular nationally: those of being equivocal towards regionalism, be it that of the Balearics, Catalonia or anywhere, and of being fierce defenders of the Spanish nation, the whole of the Spanish nation, Catalonia and Catalan speakers included.

The swords are being drawn. There will be plenty more Chicho Lorenzos and plenty more Facebook campaigns and arguments, as there will be campaigns and arguments elsewhere. The worry is that the puerile use of the fascist insults gets more serious and that there is more than just a metaphorical brandishing of foils.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing: the PP

The PP has delivered, thus bringing joy to a British expatriate community assumed to be, but far from exclusively, as tending to the right or a good deal further. Next year the PP will deliver unto Spain a new president, Mariano Rajoy. What, though, really is the PP? This is not an idle question, as it relates to how it is often perceived.

An old university friend of mine has lived in Barcelona since the late 1970s. Fluent in the languages, conversant with the nuances of language and of social and political life in Catalonia and Spain, he has also taught political theory – at La Salle University.

The other day, he asked me what I thought about the blue wave of the PP washing over the Balearics and then went on to give a perspective on the PP and on its treatment by the media. It’s his, but it is not his alone.

Amongst other things, one paragraph stood out. I quote:

“I would take issue with the British press. They constantly describe the PP as a ‘right-of-centre party’, implying that it is some kind of benign, Disraeli, villa Tory outfit, when in reality it is easily the most right-wing mainstream party in Europe.”

This isn’t a simple matter of semantics. Delete “centre”, and “right” on its own takes on a different complexion. A convention of using “centre-right” conforms with how we like to perceive the British Conservative Party, or how it, and most of the press, wishes it to be perceived. Whether the current version is, is a moot point, but within it do not lurk the issues that surround the PP and which are not of the centre.

The PP is a beast of immediate post-Franco times. Though it was founded in 1989, its lineage is clear; back to 1976 and when the Alianza Popular was created by Franco’s former tourism minister. Manuel Fraga was considered a moderate in Franco terms. But all things are relative. The AP struggled for the first few years of its life because it was seen as representative of the old authoritarianism.

The PP still suffers from a hardline image, despite its portrayal as centre-right and despite Rajoy attempting to make himself appear moderate; elements within his party are anything but. It can’t rid itself of its lineage. Indeed, it reinforces it. The neutering of the judge Baltasar Garzón has widely been seen as having been driven by the PP, with the Falange a willing castrator.

While this might all sound as though it is leading towards a paean for PSOE, it isn’t. I can damn PSOE as well as I can the PP. But, although PSOE – Zapatero and Antich – have proven not to be up to the task of tackling economic crisis in Spain or the Balearics, the party has been responsible for a significant shift in social attitudes. It is Zapatero’s one great achievement: one that elements within the PP would wish to reverse and destroy. And Rajoy has not convinced that he would be able to stop them, even were he to wish to.

To this social agenda, one can add the economic one. The Chicago school of slash-and-burn. Milton Friedman et al; Reaganomics, Thatcherism. I can already hear some voices cheering at the prospect. Spain needed and needs a dose of economic realism, but at what cost? And at what cost to Mallorca?

One of the criticisms levelled against José Bauzá is that he is merely an instrument of the bidding of the PP nationally. When Rajoy wins the next general election, a target for the PP will be the autonomous regions, of which the Balearics are one. A compliant PP president in Palma, and the agenda to slash dramatically the regions’ spending, and one advocated by the IMF and others, will be set.

Bauzá, the PP, have enjoyed a good week. They have enjoyed a largely uncritical and non-analytical examination as to what is to come and as to the wolf that hides in the clothing of the sheepish Rajoy, who has been distinctly coy so as not to frighten the flocks of the Spanish electorate. And when the divisions that exist within the PP in Mallorca re-surface, ones related, for example, to the control by the national party and to anti-Catalanism, are grafted onto a national agenda of social illiberalism, the past week might start not to look so good.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.