Spain: Inventing the Nation 9781474210980, 9781441133557, 9781441169556, 9781441141743

Citation preview

Spain

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INVENTING THE NATION Series Editor: Professor Keith Robbins, Former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales, Lampeter ‘Nationalist’ writers and politicians have been apt to take the ‘nation’ as a ‘given’ entity, perhaps, indeed, a providential one. But the histories in this series explore the extent to which ‘nations’ are made, not born, whether through conscious manipulation of the elite, guided by more ‘popular’ imperatives, or a combination of the two. Each volume in the series explains how and when the modern nation state of its title came about, and at the same time demonstrates that the process was complex, contingent and anything but pre-ordained. Published: India and Pakistan, Ian Talbot Russia, Vera Tolz Italy, Nicholas Doumanis China, Henrietta Harrison Ireland, R. V. Comerford Germany, Stefan Berger France, Timothy Baycroft South Africa, Alexander Johnston Forthcoming: Poland, Rafal Pankowski

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Spain Inventing the Nation CARSTEN HUMLEBÆK

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2015 © Carsten Humlebæk, 2015 Carsten Humlebæk has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4411-3355-7 PB: 978-1-4411-6955-6 ePDF: 978-1-4411-4174-3 ePub: 978-1-4411-0252-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Humlebæk, Carsten. Spain: inventing the nation / Carsten Humlebæk. pages cm — (Inventing the nation) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4411-3355-7 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-4411-6955-6 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-4411-0252-2 (ePub) — ISBN 978-1-4411-4174-3 (ePDF) 1. Spain—Politics and government—19th century. 2. Spain—Politics and government—20th century. 3. Spain—Politics and government—1982. 4. Nationalism—Spain—History. 5. National characteristics, Spanish—History. I. Title. DP85.8.H86 2014 946’.07—dc23 2014015363 Series: Inventing the Nation Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

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CONTENTS

List of acronyms vii

1 Prologue: From present-day Spain back to the origins 1 2 An old state in a new era (1808–33): Planting the seed of the nation 7 3 The liberal Spanish nation (1834–75): In search of a mass audience 13 4 The Restoration regime (1875–1923): The non-solution to the national problem(s) 19 5 Military dictatorship (1923–31): A solution to the nationalization of the masses? 31 6 The Second Spanish Republic (1931–9): The short-lived success of the liberal national project 39 7 The Civil War (1936–9): Military confrontation of the two national projects 55 8 The Franco regime (1939–75): Victory of the National-Catholic project 65 9 The death of Franco: Solution and postponement 77 10 The new democratic Spain: Mobilizing identities 93 11 The new European Spain: United and divisions forgotten? 107 12 The national holidays in democracy: Struggling national discourses 117 v

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13 The second turnover: Consolidating democracy 137 14 Accommodating the past: Revisiting the historical master narrative 157 15 Accommodating nationalist pretensions: Is it possible? 179 16 Epilogue: Crisis and its effects on the national tensions 207 Notes 219 Bibliography 241 Index 249

LIST OF ACRONYMS

ANC

Assamblea Nacional de Catalunya (National Assembly of Catalonia) AP Alianza Popular (Popular Alliance) ARMH Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (Association to the Recuperation of Historical Memory) BOCG Boletín Oficial de las Cortes Generales (Official Bulletin of the General Courts [the Spanish Parliament]) BOE Boletín Oficial del Estado (Official Bulletin of the State) CDC Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (Democratic Convergence of Catalonia) CEDA Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups) CIS Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (Centre for Sociological Research) CiU Convergencia i Unió (Convergence and Union) CNT Confederación Nacional de Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour) DSC Diario de Sesiones del Congreso de los Diputados (Session Minutes of the Congress of Deputies [lower chamber in Spanish Parliament]) DSCC Diario de Sesiones del Congreso de los Diputados. Comisiones (Session Minutes of the Committees of the Congress of Deputies) EEC European Economic Community EH Euskal Herritarrok (Basque Citizens) EHAK/PCTV Euskal Herrialdeetako Alderdi Komunista/Partido Comunista de las Tierras Vascas (Communist Party of the Basque Homelands) ERC Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia) ETA Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Freedom) HB Herri Batasuna (People’s Union) ICV – EUiA Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds – Esquerra Unida i Alternativa (Initiative for Catalonia Greens – United and Alternative Left)

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IU JSU LOAPA NATO PCE PNV PP PSC PSE-PSOE PSOE PSUC UCD UDC UGT UP UPyD

ACRONYMS

Izquierda Unida (United Left) Juventud Socialista Unificada (Unified Socialist Youth) Ley Orgánica de Armonización del Proceso Autonómico (Organic Law on the Harmonization of the Autonomy Process) North Atlantic Treaty Organization Partido Comunista de España (Spanish Communist Party) Partido Nacionalista Vasco (Basque Nationalist Party) Partido Popular (Popular Party) Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (Party of Catalan Socialists) Partido Socialista de Euskadi-PSOE (Basque Socialist PartyPSOE) Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya (Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia) Unión Centro Democrático (Union of the Democratic Centre) Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (Democratic Union of Catalonia) Unión General de Trabajadores (General Union of Workers) Unión Patriótica (Patriotic Union) Unión Progreso y Democracia (Progress and Democracy Union)

CHAPTER ONE

Prologue: From present-day Spain back to the origins It is impossible to begin a book on the Spanish nation without a reference to the present situation of national tensions in which a majority of the Catalan political community is pleading for independence from Spain or at least for the right to celebrate a referendum on independence similar to the one accorded between the Scottish and British governments on the independence of Scotland. I shall of course return to that discussion in the last chapters of the present book, but it is thus obvious, even to the most unprepared observer, that there is a conflict in Spain, which – as it happens – is a national conflict. In reality it is the singular of the title of this book series which is called into question in the Spanish case: Is Spain a nation? Or is Spain a ‘nation of nations’, a federal state or something completely different? At present this questioning is spearheaded by Catalan nationalists, but many Basques share similar doubts – at best – or animosities towards the Spanish nation and Basque nationalists have attempted to obtain recognition of a semi-independent Basque state back in 2005.1 Part of the problem resides in the fact that Spain in the current Constitution presents herself as a unitary nation-state, and the moment the existence of a Catalan or Basque nation is acknowledged it will thus immediately affect the status of Spain as a nation. This conflict is by no means a new one, in fact, the national conflict is central to Spanish contemporary history. Few countries have, like Spain, been so tormented by the very definition of what Spain means and what it means to be Spanish. As in many other countries the nineteenth century saw a process of nation-building – of ‘making Spaniards’ – by which is meant nationalizing the pre-existing political community. As a result alternative nation-building projects emerging in the early twentieth century were always 1

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framed against the Spanish nation or nationalism: identities clashed. The national question and the complex relationship between those new nationalisms and the nation-state thus became central problems in Spanish life and the debate about the model and how to fit the pieces together – el encaje – is still open, as noted above.

When to call an old state like Spain a nation? It is not uncommon to hear Spanish politicians and other opinion-makers rank Spain as one of the oldest, if not the oldest, nation in Europe, as the then President of the lower chamber, Federico Trillo, did in his commemorative speech on the twentieth anniversary of the Constitution in 1998: ‘[Spain] is an old and great nation, the most antique of Modern Europe’.2 Even professional historians at times confound the elements from which the Spanish nation was later built and the nation itself. In his book dealing with the origins and development of national identity in Spain, the renowned historian Juan Pablo Fusi thus affirms that ‘Spain is . . . one of the first national entities in Europe. I thus understand that towards 1500 the essential steps for the constitution of Spain . . . as integrated State and nation had been taken’ (Fusi 2000: 9). Undoubtedly, Spain has ancient roots, both understood as a geographical and political entity – the name is directly derived from the Roman Hispania – and as a social collective of some sort. In fact, the Spanish borders remain practically unaltered since the early sixteenth century, which is highly remarkable in a European context and testifies to the old roots and apparent stability of the Spanish kingdom. Probably from the time of the Visigoths, the term Hispania began to acquire certain ethnic connotations other than merely geographic. In addition Spain has played a significant role among the most powerful countries of Europe during long periods of its history. These facts of history, as we might call them, play an important role in the selfimage of many Spaniards not least among Spanish politicians. But to turn the former inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula into Spaniards, and thereby imply a more or less direct line of descent is to play the game of the nationalists who seek precisely this effect. The term nation comes from Latin, natio, and originally meant something like a litter as in ‘a litter of pups’. From this territorially based definition of a tribal-like collective, the term changed towards a more feudal concept in the Middle Ages meaning a group with a common territory and descent; clearly the collective referred to in those times was aristocratic. Obviously the French Revolution was to alter that, but already in 1694 a surprisingly modern definition of nation can be found in the dictionary of the French Academy: ‘All the inhabitants of the same State, of the same country, that live under the same laws, and use the same language’.3 The difference when compared with the contemporary meaning of the word is that the idea of

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community, of a collective characterized to some extent by a common will, is still lacking in the late seventeenth century. We can only talk about the nation or the nation-state in the way we understand these terms today when the nation as collective was transformed into a political community and a subject of political rights after the American and the French Revolutions in the late eighteenth century (Herslund 2014). This new development which began spreading from France to the other countries in Europe, naturally led to demands for coincidence between states and previously constituted ethnic groups according to the so-called principle of the nationalities. These demands came both from above and below: rulers needed legitimacy for their regime and the new citizens needed to identify with the nation. In most countries this necessity was only felt in the early nineteenth century in a process of slow transformation in which the absolutist regimes were being reformed or replaced by new regimes that to a larger or lesser extent were based on the nation-state principle, in other words, the coincidence between nation and state. Over the course of the nineteenth century this development led to a series of nation-building processes which varied a lot from country to country. In divided communities that shared certain central characteristics but did not have their own states, it sometimes took the form of a national unification, the most famous cases of which are Germany and Italy. In most of the remaining European countries, the existing regimes were largely dynastic with territory coinciding more or less with that of a dominant ethnic group or which at least were not challenged seriously by any significant minority, were reformed through a ‘nationalization’ process or a national ‘reconversion’. By this is meant a process by which the constituency of the former regime is transformed into a truly national constituency which then is meant to lend a new kind of legitimacy to the regime, which the absolutist system could no longer provide. The first part of the title of Eugen Weber’s classic book on France Peasants into Frenchmen (Weber 1976) encapsulates this transition, although he shows even in postrevolutionary France, which is often used as the example par excellence of successful nationalization particularly in neighbouring Spain, this conversion would still occupy most of the nineteenth century. Spain is of course one of those cases of an existing old state, which coincided roughly with a dominant ethnic group which had to be converted to the new national ideology to give legitimacy to the rulers in exchange for influence on the political process. Hesitantly and with many setbacks over the course of the century the changing Spanish regimes moved towards the nationalization of its inhabitants in order to gain this new legitimacy inherent in becoming a nation-state. The nineteenth century thus was characterized by a slow change in legitimacy in which state power became increasingly dependent upon some kind of sanction from the new collective, the nation. This mechanism of providing or lending legitimacy that nationalization entails, depends on the nation’s power as object of identification. The nation as sociological and political phenomenon is inextricably linked to dynamics

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of collective identity and, therefore, it is also related to the two principal perspectives on the identity dynamics of nationalization: essentialism and constructivism. They are often presented in a dichotomic relationship as two opposed schools of thought, but the question remains whether that is a false opposition. If instead of taking them to be sharply opposed theoretical schools we see them as different ways of focusing an analysis of collective identity phenomena, such as nations, the difference between the two approaches is reduced to, for example, how they are related to the constituent elements of collective identities such as language, traditions, symbols, etc. An essentialist analysis will work inductively and claim that a phenomenon like a collective identity grows organically from below and will focus on the long-term historical development of the cultural and social elements that together form a collective identity. In such a perspective the existence of traditions, for example, will be taken as proof of the ancient origins of a people’s or a group’s identity and identity is thus presented as something natural and pre-political, or at least something with pre-political roots. This analysis, thus, is interested in the origins of collective identities and the elements or ‘building blocks’ from which they are made. A constructivist approach, on the contrary, will work more deductively and assume political and social interests as the point of departure for building any kind of collective identity, at least in the contemporary period. Constructivists regard most collective identities as modern constructions that are never ‘innocent’ or apolitical but precisely the result of a selection that is made from above and which is never fortuitous. The constructivist analysis is thus interested in the political element behind the creation of collective identities and will try to uncover the mechanisms behind the selection of certain historical and cultural traits which under a set of given circumstances were deemed to be important for the collective identity. Just as important for the analysis, it might be added, are the elements which for different reasons were discarded as unimportant or problematic, as the famous French historian Ernest Renan had already underlined in 1882 when discussing the concept of the nation.4 Returning to the argument about mobilization of the people, it is thus obvious that the nation was never, and could not have been, a completely arbitrary invention without any links to history or culture if it was meant to mobilize the people. Elements from reality necessarily had to be used as point of departure – as ‘raw materials’ – for the construction of a national identity (White 1984). The nationalists, of course, made use of certain components of the already existing pool of shared cultural characteristics, such as specific linguistic or religious traits or elements of ‘popular protonationalism’, when they were building their political project (Hobsbawm 1990: 46). In the case of Spain, several of these elements, which later were turned into the fundamental characteristics of the nation, undeniably had a long

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history. It is thus beyond any doubt that the Spanish language was the result of a vulgarization of the Roman conquerors’ Latin, which already began to crystallize in the early Middle Ages. Likewise, the Catholic religion had played a particular role in the Spanish kingdom at least since the time of the Reformation. The idea of unity – understood originally as the unity of the Spanish kingdoms and their peninsular dominance – also dated back to the fifteenth century, when it was consciously used as a legitimizing myth for the Catholic Monarchs’ imperial politics of peninsular reconquest and colonial conquest (Hillgarth 1985). But it was only when these elements were turned into the official culture of the ‘Spanish people’ and the legitimacy of state power became dependent upon some kind of sanction from this new collective that we can call it a nation and investigate it as such. It is thus clear that the nationalists used a number of existing cultural elements when Spain was turned into a nation, but highly selectively with different results stemming from different emphases. The ‘nation-builders’ thus chose to emphasize, for example, the Castilian language as a characterizing trait of the Spanish nation, but they did not necessarily have to do so. With a different approach, given that various languages are spoken in Spain they could have disregarded language as a defining element of the Spanish nation and imitated Switzerland. The point is that no natural laws force elites to choose particular defining traits. To accept the fundamentally cultural character of the nation unavoidably directs attention to national symbols and symbolic practices when analysing the nation and its construction, the intentionality behind each element used in the process, the outcome in terms of popular following, and, of course, the resulting legitimacy or the lack thereof. The importance of symbols for the study of nations was cemented with the publication of the seven volumes of The sites of memory (Les lieux de mémoire) in the 1980s under the direction of the French historian Pierre Nora (Nora 1984–92). The monumental work aimed at being a complete survey of all the most central elements that composed French identity and the ‘sites’ could be anything from commemorations, rituals, monuments, museums, buildings, landscapes, typical dishes, to mottos, concepts and historical personalities. Nora’s project of historicizing all the French lieux de mémoire conveyed a somewhat nostalgic and essentialist feeling of attempting to preserve something that had been lost but the concept has, nevertheless, had important consequences for academic discussions around these phenomena. In studying particular nations, Nora’s study thus increases understanding of the workings and functions of symbols and symbolic practices. The sites represent a sort of nodal point where meanings and emotions are condensed but nationalists can elaborate and instrumentalize them for their own purpose. National symbols thus acquire at least five functions: 1) they condense elements of the shared ideology; 2) they characterize the collective identity inwards towards the national community itself as well as outwards towards the other(s); 3) they create emotions connecting individuals with the collective identity;

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4) they function as social ‘cement’ that binds the collective together irrespective of other divisions; and 5) they are capable of mobilizing people to act (Moreno Luzón and Núñez Seixas 2013: 11). As such, the concept of lieux de mémoire is a useful analytical tool. But the mere existence of such a site does not mean that its meaning is not contested. On the contrary, dispute over its meaning is a central part of its function, namely that of catalyst of and battlefield for diverging memories. This is certainly true for such a contested case as the Spanish one with at least two rather distinct national projects and at least two alternative national projects with a considerable following in their respective regions. National symbols are therefore extremely delicate, with plenty of potential for conflict. Their genesis and the conflicts that swirl around them, not to mention the omissions, resonate through this book’s analysis of the contested development of the Spanish nation(s).

CHAPTER TWO

An old state in a new era (1808–33): Planting the seed of the nation

Proto-nationalism in Spain: the Spanish variant of Enlightenment The French Revolution had a reactionary effect in Spain precisely at a time when the Enlightenment had been gaining momentum under the twentyyear reign of Carlos III who had died in 1788. The belief in reason and rationality of the Enlightenment had also resulted in the first censuses being realized in Spain. The census of Floridablanca who was a minister of Carlos III had shown a population of 10.3 million inhabitants in 1787.1 The heir to the throne, Carlos IV, initially seemed to have a reformist agenda but the advent of the Revolution in neighbouring France recommended caution to prevent the revolutionary ideas from passing the frontier. The political influence of the movement of Ilustrados therefore vanished in the shadows of the reactionary turn of Spanish politics after 1789. Afrancesado became a negative nickname for intellectuals considered to be ‘too progressive’ insinuating that they were copying French ideas uncritically. Since then, the dialectical relationship with France has become a constant in Spanish politics as well as in intellectual life. What could have developed into the roots of a proto-nationalist movement therefore was never given a chance and the timid beginnings of a national sentiment have to be located in the early years of the nineteenth century in a completely different context.

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Napoleonic invasion as the germ of the national idea The fact that the war against France between 1808 and 1814, at least in part, was a popular, country-wide revolt against French domination is a first proof of the existence of some kind of Spanish nation (Álvarez Junco 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2001). Indeed, this was the first time anyone used the word ‘Spain’ as a battle cry. The war originated in a popular rebellion against the former ally of Spain. Since the end of the Franco–Spanish War of 1793–5, Spain had been under French influence. Napoleon, who therefore considered Spain his legitimate possession and nurtured plans to take control of the Spanish state, had already partially occupied Spain in accordance with the Treaty of Fontainebleau of October 1807, which allowed him to do so under the excuse of a joint war against Portugal (Carr 1982: 81). On 2 May 1808 the people of Madrid rebelled against French occupation, and Napoleon tried to control the situation by forcing both Carlos IV and his son Fernando VII to give up their dynastic rights in favour of his own brother, José Bonaparte, who was installed on the Spanish throne. This only made things worse, and the popular revolt against this change of dynasty quickly developed into war. After what looked like an initial success when the Spaniards won at Bailén in Andalusia in July 1808 and the French were forced to retire from Madrid, the Spaniards gained the help of Wellington’s British troops. The war, however, lasted until 1814 and was a very bloody and confusing affair. The famous Spanish painter, Francisco Goya, probably became one of history’s first known war correspondents as he travelled around Spain depicting the atrocities and pointlessness of the war in his suite of eightytwo etchings entitled The Disasters of War realized between 1810 and 1812. Nonetheless, despite great problems in coordinating the war effort it was a mixture of British war tactics and Spanish guerrilla warfare with firm roots in popular resistance that finally defeated the French. The very term ‘guerrilla’, which is a Spanish diminutive for war, guerra, meaning thus ‘small war’, entered the English language as a consequence of this war. In fact, the first constitutionalist movement in Spain was born out of the resistance against the French occupation. Already in the spring of 1808 as resistance was spontaneously arising in many parts of the country, the movement began to organize in the Provincial Defence Juntas. In September 1808 representatives from the thirty-five provincial Juntas constituted the Supreme Central Junta as the political leadership of the resistance. And in March 1809 the Supreme Central Junta decreed the convocation of an Extraordinary and Constituent Assembly through the celebration of elections within a year. War circumstances, nevertheless, led to the intellectual elites, and among them the most radical reformists, being besieged in the port-town of Cádiz. Despite difficulties related to the war, elections were celebrated in both Spain and the Spanish colonies2 (which were considered

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to be part of the Spanish nation as can be seen in the first article of the 1812 Constitution below) and in September 1809 – with only half a year’s delay – the Assembly of 301 members convened in Cádiz for the first time (Casals Bergés 2012). In the colonies, discontent with the French occupation of Spain and the change of dynasty was rising rapidly accompanied by the desire for independence not so much to free itself from Spain as to reject French rule. In 1812, this hemispheric assembly proclaimed the country’s first Constitution, which was surprisingly modern with respect to the conception of the nation and national sovereignty. The first articles of the first chapter thus read: CHAPTER I: On the Spanish Nation Art.  1. The Spanish Nation is the reunion of all the Spaniards of both hemispheres. Art. 2. The Spanish Nation is free and independent, and it is not nor can it be patrimony of any family or person. Art. 3. The sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation, and therefore the right to establish its fundamental laws belongs exclusively to it [the Nation].3 The Constitution of Cádiz declared Spain to be a constitutional monarchy, with sovereignty emanating from the people, the nation. It can therefore be said that the Napoleonic invasion and annexation of Spain in 1808 spurred the first embryonic national rising in Spain both negatively in terms of popular resistance against the invader and positively as an intellectual endeavour to formulate the nation.

Victory against the French The victory in the war, however, did not mean victory for the national idea that had germinated in Cádiz. After the end of the war, the Parliament moved from Cádiz to Madrid, but it had only been installed a few months in Madrid when Fernando VII returned in 1814 as ‘the Desired’ (el Deseado) and annulled not only the Constitution but the entire outcome of four years of liberal parliamentarianism, thus restoring his absolute powers. The parliamentarians in Cádiz had ignored the royalism of the countryside, thus underrating the forces of conservatism, and contrary to their hopes, the return of Fernando and of absolutism were widely applauded by the people. So liberation from the French occupation did not mean national liberation or liberty, but the return of absolutism. Nevertheless, the seed of the nation had been planted particularly in intellectual as well as in certain military circles. The return of Fernando illustrates that the motives for popular mobilization were very complex. As the Spanish population’s response to

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the breakdown of the traditional State caused by the Napoleonic invasion, its character of national war should not be underestimated. But other motives certainly also played an important role in mobilizing the Spaniards such as a strong anti-French sentiment and a pro-King Fernando VII sentiment in reference to the internal dynastic disputes of the Spanish royal family. But to distinguish sharply between them or even rate their relative importance is impossible. Also to contemporaries it proved difficult to name such a multi-faceted conflict with so many diverse elements. Chronological or geographical terms were used by contemporaries to describe the war but an ideological element crept in when the word ‘Revolution’ was employed. This term prevailed for two to three decades but then the emphasis on a war of independence emerged. The first books to do so were published in the 1830s and by the mid-1840s it had become the dominant use. It thus took some thirty years to invent the War of Independence (Álvarez Junco 2001: 125–9).

Zigzagging between absolutism and liberal nationalism in the first half of the nineteenth century In January 1820, an insurgency originated among military personnel destined for South America to fight independence movements and quickly spread to other parts of the country. Despite the relatively limited numbers, in March the movement succeeded in forcing the King to recognize the Constitution of 1812 thus abolishing absolutism and returning constitutional monarchy. After suffering harsh repression, imprisonment and forced exile for several years, the Liberals4 thus regained power initiating a new liberal regime. This time the liberal experience was almost as short-lived as the earlier one and it only lasted three years, the so-called el trienio liberal, until Fernando VII with the help of the French army dismantled the liberal regime. Once again the absolutist monarchy was restored and all liberal legislation was abolished, sending more Liberals into exile. During this second part of the reign of Fernando VII, mainly for economic reasons, a certain opening towards the position of the Liberals took place, which on the other hand provoked the resistance of certain traditionalist sectors. Uprisings against the liberal trienio regime had already taken place among the Catholic peasants in the northern parts of Spain, particularly Catalonia, Navarre and the Basque Country. But these Catholic traditionalists ended up opposing Fernando too for his refusals to dismiss the liberal army and incorporate their rebel troops in a new royalist army. They instead put their hopes in the brother of Fernando VII, don Carlos María Isidro de Borbón, and therefore they were called the Carlists. With the death of Fernando VII in 1833, the dynastic question resurfaced because the Carlists

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refused to accept that the daughter of Fernando VII, Isabel, at the age of only three, was the proclaimed heir to the throne thus initiating a civil war that became known as the First Carlist War. In this new context, the cause of the monarchy thus became connected to the moderate Liberals, los moderados, which forced the monarchy to accept the end to absolutism in favour of a constitutional settlement. The Carlists lost the war in 1839 and Isabel II remained queen, at first under the regency of her mother, and from 1847, when she came of age, as reigning queen. This spurred the Second Carlist War, 1847–9, which the Carlists also lost. Nonetheless, Carlism did not disappear. On the contrary, this traditionalist ultra-Catholic insurrectional movement was characterized by a remarkable ability to adapt to different circumstances, and it was to reappear from the ashes on various later occasions. The first third of the nineteenth century was thus characterized by a confrontation between the principle of absolutism and a budding liberal idea of the nation. The absolutist monarchy did not behave in a nationalizing way, and the Liberals were the only group to exploit the new nationalist ideology to some extent. This discourse, however, did not reach beyond the army establishment and certain urban intellectual environments (Álvarez Junco 1997: 39). The fact that the Spanish people did not protest against the abrogation of almost the entire liberal constitutional framework by Fernando VII shows that the liberal nationalist discourse had very weak social foundations.

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CHAPTER THREE

The liberal Spanish nation (1834–75): In search of a mass audience During the period from 1808 to 1875 Spain did not experience one largescale liberal revolution but rather a series of short-lived episodes. Revolutionary take overs with the Liberals at the head took place in 1810– 14, 1820–3, 1839, 1854 and 1868–74, but on all these occasions, the liberal regimes were brief and gave way to a renewed dominance of conservative and reactionary powers, or to alliances between Liberal and Conservative Parties. Fear of themselves becoming a victim of the lower classes’ revolutionary tendencies generally made alliances with the more respectable classes seem more attractive to the liberal elite. This, however, does not mean that no changes followed, but the development was never as dynamic as in, for example, France. In the long term, it actually did amount to a kind of liberal revolution, which not only changed the structure of property holding, but also caused a large proportion of property to change hands, and the traditional landowners to see their influence diminish. One of the central difficulties for the liberal revolutionaries was lack of a strong bourgeoisie. Furthermore, the existing bourgeoisie was for a long period hesitant towards ideas of liberal revolution, always being afraid of its possible ‘excesses’. Thus, instead of the slow political rise of a bourgeoisie, Spain was marked by the continued influence of the nobility throughout most of the century, and by the appearance of new alliances between the latter and capital-owning groups within the bourgeoisie. This blocked the possibility of economic and social development of a broader Spanish society (Ruiz Torres 1999: 28). The political instability of the nineteenth century was also reflected in the evolution of the population. If during the eighteenth century the Spanish 13

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population had been growing rapidly, the increase slowed down considerably in the first half of the nineteenth century particularly due to the War of Independence and the political instability, but also the Carlist wars slowed demographic growth. Furthermore, the Napoleonic invasion and the following instability impeded the holding of censuses until 1857, when the population was established to be 15.5 million. When, during the second half of the nineteenth century, the nationalization of the mass of citizens was being channelled through state-controlled institutions in other European countries, the Spanish State apparatus seemingly did little or nothing to instil a national consciousness. One of the fundamental reasons was the economic weakness of the Spanish State during the nineteenth century. The State therefore was unable to complete any of the tasks that characterized the process of creation of other modern nationstates: First, cultural homogenization of the population through public schooling, military service and the creation of a system of national symbols; and secondly, a strong public sector capable of financing infrastructure to integrate the nation geographically and socially. A deficient public schooling system contributed to privileging the position of the army and the Church, and much of the limited nation-building which took place in the nineteenth century was channelled through these two institutions. Especially important was Church domination across a large part of the education system. To the Church hierarchy the nationalization agenda was always at best secondary to its own religious-institutional priorities; to educate the young people to become ‘good Spaniards’ would so to say always be secondary to educate them to become ‘good Catholics’. Deficient infrastructure accounted for the fact that the regions and provinces were never effectively integrated into the Spanish State, and that many nationalizing initiatives were never thoroughly implemented across the country. But scarce, insufficient and weak are all relative terms which rely on comparison with one or more other cases. If the Spanish process is compared with French nationalization, the thesis about the weak nationalization will be confirmed. But arguably, the French case is exceptional and not the yardstick against which all else should be measured. A more balanced picture of the Spanish nationalization process during the nineteenth century emerges by comparing it with a broader selection of European countries (Álvarez Junco 2001: 533–65).

The wrong experiences of war In European history over the last 200 years, war has been a powerful tool of nationalization since the perception of a threatening external enemy forges the nation from within. But during the first part of the nineteenth century, Spain was reduced to a second-rate European power, from having been a major political actor until the end of the eighteenth century. After having participated in all the major European wars from 1500 to 1808, Spain did

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not take part in any from 1808 onwards. Therefore Spain did not go through the, for the European neighbours crucial, nationalizing experience of modern war from the Franco–Prussian War to the Second World War (Álvarez Junco 1998: 443). On the contrary, during the nineteenth century, Spain instead experienced three civil wars; the Carlist wars of 1833–40, 1846–9 and 1872–6, and a series of colonial wars, including the expedition to la Cochinchina of 1858–62, the so-called ‘War of Africa’ of 1859–60, the annexation and war of Santo Domingo of 1861–5, the expedition to Mexico of 1861–2, the so-called ‘War of the Pacific’ against Chile and Peru of 1865– 6, the two Cuban wars of 1868–78 and 1879–80, the so-called ‘small war’ of Melilla in 1893 and the war against the United States regarding Cuba and the Philippines 1895–8. These experiences tended to destroy the unity of the national community instead of furthering social homogenization and cohesion, as do external wars. Spain’s ‘season’ of colonial wars in the 1860s was part of a desperate attempt to become a colonial power again, which had begun with the war in northern Morocco in 1859–60. An important element of the self-image of both the major political parties was that Spain was a colonial Empire, and they shared dreams about control over northern Morocco. Thus, both political forces signed the declaration of war and both parties called for men to fight for the Fatherland, although the Conservatives did this in the name of Catholicism and the ancestral fight against Islam, whereas the Liberals did so in the name of progress and civilization. There was definitely a strong element of nation-building in this declaration of war or, in other words, to use the war as a means to achieve nationalization of the masses. The Moroccan war was accompanied by a hitherto unheard of wave of nationalist rhetoric, but apart from that, it was a rather costly and unprofitable enterprise for Spain in relation to the benefits obtained. Nevertheless, the war was interpreted as the continuation of the reconquest and the War of Independence by its contemporaries, who saw the whole episode as a proof of the invincibility of the Spanish army. It therefore provided the necessary political legitimacy for subsequent colonial adventures, most of which ended in failure (Álvarez Junco 1997, 1998).

The ‘invention’ of two national histories Another central element in any process of nationalization of the nineteenth century was the creation of a ‘national history’ that would give the canonical version of the nation’s history, place its origins in ancient times and, in short, explain its raison d’être and legitimize it. Initially, the Liberals did not grasp the utility of ‘rewriting’ history for nationalist purposes, and until the 1840s the only available works on this theme dated from the eighteenth century. But at the beginning of that decade, a proper liberal nationalist historiography was created which came to play an important role in the creation of this new

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nationalist ideology (Fox 1997: 39–40). The reinvention of the war against Napoleon as the ‘War of Independence’, has already been noted, and it was given a privileged place in liberal nationalist mythology. The Liberals’ vision of national history was based on glorifying the Middle Ages as a period of convivencia marked by popular participation, tolerance, regional and local diversity, and the limitation of royal power. This mythical Spain was destroyed by the intrusion of foreign dynasties which ruined and depopulated the country, involved it in costly wars, and introduced intolerance as a modus vivendi. The liberal historiography was epitomized in Modesto Lafuente’s Historia General de España desde los tiempos primitivos hasta nuestros días, published in thirty volumes between 1850 and 1867, in which Spain was seen as rising from decadence to again become a country to be reckoned within the European context. It was re-edited several times, also in a shorter, economical, popular edition. Due to its immense success, Lafuente’s work was to have a very strong impact on the Spanish national consciousness. Part of its popularity was undoubtedly related to the fact that it represented a compromise between the liberal and the conservative national projects which were developing at the time. It glorified remote epochs around an eclectic concept of the nation, and did not seek popular mobilization, which is why it cannot be said to be have served the liberal revolution (Álvarez Junco 1997: 46). Generally speaking, the concept of the nation in the liberal rhetoric was rather essentialist; Spain was an eternal and natural entity, supported by a patriotic sentiment, which showed itself in the ferocious defence of its identity against foreigners since pre-Roman times. Following the publication of Lafuente’s work, a series of other histories of Spain began appearing as a sort of ‘multiplying effect’, culminating in the publication between 1890 and 1894 of the work in eighteen volumes edited by the members of the Royal Academy of History (Academia Real de la Historia), led by the then Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo. For a long time, the conservative sectors of society distrusted the new national mythology, relying instead on tradition and Catholicism as their only legitimizing discourses. But from the 1860s onwards, however, they too understood the necessity and utility of invoking the new national legitimacy. Nationalist rhetoric became useful to the Conservatives, whose concept of the nation emphasized, above all, the territorial unity of Spain and the consubstantiality of Spain and Catholicism. Catholicism, thus, was the main legitimization of both the monarchy and the nation, and the nation, in turn, was legitimized mainly by the defence of Catholicism and of national unity. The epochs that were glorified were in general those which had demonstrated the highest level of unity between the throne and the altar, like the reigns of Fernando III, the so-called Catholic Monarchs, and the house of Habsburg. These rulers were seen to subordinate all their actions to religion. The ills of the nation, on the other hand, derived from kings who had intruded into the clerical sphere and from politics that were excessively centred on material interests. Also, the conservative historical canon was established later than

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the liberal version. Beginning timidly in the 1860s, it was epitomized in the works of the philologist Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo in the 1880s, above all in his Historia de los heterodoxos españoles (published 1880–2 in three volumes). This work cultivated the relationship between Spaniards and the Catholic religion in defence of the idea that the essence of Spain was Catholicism. Menéndez Pelayo meticulously followed the history of the Catholic religion in Spain and the arrival and subsequent repression of anti-Catholic movements such as Protestantism, the Enlightenment, or liberalism. These anti-Spanish, so-called ‘heterodoxies’ were seen as fortuitous and momentary in a quest to counter the prevailing liberal ideas of his times.

Revolutionary outcomes of the stalemate between liberalism and conservative reaction (1868–74) The period between the death of Fernando VII in 1833 and the Restoration in 1875 was characterized by extreme political instability and very short-lived governments. The regimes, although most of them were formally liberal, were very restrictive in terms of popular participation, due to the aforementioned tendency to reach compromises with the Conservatives. To a much greater extent than the political parties, the army was the only real instrument of political change in Spain. The incompetence of Queen Isabel II, combined with the troubles of the political regime, led the army to perpetrate a coup against her in September 1868, and she fled the country. The events, however, developed into a revolution, which later earned the period the nickname of ‘the revolutionary six years’. A Constituent Assembly was established under the leadership of the left-liberal leader, General Juan Prim, and it produced a new Constitution in 1869 declaring Spain to be a constitutional monarchy. After surveying the possible candidates in Europe in 1870 the Assembly elected the Italian prince Amadeo promoted by Prim as new King of Spain. But the Revolution was a difficult time to arrive in Spain and to make things worse, his principal advocate, General Prim, was assassinated on the very day that Amadeo arrived in Spain. Unrest was growing in many Spanish cities as well as in the colonies and the Carlists in the north once again declared war. Various groups of discontents began to organize and new tendencies such as federalism flourished in the confused political climate. Also the Spanish labour movement began to organize during the sexenio and it quickly split into two: a pro-Marxist movement, which would constitute the foundations of the future Socialist Party and a libertarian variant that was the germ of the anarchist movement, which was going to be very strong in Spain. The regime of Amadeo quickly ran short of competent ministers, which led to his abdication in February 1873. His return to Italy gave way to an

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essay in republicanism with the establishment of the First Spanish Republic, which however did not prove able to solve the problems effectively. During its first eleven months, four presidents with their respective governments succeeded each other until a military coup established the ‘Unitary Republic’ under the dictatorship of General Serrano. A year later, a more durable solution came from the Conservative leader Cánovas del Castillo, who proposed a constitutional monarchy backed by a consensual political regime. The First Republic was thus finally overthrown in December 1874, and in January 1875 the monarchy was restored with the coronation of Alfonso XII, the son of Isabel II. This weakened the Carlist cause, and, a year later, the Third Carlist War was brought to an end. The victory over the Carlist movement also meant the end to a series of political rights and social and economic privileges that the Basque Country had enjoyed since the twelfth century, the so-called fueros.1 These charters were abolished as a punishment of the Basque support of the Carlist movement. The movement, nevertheless, continued to be an important factor in Spanish history up until the Civil War from 1936 to 1939, in which it was one of the important groups behind the nationalist cause. The movement was strongest in the north-eastern parts of Spain, particularly Catalonia, Navarre and the Basque Country. In general, Carlism represented the conservative and traditionalist cause in its opposition to liberal changes, but it cannot be regarded as only a feudal and anti-capitalist movement. The peasants, who supported Carlism, were not necessarily supporters of l’Ancièn Régime but simply opposed a new regime that they felt was strangling them. The revolutionary ‘sexenio’ with its mix of revolution, new monarchy, civil war, federalism and republicanism thus initially was the result of the frustration of liberal elites with the preceding political regimes. But many other groups of discontents attempted to exert their influence on the governments, but the various regimes that succeeded one another were unable to bring about greater political stability. The liberals succeeded in modernizing the economic structures of Spain bringing about free trade and had it not been for the world crisis in 1874 the economy was growing. But in the end it was principally the failure to provide order and stability that led to the waning support for the various alternative regimes and made the restoration of the monarchy so relatively successful. This confusing period therefore left a negative legacy.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Restoration regime (1875–1923): The non-solution to the national problem(s)

A marriage of convenience: The Restoration regime Against this confusing and frightening backdrop, the Restoration regime signalled a convergence of interests in preserving the constitutional monarchy. On the one hand, it meant the victory of a conservative political agenda after the dominance of leftist tendencies during the Sexennium and, on the other hand, it marked the beginning of an understanding between the formerly opposed moderate and progressive liberals. As part of the deal, the Liberal and the Conservative Parties alternated in power by fixing the election results, the so-called turno pacífico, through a well-functioning clientelistic system known as el caciquismo. It consisted of a network of intermediaries for the oligarchy and the government, typically lawyers or administrators of the large estates of absentee landlords, who manipulated the people of their local district in order to control election results. The importance of these intermediaries or gatekeepers, the caciques, rarely went beyond the immediate local environment, but the system of which they were a part became very influential and developed into an institution in its own right. Representative democracy thus fell victim to the priority of guaranteeing political stability that all the earlier regimes of the nineteenth century had failed to provide. The intention was to concentrate most elite supporters of the constitutional

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monarchy in the two large political parties – the Liberals and the Conservatives – and to marginalize anti-system opposition groups, although guaranteeing them a limited parliamentary representation. This opposition principally meant those who defended an absolutist monarchy – the Carlists – and the republicans, but also the emerging proletariat and the lower middle-classes, were kept away from power in a system that benefitted the economically privileged. The Restoration regime naturally only strengthened the scepticism towards conventional politics of those marginalized groups and thus provided an ideal breeding ground for the anarchist movement; which would find one of its absolute strongholds in Spain, particularly among the urban proletariat of Barcelona and Madrid and among the farm labourers in the south and in Aragon and Galicia. No government which held elections during the nineteenth century obtained less than 70 per cent of the vote (Riquer 1994: 105). It is clear that the clientelistic system of caciquismo worked against the effective implementation of State measures of nationalization causing some fragmentation. It, nevertheless, demonstrated a coexistence between geographical fragmentation and a central political power that far from being a mere fiction actually distributed resources and privileges.

Setting the scene for national divisions of Spain The Restoration regime was thus an alliance between the two opponents in terms of national projects for Spain: a liberal, republican version with roots in the ideas from the French Revolution; and a more recently developed conservative, Catholic and traditionalist alternative. The survival of the regime – it remains the longest-lived in Spanish constitutional history – can best be explained when understood ‘as an on-going process of dissent and compromise between those who aspired to recapture the democratic conquests of the Glorious Revolution of 1868 and those who sought to maintain the status quo’ (Jacobson and Moreno Luzón 2000: 93). Towards the last decade of the century the two different political projects had each developed their own clearly definable nationalist model for Spain. This conflict continued throughout the Restoration regime, which failed to agree on a common articulation of the national project through compromise and ‘froze’ it by separating the everyday politics of governing the country from the dynamics of developing national projects. During the last decades of the century, it became increasingly clear to most educated Spaniards that Spain was lagging increasingly behind the other large European countries. A perception of decadence and degeneration was spreading, together with proposals to redeem these ills. This is clearly perceivable in the Krausist movement, named after the German philosopher Karl C. F. Krause (1781–1832), which despite Krause’s only marginal importance in his home country and the rest of Europe deeply influenced the

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liberal intellectual milieu in Spain from around 1860. The British historian Raymond Carr terms Krausism an ‘outdated’ system of thought, which only became influential in Spain due to a combination of the limited choice available in the inherited culture, and a certain phobia against French thinking, which left the way open for German thinking (Carr 1982: 301–4). The reformist educational project of the Krausists aimed at democracy, the independence of science, freedom of religion and Europeanization; in short, regeneration by internal reform. In 1876, the Krausist Francisco Giner de los Ríos founded the later famous school Institución Libre de Enseñanza, and at the opening of the academic year in 1880, he declared: ‘We are going to redeem the fatherland and give it back to its destiny’ (Giner de los Ríos, quoted in Tuñón de Lara 1984: 46). This preoccupation with redeeming the Fatherland, one of the recurrent tropes of nationalist discourse, shows that the ambition of the Krausist project had a distinctly nationalist flavour. Another sign of this is the interest in the theme of degeneration–regeneration: the nation was perceived to be in a state of decadence and therefore was in need of reforms, another of the most classical tropes in nationalist discourse. The Catholic-conservative forces remained suspicious of the Krausist proposals, accusing the reformers of denationalizing activity because their teaching was a-religious, something inconceivable to conservatives. In spite of its original ambitions, the project remained rather elitist, but many of the intellectuals and politicians like, for example, Manuel Azaña, Julián Besteiro or Fernando de los Ríos, who later dominated the Spanish scene, had their roots in Spanish Krausism or in its institutions.1

Spain as an ex-colonial empire The feelings of crises were exacerbated during the Spanish–American war over Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico in 1898. When the war, which had been foretold for a long time, actually came, Spanish intellectuals quickly perceived that something was wrong. It became clear that the propaganda about the infallibility of the Spanish army, which had acquired a key place in nationalist discourse during the preceding decades, as explained above, was a myth. Many in the political and intellectual elite had a hard time accepting that Spain had become an ex-colonial empire at exactly the same time as other European states were competing over far-away territories in their effort to build empires. To the Spanish intellectual elite, the self-deception of Spanish politicians and public opinion before the war and the ridiculous performance of the Spanish army in it epitomized the fatal degeneration of the nation. The quick Spanish defeat and the subsequent loss of the last colonies thus dealt a severe blow to the national spirit and provoked a profound philosophical and artistic re-evaluation of Spanish society, which among other expressions were articulated through the loosely defined group known as the ‘Generation of ’98’. The common point of departure for

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intellectuals was that there was something fundamentally wrong with Spain, which is illustrated by Ramiro de Maeztu, one of the leading intellectual figures of this group: ‘After all, Spain appears to us not like an affirmation nor like a negation, but like a problem’ (Maeztu, quoted in Tuñón de Lara 1984: 109). If, before, Spain had been seen to have serious problems, Spain now became the problem itself. Intellectuals almost unanimously interpreted the 1898 defeat by the United States as an irreparable deterioration of the nation, which in the racist terminology that dominated the debate at the time was framed as a ‘degeneration’ of the Spanish ‘race’. The goal was therefore to regain the lost ‘virility’ through ‘regeneration’. It extended to a more profound disapproval of the rising industrialized and urbanized Spanish society. The problems of Spain were to some extent reflected in the demographics. The census of 1900 showed a population of 18.6 million inhabitants, and the population had thus only increased by approximately 24 per cent during the second half of the century as compared to a 51 per cent increase in Great Britain or 42 per cent in Italy over the same period. The Spanish ‘disaster’ following 1898 coincided with the wider turn-of-the-century crisis of rationalism among the European elites who lost their faith in science, in progress as the motor of change and in the possibility of a ‘positive’ knowledge of society. Modern societies lacked the order of traditional societies and the inhabitants of the new large cities, with their pale looks and feeble constitution, compared unhealthily with the former rural society. There thus reigned a feeling of loss and disorientation which was comprehensible given the radical changes that these societies had gone through. The ‘advances’ of the late nineteenth century were rather seen as losses: a world where there was no order, no clear identity and little prospect of good health. In Spain this generalized, European crisis was amplified by the feeling of disaster stemming from the defeat of 1898.2 The harsh intellectual reaction in Spain to this double crisis demonstrated that these elites had in fact been nationalized. But in spite of their loud rhetoric, the crisis remained largely an intellectual affair without major repercussion among the broader Spanish population. The feeble popular response, which in part is explicable by the weak nationalization during the nineteenth century outlined above, however, only worsened the sense of crisis among intellectuals. In their own terminology the Spanish people was the ‘spiritual reserve of the race’, but as the latter did not seem to care about the crisis that the nation was going through, most of the intellectuals lost faith in the patriotic potential of the population. An enormous volume of literature that circled around these problems appeared around the turn of the century. It is obvious that the above criticism suited right-wing ideologues well due to its profound conservatism, but the striking feature of the turn-of-the-century intellectual climate is that the left supported the same criticism, accepting both diagnosis and solution. They also asked for ‘regeneration’ in the medical-physiological language of the

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time, by improving, for example, the social body by amputating the rotten organs responsible of the defeat and the general decay of Spain. The nationalist response to the crisis of 1898 was very complex. In general there was a significant nationalist element to the regenerationist wave: the goal was to mobilize the resources of the nation in order to confront the challenge of modernization and Europeanization. In line with this, the intellectuals belonging to the Generation of ’98 considered themselves to be modernizers and progressives, but the patriotism of these writers was in fact rather suspicious and closed towards the world. Their rhetoric was characterized by national and political concerns masked by a terminology of reason, science and ‘Europe’ and their vision of Spain as an eternal and metaphysical entity was both essentialist and idealist. They at the same time wanted both a stronger state to avoid future disasters as well as stronger nationalist sentiments in the people, and this complexity made its conversion into a political programme impossible. The problem was precisely that the nationalization of the masses had not been achieved in Spain. The call to regenerate the nation can therefore ex post be interpreted as expressing fear of modernity and of precisely those processes of industrialization and urbanization which gave Europe global hegemony. Paradoxically, therefore, modernity was interpreted as barbarism (Álvarez Junco 1998: 455–69).

The appearance of alternative nations (Catalonia and the Basque Country) One political response to the problems of the Spanish State in the late nineteenth century, especially after the defeat of 1898, was the emergence of particularly Basque and Catalan nationalism as political movements. Both had deeper roots but they were fundamentally reactive and reflected the failure of the central State to respond to their aspirations. Despite being perceived in Madrid as more or less the same kind of threat, the two nationalist movements were very different and evolved distinctively reflecting socio-structural characteristics, which, together with particular pre-industrial cultural and political orientations within the Basque and Catalan elites, shaped the structure and character of political mobilization in each region.3 The population of the Basque region had increased by approximately 50 per cent over the last half of the nineteenth century to 600,000 people mainly due to internal Spanish immigration to the Basque Country. Over the same period its relative share of the total Spanish population rose from 2.7 per cent to 3.2 per cent. Basque nationalism expressed the frustration of pre-industrial Basque elites with the changes caused by industrialization and centralization. Paradoxically, the success of this traditionalist nationalism resulted from the character of Basque industrial development, which had created a high concentration of economic

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power in the hands of a small elite that had been well integrated into the Spanish power elite since the Middle Ages.4 Therefore, the social base of Basque nationalism was essentially made up of the marginalized pre-industrial elites and other displaced social groups, which were able to impose their separatist and anti-capitalist views on the Basque Nationalist Party. Catalan nationalism, on the contrary, expressed the frustration of the Catalan bourgeoisie over its inability to shape Spanish policies according to its own interests. The population of Catalonia by 1900 had grown to almost two million and thus accounted for approximately 11 per cent of the Spanish population. A more diversified industrial development eased the absorption of pre-industrial elites and thus caused industrialization to be less of a social shock than in the Basque Country. The resulting large and diversified bourgeoisie was much less integrated into Spanish elites, and its economic and political power was much more limited than that of its Basque counterpart. The perceived gap between aspirations and real political power led the Catalan bourgeoisie to adopt a nationalist strategy, but only as last resort, after having tried to influence Spanish politics for a longer period. The resulting nationalist movement was also much more diversified than in the Basque Country, giving rise to several nationalist parties (Díez Medrano 1995). The third region with its own distinct language and culture, Galicia, north of Portugal was not a focal point of early industrialization in contrast to Catalonia and the Basque Country. Galicia’s population grew by only 11 per cent in the second half of the nineteenth century reaching just under two million in 1900, which was roughly the same size as Catalonia. This increase was considerably smaller than the national average and in part this was due to emigration from Galicia to Latin America and other parts of Spain. Galicia also witnessed a cultural renaissance in the late nineteenth century which slowly became more political resulting in a succession of provincialist and regionalist movements in the last decades of the century. The movement, however, had serious difficulties in uniting due to large ideological differences between the currents that spanned from Catholic traditionalism to secular republicanism. It thus developed later and only from 1916 was a proper nationalist programme adopted, but it never achieved the same backing in terms of popular following as Catalan and Basque nationalism (Núñez Seixas 1999: 41–4, 73–5). These contrasting characteristics are also mirrored in very different emotional structures.5 Basque nationalism was intransigent and separatist from its very inception, basically due to a deeply felt fear of cultural annihilation. It was expressed in attitudes like defence, protection, purge. Yet it lacked a core value on which to focus. The autochthonous Basque language could not serve because there were insufficient speakers, the low linguistic solidarity of the upper classes, and the lack of a Basque high culture.6 Catalan nationalism, on the contrary, was basically regionalist and pro-Spanish. Even if the initial mobilizing cry was – at least to some extent – built around a similar fear of cultural annihilation as in the Basque

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counterpart, the Catalan nationalists quickly discovered that their culture was not really threatened, which created a completely different emotional background for nationalist mobilization, one characterized rather by surplus and self-security. This was, in part, because the Catalans were able to focus on the widely spoken Catalan language as a core value and draw on the literary and cultural renaissance-movement that had swept across the region during the second half of the nineteenth century and which had been focused on Catalan high culture (Conversi 1997). At the Spanish level, the appearance and growth of peripheral nationalist movements was thus related to the problems of the Spanish nationalization process discussed above, but the crisis caused by the Spanish–American war pushed them into political movements. Their foundation took place precisely during this problematic political conjuncture: the Basque Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista Vasco, or PNV), which is most often said to have been founded in 1895, although it was not called PNV until a few years later, and in Catalonia the Regionalist League (Lliga Regionalista) was founded in 1901. The ‘disaster’ of 1898 and the appearance of these ‘separatist’ movements, which from a Spanish nationalist point of view were interpreted as a threat to the sacred principle of national unity, led to a relative convergence between the liberal and the Catholic-conservative Spanish nationalist projects, leading both to assume a more defensive attitude. What was experienced as a shameful defeat had convinced the Catholic conservatives of the need for some modernizing reforms in order to overcome the backwardness of Spain.

‘Last-minute’ nation-building The Spanish political elites had become aware that there were drawbacks to the nineteenth-century nation-building process. The Restoration political framework aimed at keeping the masses at a secure distance, even avoiding if possible, any kind of participation. After the turn of the century, however, they suddenly realized that inadequate nationalization of the masses was one of the causes of the crisis. This resulted in a very intense ‘last-minute’ revival of the nation-building process through various grandiose nationalist manifestations centred on Castile and an essentialist concept of Spain, and through the resumption of war in Morocco. A good example of this burst of activity is the use made of Columbus’ discovery of America on 12 October 1492. The nineteenth century had never produced any clear national commemoration to be identified as the national holiday of Spain. The closest the country had come to a national holiday was the celebration of the 2nd of May, the anniversary of the uprising against the French in 1808. But the commemoration was closely related to the periods of revolutionary liberal dominance and therefore never incarnated a truly national sentiment. Even in the liberal form, it had a significant religious element. Furthermore, despite being, in theory, a national commemoration,

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in practice its celebration was limited almost exclusively to Madrid, where the uprising had undeniably occurred.7 Lastly, the commemoration also developed into a xenophobic, specifically anti-French, event, in which the initial liberal connotations gradually transmuted into a celebration of the war-like resistance of the Spanish people against the French army associated with street attacks against French-looking people. It thus never really became clear what a national holiday meant, caught as it was between civic and religious meanings. Instead, most people knew one or more of the so-called ‘Patrons of Spain’ such as Saint James and Saint Theresa. Carlos III had declared even the Immaculate Conception to be Patron of Spain. It was only towards the turn of the century that Spaniards began to commemorate Columbus’ ‘discovery’ in 1492 annually on the 12th of October.8 The idea was invigorated around the ‘disaster’ of 1898, exactly when Spain ceased to be a colonial power in America. The first celebrations of the Fiesta de la Raza thus date from 1899, right after the defeat, and they were held in Catalonia, whose economy had been badly affected by the loss of the last colonies, especially Cuba (Barrachina 1998: 169–70, Serrano 1999: 328). The simplification of the long process of conquest and colonization into one single date began, the anniversary of the first landfall on a small island in what today is the Bahamas, had been achieved; precisely what the Liberals in Madrid never succeeded in doing with the 2nd of May. The 12th of October had been converted into a symbol of the whole process. The commemoration offered a reinterpretation of history that was meant to displace attention from questions of economic and political power to the spiritual thrust of the Spanish colonization. On a different level, the resuming of war in North Africa was also part of this endeavour towards nation-building as the politicians and army leaders could not accept Spain’s new status as ‘ex-colonial Empire’. The costly attempt to establish a new colony in Morocco, both economically and in human lives, was designed to reject such a status. At stake, however, was not simply the issue of a colony itself. If the country did not succeed as a power in North Africa, it would lose its place in the concert of Europe. Furthermore, Spain had a clear interest in keeping the rival powers, especially Great Britain and France, from occupying the Moroccan coast facing Spain (Carr 1982: 516–18). In the international Algeciras Conference in 1906 a partition of Morocco into ‘zones of influence’ was agreed on between France and Spain and northern Morocco came under Spanish control. Attempting to occupy the difficult Spanish zone in 1909 Spain suffered a serious military defeat by the local tribes and it became necessary to increase the military presence by conscript soldiers. The wealthy Spaniards, nevertheless, could avoid conscription by paying someone else to go in their stead which led to the widespread impression that those sent to die in Morocco were the ‘sons of the poor’, whereas the rich were making money selling supplies to the army and shipping it to Africa. The development of the war combined with the problems of conscription and the already tense class conflict situation,

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particularly in Barcelona, compounded the problems of war and conscription. A week-long bloody rebellion took place in the streets of the industrial city known as the ‘Tragic Week’ (Semana Trágica), in July 1909. Needless to say, the brutal repression of the upheaval resulting in seventy-five civilian dead only toughened the anarchist movement, which had grown particularly strong in Catalonia, as well as Catalan regionalism. Due to its involvement in the uprising of the ‘Tragic Week’, the anarchist movement was repressed afterwards all over Spain. It had, nevertheless, become clear that a wider coordination of anarchist unionist movement was necessary which led to the foundation in 1910 of the national anarcho-syndicalist trade union National Confederation of Labour (Confederación Nacional de Trabajo, or CNT), which was to become the most important anarchist organization in Spain. In 1912 the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco was formally established but it utterly failed to satisfy Spanish aspirations, since it was practically indefensible, economically unviable and inhabited by fiercely anti-Spanish Berber tribes. A continued low-intensity war was practically unavoidable in an attempt to control the territory. The Moroccan war was never popular among the Spanish population and continued to create a series of conflicts. It was commonly known that the Rif-area was very poor and most Spaniards did not understand why such a costly war with thousands of casualties and enormous economic cost should be continued. The politicians, however, were not willing to give up the Moroccan colony for strategic and prestige reasons, but under home pressure failed to support it adequately (and thus unsuccessfully). The final blow came in 1920–1 when more intense war activity resumed and the demoralized and poorly equipped Spanish army suffered a terrible defeat at Annual. In the end the military defeat and the accompanying political mistakes backfired on the political establishment in Madrid leading to several political crises between 1921 and 1923. The Moroccan war was thus decisive in destroying the remaining legitimacy of the Restoration regime and was one of the central reasons for the military coup in September 1923 by General Miguel Primo de Rivera (Carr 1982: 518–23). Altogether, the Moroccan war hindered rather than helped nationbuilding. First of all, it did not unite the nation against any external enemy. On the contrary, it contributed to fracture the national constituency due to the apparently unequal contributions to the war effort. It also helped to fuel anti-Spanish sentiment particularly in Catalonia. It was a nineteenth century war of honour with an element of the intra-European tactical competition for colonies and status and as such did not convince the large majority of the population. The Moroccan fiasco combined with the unrepresentiative character of the Restoration regime to create a vicious circle of mutual loss of legitimacy. In many ways this desperate attempt at nation-building, of which the war in Morocco was just the most ‘visible’ element, came too late and it only accentuated the identification of Spanish nationalism with anti-revolutionary

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attitudes. By the 1920s, other myths had established themselves in clear opposition to the defective Restoration regime, such as those supporting peripheral nationalist movements, or the ideas of social revolution that were mobilizing the lower classes inspired by the Russian revolution in 1917.

The liberal-conservative oligarchic Restoration regime’s final crisis Around the years of the First World War the Restoration regime met its limits: the war and Spain’s status as a neutral power brought with it a wealth that exposed the faults in the social structure of the regime. The business derived from the war brought rapid profits to certain sectors such as the Asturian coalfields and the Catalan textile industry which resulted in rapid wage rises in these sectors. But in other sectors wages did not rise which, together with the inflation caused by the war economy, resulted in increasing inequality upsetting labour relations. In 1917 the situation developed into a full-blown crisis at the hands of a disparate coalition between Catalanists, large parts of the army, the republican and the left-wing political parties which tried to force the Restoration regime to renew itself. The crisis of 1917 was begun by the Juntas de defensa, a movement of low-ranking army officers against their economic situation and the promotion structures of the army. The Catalan regionalists joined the discontent adding their own disputes with Castilian dominated politics and the labour leaders, both within the political parties and the unions, were already on the border of violent conflict. It was only the outright opposition of the government to taking these protests seriously that united the dissimilar coalition in a demand for profound reform including a new constitution. When the coalition was given a chance in 1918 to form a government, it fell apart because the internal differences were too great and the Restoration regime survived. The constitutional system had proved unable to reform itself from within and the only way forward was a series of unstable conservative governments. The end of the war removed the rapid profits that some parts of the Spanish economy had enjoyed leading to unemployment and increased labour unrest. Particularly the anarchist CNT was able to increase its membership due to the conflict, but also the socialist union, General Union of Workers (Unión General de Trabajadores, or UGT) grew considerably. On the one hand, the unions already had strengthened their position during the war due to labour shortages and, on the other, the postwar decreasing profits made employers willing to take on unionism; a situation which rapidly degenerated into a protracted social war aided by the weak governments. The economic consequences of European War on Spain decisively contributed to undermining the constitutional monarchy (Carr 1982: 509–16). The fatal lack of modernization of Spanish society in terms of democratic representativeness, wealth distribution and social policy both led

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to the protracted social crisis of 1909–23, and eventually to the regime’s downfall. The critical political circumstances surrounding the First World War also affected the commemoration of the 1492 anniversary leading to it being made official for the first time. In 1915, an official celebration was established in Catalonia. For some years, possibly since 1912, a commemoration had also been celebrated in Madrid, and from various sides like the Municipality of Madrid, the Catholic Church, and King Alfonso XIII himself, it was suggested to turn it into the national holiday of Spain. In 1918, the 12th of October was declared a National Holiday by law, with the denomination ‘Fiesta de la Raza’.9 The commemoration was thus invented as a tribute to the race (raza), which as a term was more commonly used during the first decades than hispanidad. The term raza, however, did not contain any racist or ethnic element. Generally, it was used in a pan-Hispanic manner, referring to common cultural characteristics, especially language. The point was that the ‘Hispanic race’ necessarily had international and imperial roots, rather than national or ethnic ones. By 1918, when the law was passed, the Restoration system was perceived to be in a sort of final crisis, which pushed it towards national exaltation. It was trying to accomplish a return to the lost greatness of Spain in gestures more than in real politics, and the rhetoric of the American ‘dimension’ of Spain was part of this political programme. The 12th of October was also the day of Our Lady of the Pillar of Zaragoza, which had been celebrated for centuries in commemoration of the apparition of Virgin Maria to Saint James on the banks of the river Ebro in support of his task of evangelizing Spain. The new national holiday thus with perfect ambivalence combined civic and religious elements, allowing for a range of different interpretations. On the one hand, it celebrated the power of the Spanish State to discover and colonize an entire continent, and on the other hand, the power of the Christian religion to spread both in Spain and in the New World.10 The Restoration regime had been designed especially to provide a higher degree of political stability, which had been almost completely lacking in the preceding period, particularly the immediately preceding revolutionary sexennial. The ruling classes – both the conservatively and the more progressiveliberal minded – were terrified by the thought of having to let the lower classes exert any influence on politics, both the rural labourers as well as the industrial workers from the cities. In these aims are hidden the reasons why they invented an intricate system by means of which they would alternate in power through arranged elections, which gave the Restoration regime the necessary democratic legitimacy. On the one hand, the regime provided a solution to one of the fundamental problems of the nineteenth century, namely political stability, without which progress and long-term solutions to the grand societal challenges would be an illusion. On the other hand, the solution chosen was based on maintaining the rapidly growing masses and political opponents completely outside any political influence, which in the medium term, in

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postponing solutions to major social problems, became a ticking bomb under the legitimacy of the Restoration regime. While the initial basis had perhaps been a necessary price to pay to achieve the desired political stability, it should have subsequently democratized, when stability had been achieved. That did not happen, however, which only worsened the regime’s crisis of legitimacy after the disaster of 1898 and acutely during the years of the First World War. The lack of action in this regard was to have serious consequences. Social unrest grew and anti-system movements, such as anarchism, emerged and grew to become very influential in the shadow of a closed and increasingly repressive regime. Also nationalist and regionalist movements, that to some degree developed in opposition to Spain and Spanish politics, strengthened as a consequence of the regime’s inability to provide efficient solutions to the most important challenges in Spanish society.

CHAPTER FIVE

Military dictatorship (1923–31): A solution to the nationalization of the masses?

Brief parenthesis or deep regeneration? The final struggle of the Restoration regime dragged on till September 1923 when the Captain General of Catalonia, Miguel Primo de Rivera, tired of politics and politicians, seized power in the entire country through a bloodless military coup. In his first proclamation, Primo de Rivera announced: ‘Our aim is to open a brief parenthesis in the constitutional life of Spain and to re-establish it as soon as the country offers us men uncontaminated with the vices of political organization’ (Robinson 1970: 28). Initially, thus, his declared intention was to seize power only temporarily in order to purify the constitutional monarchy of the worst of its vices, restore the Constitution of 1876 and return to ‘normality’. This very classification of the dictatorial regime as an abnormality came to constitute its most central problem as it became evident that the characteristics of the ‘normal’ regime that was to be restored were by no means clear. The lack of definition of exactly what Primo de Rivera wanted to achieve meant that it was impossible to determine when its purpose had in fact been achieved. As time went by the problem only got worse. At the very least, however, the dictatorship would have to restore law and order, resolve the deadlocked war in Morocco and promote economic development. The establishment of Primo de Rivera’s military dictatorship did not, thus, in the first place, embody a particular political doctrine or ideology; it was aimed at saving Spain from the mismanagement of the political oligarchy of 31

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the late Restoration system and preventing some kind of revolutionary upheaval. Due to the widespread lack of faith in the civilian government’s ability to solve the problems, the dictatorship initially met with only limited resistance and King Alfonso openly consented to its establishment. He had his personal motives for acceding to Primo de Rivera’s plan as he was in trouble due to his more or less direct involvement in the war in Morocco and the disastrous defeat at Annual in 1921. A critical report had been produced and was about to be discussed in Parliament in the autumn of 1923, but the coup aborted this process and thus came conveniently for the King. Primo de Rivera aimed to regenerate as others had done before him: he wanted to redeem Spain from the destruction caused, according to him, by unpatriotic politicians who had separated the political sphere of government from the people. In a naïve attempt to bridge this distance, he wanted to enter into more direct contact with Spaniards and in the beginning his paternalistic care of the nation earned him a certain favour from the population but it quickly turned into contempt particularly from the earlier elites. His apparently unideological approach was of course not coherent but it was inspired by a few clearly identifiable ideas such as the turn-of-the-century regenerationism, as already mentioned. Catholic paternalism was another inspiration. The whole language of progress was used by the dictatorship in relation to the programme of public works that was an essential part of the economic kickstart that the regime elaborated. At the base of this ensemble of ideas lay the conviction – relatively widespread in Europe at the time – that periods of dictatorship could serve to catapult politically immature countries towards the level of the more advanced countries. As the party, the Patriotic Union (Unión Patriótica, or UP), was being created in 1924, the ideas were turned into a more consistent ideology centred on the idea of corporatism. Primo de Rivera’s hatred of the former political elites found its expression in the antiparliamentarian stance that elevated various autonomous social bodies to be the anchor of sovereignty. Above it all stood the nation, then the Church and thirdly the King. Both the Church and the monarchy were thus accepted basically because they could both be considered social facts and therefore part of the natural order of things, an interpretation that neither the Catholics nor the conservative monarchists were completely happy with. According to Primo de Rivera, the search for the real historical unit began and ended with the (Spanish) nation. Regeneration was principally to be achieved through the modernization of the economy. Growth would be achieved by promoting public works essentially paid for by the State through huge loans. This programme provided Spain with an updated infrastructure in roads, railroads, dams, hydro-electric power plants, etc. By the end of the 1920s it possessed one of Europe’s best networks of roads, the railroads had been upgraded to European standards and electricity had arrived at the most remote corners of Spain. Many sectors of the Spanish economy, among others the iron and steel industry, prospered and although it was a protectionist economic policy, foreign trade grew more

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than threefold during the dictatorship. The economic expansion also worked to increase employment and unemployment practically disappeared. The relative success of the growth-oriented economic policy can be detected in the demographic trend: by the end of the 1920s, the Spanish population reached 23.7 million with an increase of almost 11 per cent in a decade as compared to the two previous decades which had seen increases of 7 per cent. Part of the success of the modernization agenda was also due to a changed system of labour arbitration which worked to resolve the innumerable labourrelated conflicts of the late Restoration system. Inspired by the fascist system in Italy, Primo de Rivera forced workers and employers into joint corporate committees where state arbitrators mediated disputes. This increased the influence of organized labour to hitherto unseen levels, which is why both the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, or PSOE) and the socialist union, UGT, chose to collaborate with the regime involving themselves in these committees. The socialist organizations were accepted by the regime, but particularly the UGT suffered a relatively extensive boycott as a consequence due to being seen as the semi-official union of the regime. The anarchist union CNT, on the other hand, was made de facto illegal and the strikes it organized were repressed violently by the army. Making the CNT illegal meant that the anarchists’ activities were transformed into groups and associations of a more cultural character, which were left more or less undisturbed by the dictatorship.

The Catalan conjuncture The profoundly nationalist element of its ideological orientation meant that anything that might threaten the unity of the nation became an enemy in the eyes of the dictatorship. This had a direct bearing on the situation in Catalonia, one of the issues that Primo de Rivera had to deal with sooner or later since the late Restoration regime crisis had sparked regionalist protests particularly in Catalonia. Since 1913, the region had enjoyed a limited autonomy under the name of Mancomunidad, and many interpreted his initial lack of action with regards to the Mancomunidad as sympathy towards the Catalan cause. Perhaps he was wilfully unclear on this point in order to keep a sympathetic environment in favour of his coup particularly in Catalonia where it all began. In fact, in 1924, with José Calvo Sotelo as Director General of Administration, an attempt was made to extend the system of Mancomunidades to all Spanish regions, a move that would of course preserve the limited autonomy that Catalonia had obtained, but which at the same time would ‘dilute’ the Catalan position by extending it to the entire country. This same tactic was actually going to be used by the right wing later in Spanish politics with exactly that purpose. The proposal of Calvo Sotelo, however, was soon abandoned, and from March 1925 the regime instead began practicing a renewed centralization, which was in reality consistent with the ideological

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framework sketched out above. Consequently, in 1925 the Mancomunidad of Catalonia was abrogated (Michonneau 2001: 266). If during the first year and a half Primo de Rivera might have nourished mild regionalist sympathies, any kind of autonomy was now rejected, elevating the idea of unity of the patria to dogma. Political expressions of Catalanism were suppressed and the use of the Catalan language was forbidden in any official context, even in the Church. This repression was excessive even for conservative Catalans, who had initially supported the coup. The discontent caused by these harsh measures accounts for the fact that the regime failed in Catalonia. The repression only strengthened Catalanism which, for example, can be seen in the fact that the amount of literature in Catalan literally exploded in the 1920s. Completely against the intention, the repression not only did not succeed in assimilating the regionalist movement, it actually converted Catalanism into a movement with a much broader appeal than just the bourgeoisie that had been its principal advocates before the dictatorship. Repression radicalized Catalan demands against both the dictatorship and the monarchy making them more sympathetic towards republicanism and separatism. A similar increased social support in the face of repression and identification of the nationalist cause with democracy happened in both the Basque Country and in Galicia even though they had not been particular focal points of the dictatorship. In the medium term, this helped the formation of a strong alliance between republicans and peripheral nationalists against the dictatorship and the monarchy.

The war in Morocco It was the war in Morocco which eventually brought Primo de Rivera the success that would consolidate his regime – although this success did not come about as quickly as promised and therefore initially did not supply the regime with the hoped-for legitimacy. By 1924 the Berbers under the leadership of the ruthless Abd el-Krim had established an almost independent state within the borders of the Spanish protectorate. Against the wishes of his military colleagues, Primo de Rivera decided to withdraw from many of the most isolated, often waterless outposts that were too vulnerable to the attacks from the Berber tribes. Risking a rebellion from officers he thus changed the official strategy and decided to withdraw and concentrate the Spanish forces behind a defensible line giving up on all the conquests of 1920 that had cost Spain so dearly. He even stated that he actually favoured a complete withdrawal from Africa, but that Spain was forced to stay because the British did not want France to occupy the Spanish protectorate thus obtaining control of the whole of Morocco. In 1925, sudden prospects of a military cooperation of France and Spain made the dictator change his strategy a second time. The Berbers and France had come into conflict over the demilitarized zone between the two protectorates and Abd el-Krim now faced a war on two fronts. This made Primo de Rivera opt for a total defeat of el-Krim as the only way to

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secure the Spanish influence along the coast. A carefully planned landing at Alhucemas Bay (Al Hoceima in Arabic) in September 1925 and subsequent attack on the Berber tribes’ capital was successful and at the same time the French were attacking from the south. The defeats of Abd el-Krim in 1925 and 1926 turned the tribes against him making him surrender to the French in 1926. Without their most skilled warlord and talented leader the resistance of the tribes collapsed. The victory made Primo de Rivera change his strategy towards full military occupation instead of the peaceful collaboration he had earlier professed when military domination was impossible or could only be achieved at too high a risk (Carr 1982: 573–4).

From parenthesis to regenerator By 1924 the dictatorship was clearly abandoning the idea of a short parenthesis and was developing into something else. On the one hand, the results in Morocco were long in coming and, on the other hand, the continued military presence in the public administration was unacceptable to almost all parts of Spanish society. The old political guard had not been replaced yet by a new breed, and to keep up the promise of a swift return to the Constitution of 1876 therefore seemed risky as it would only put the former elites back in power. A demilitarization of the dictatorship was necessary, although its institutionalization would implicitly abandon the original goal of a return to ‘normality’. The best proof of this is the creation of the UP in 1924, and the transformation was crowned with the change from the emergency Military Directory-government to the Civil Directory in 1925. The politics of the first years of dictatorship witnessed endless ad hoc solutions to a whole range of financial and economic questions and other political areas. The Civil Directory achieved consistency in financial reforms and economic planning. After the post-First World War crisis and the mismanagement of the late Restoration administration, the Spanish economy was in dire need of modernization and growth. A ‘Ten-Year Plan’ embodied these objectives. The problem was how to raise money for investment and public works at the same time as making the economy recover and return to a scenario of growth, but this was solved through a series of controversial means: the Extraordinary Budget, the creation of state monopolies and special Regulatory Commissions.

Discourse on the nation and nationalization of the masses Concerning the nation, the dictatorship further accentuated a Spanish nationalist discourse of a Catholic-conservative type. But if the Restoration

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regime to some extent had disabled strong expressions of the Spanish nationalist discourses by being in essence a political compromise between the two main alternatives, with Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship an unambiguous Spanish nationalism came to the fore. Inspired by his contemporary ‘colleagues’ in Europe, particularly the Italian Fascist Party, the principal idea of Primo de Rivera was finally to achieve that nationalization of the masses which had eluded previous regimes. The unity and strength of the nation was given expression through extensive use of nationally charged symbolism. The above-mentioned Día de la Hispanidad or Raza which had been made official in 1918 thus achieved notoriety under Primo de Rivera; Spain’s patron saints were declared and celebrated officially, and in Madrid, Seville and Barcelona grandiose Plazas de España were constructed. Likewise a new series of banknotes was issued in which every note was carefully designed to mirror a particular understanding of Spain’s history with a particular focus on Spain’s ‘Golden Age’, portraying Philip II, the end to the Reconquista wars, Cervantes, etc. History was omnipresent during the dictatorship and the prevailing mood was conservative and historicist (Vincent 2007: 110–11). Another favoured way to exhibit the unity of the nation was to stage large-scale showcase events like the double celebration in 1929 of the Hispano-American exhibition in Seville and the Universal Expo in Barcelona, something which was also clearly inspired in the contemporary regimes, particularly the Italian fascist regime. The principal aim of both exhibitions was to project an image of Spain characterized by efficiency and economic progress.1 Originally, the Hispano-American exhibition had been planned for 1914, but it was never celebrated due to the First World War. Eventually, it was opened in May 1929 with much pomp and circumstance. The Expo in Barcelona had been planned at first for 1917 but was similarly delayed several times before opening in May 1929 too. In both exhibitions the intimate relationship between the nation and the region was emphasized: in Barcelona in the miniature Pueblo Español which was a compilation of popular architectural styles from all over Spain in imitation of the success of such villages at earlier expos, and in Seville in the monumental semi-circular Plaza de España which was divided into sections dedicated to each of Spain’s fifty provinces each of which contained a map and a historical scene in painted tiles. Allowing for a limited regionalism, both displays were framed within an overarching conservative nationalism emphasizing Spain’s unity. Ironically, the exhibitions came to span both the coming global economic crisis after the Wall Street crash in 1929 and the final crisis of the Primo de Rivera regime before they were closed in January and June 1930, respectively. With the global economic crisis, fewer visitors came to see the international exhibitions in Seville and Barcelona and the creative regeneration of the Spanish nation contained in them thus went largely unnoticed (Moreno 1992: 65–9).

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Parenthesis or precursor? The Primo de Rivera dictatorship was the result of the final impasse of the Restoration regime; not the only possible outcome, but one that was actually in line with what was happening at the same time in various European countries. It had become increasingly difficult to keep down the growing ‘masses’ – particularly the urban and rural working class and parts of the middle class – and their demand for a share of the power. And as elsewhere in Europe after 1919, the Spanish elites chose a military dictatorship as a way of halting the advance of the left. The regime embarked on an intensive and much more repressive campaign to nationalize Spaniards in line with the Catholic and reactionary Spanish nationalism. Spain and Spanishness were exhibited and promoted through all kinds of patriotic ceremonies but the symbols of the other nationalist movements in Spain – Catalan and Basque – were prohibited. The attempt worked principally through negative integration, that is through nationalist ideas that emphasized foreign and domestic enemies. In essence, the regime collapsed the nation, the dictatorship and the army into one and the same, but failed to create the necessary consensus around that idea (Quiroga 2007). This became the crucial problem of Primo de Rivera’s regime; in the end it also lacked the necessary funds to carry out ambitious mass nationalization. The attempt by the regime to promote from above its version of the Spanish nation, which failed, was challenged from below by a different national identity – the idea of a republican, democratic and secularized Spain – that took root among many. The Primo de Rivera dictatorship is a clear example of a ‘misfit’ between the official discourse and the ‘experiences of nation’, that is of individual Spaniards, or a majority of them. In the end a relatively widespread consensus developed around a different Spanish national identity and, in the cases of the Basques and the Catalans, to a radicalization of their respective identities (Quiroga 2013: 32). The other national project, the democratic, republican and secular Spanish nationalism, thus re-emerged stronger than ever towards the end of the dictatorship. The strongest evidence of this is the different political proposals that emerged after the fall of the dictatorship. They were radically different from the line of the dictatorship and counted – at least initially – with backing from a majority of Spaniards. Primo de Rivera had failed completely to provide the promised political alternative by not creating a sustainable and legitimate political system to continue the reforms that his regime had set in motion. Due to widespread popular as well as military dissatisfaction with his rule he was forced to resign in January 1930 and he died two months later. As a substitute King Alfonso XIII appointed General Dámaso Berenguer, one of Primo de Rivera’s opponents within the military, who attempted to mend the situation through a softening of the dictatorship and a promise to return to democratic rule. He survived an abortive military coup attempt from a coalition of republican

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forces in December 1930, but in February 1931 he also resigned under the mounting pressure for democratization and abolition of the monarchy. The King made a final attempt to save the situation by appointing General Juan Bautista Aznar as Prime Minister and in April 1931 the promised municipal elections were held. But the hopes that the controlled return to democracy would save the regime were vain. The elections were won by the prorepublican parties and the military dictatorship and its alliance with the Crown ended and the King left the country. At the collapse of the Primo de Rivera regime, its ideas seemed completely outdated. But despite this fact – which can be seen in the Republic’s initial success – many of those ideas and strategies would serve as inspiration for the Franco regime, once the pendulum had begun to swing back at the end of the republican period. The importance of Primo de Rivera’s regime is thus not limited to its duration itself, but must be seen in its relationship with the Francoist military dictatorship.

CHAPTER SIX

The Second Spanish Republic (1931–9): The short-lived success of the liberal national project

Republican take over as victory of left-liberal discourse on the nation From having been a minority option at the turn of the century and in deep crisis around 1920, by the end of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, republicanism had grown to become the major political alternative.1 The fact that the dictator did not keep his promise of a swift return to normality and instead continued the dictatorship had created the necessary conditions for this development, but it had also been helped by the dictatorship’s propaganda against the monarchist parties of the Restoration system, the old political guard. One of the dictatorship’s achievements was undoubtedly the success of its agenda of growth and development and, in fact, the 1920s had seen the most rapid economic development ever in Spanish history. Although Spain was still underdeveloped in comparison to many other countries, by the end of the decade, Spanish society had become remarkably more modern than before. This, however, only exacerbated popular discontent with the dictatorship. The republican parties joined forces in mid-August 1930, signing the Pact of San Sebastián. Initially, the PSOE stayed outside, although the socialist Indalecio Prieto attended the meeting and signed the Pact on a personal basis. However, in autumn 1930 the PSOE also joined the coalition,

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increasing the pressure on Primo de Rivera’s successor regimes of Dámaso Berenguer and Juan Bautista Aznar to form a representative government and hold free elections. The anarchists of the CNT did not participate in the pact, but were informed about it and were instrumental in bringing down the remnants of the dictatorship. Finally, the authorities agreed to the fundamental demands and municipal elections were held on 12 April 1931. Despite the fact that the republican–socialist coalition did not win all over the country, the elections were, nevertheless, immediately reinterpreted as a plebiscite against the monarchy, and King Alfonso XIII was forced to leave the country. On 14 April, the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed and a provisional government took power peacefully. While, during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, the Catholic-conservative version had dominated the Spanish nationalist discourse completely, the republican take over in 1931 meant the victory of the left-liberal discourse on the nation. The former types of regimes, both the Restoration constitutional parliamentarian regime and the rightist-authoritarian dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, as well as the monarchy as state form, were widely seen to have outlived their role. The bloodless republican take over caused a general euphoria, a sensation that this was a new beginning. The republican ‘counter-hegemonic project’, as the historian Helen Graham has called it (Graham 1996: 133), represented the expectations of millions of Spaniards that a new era of thorough reform had begun. Those who took power primarily came from the liberal and radical sectors of the intelligentsia, and the large majority of them had not been politically involved in the late Restoration regime or in the dictatorship. There was, in other words, very little continuity with older elites. The other face of this rupture was that this new elite was also very inexperienced when it came to practical government (Payne 1993: 23–46, Duarte 1997: 194–5). The new provisional government, in practice, found itself in a revolutionary situation, having taken over full power without any formal transfer, since no representation whatsoever of the monarchy or of the military regime remained. The new authorities attempted to take advantage of this situation marking the change of regime symbolically. On the same day as the proclamation, 14 April, it promulgated a Juridical Statute2 in which it made a series of programmatic promises, among others, a democratic constitution, freedom of faith, an amnesty for political prisoners, as well as prosecution of members of the previous regimes. The generalized euphoria and the widely perceived problems of the former regimes account for the fact that, initially, the republican regime met with very little opposition, even the anarchist CNT initially accepted the Republic as preferable to the dictatorship. This also explains why such a project of profound change could be put forward without, at least in the first place, bringing seriously into question the feelings of national belonging among the population. For the majority, the nation was in the republican project, in any case for a period, more than in the deposed military regime

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and constitutional monarchy. The Republic was identified with Spain and to be republican was a way of being Spanish, but the republicans knew that this identification could not be taken for granted. There was thus a clear perception of urgency related to sustaining adherence to the Spanish nation, as the republicans saw it, in a time when the national community and the state system had grown dangerously far apart.3 Generally, the Second Republic was not constructed as a continuity of the First Republic. The First Republic was viewed as a period of chaos, and as such it was ‘archived’ by the republican regime of the 1930s.4 The republican regime therefore only had a few already established powerful republican symbols at its disposal, but the new republican authorities did actually attempt to immediately mark the change of regime symbolically. The Statute issued on 14 April thus abolished the most important monarchical symbols, bringing into use instead the – admittedly few – republican symbols of the nation. These mostly referred back to those chosen or elaborated by the revolutionary regime of 1868, which served as a symbolic frame of reference for the new regime. The same day of the proclamation, 14 April, was declared the National Holiday of Spain, which invested the change of regime with a character of rupture. The national flag was changed from the monarchic bicolour red and yellow flag to the republican-liberal tricolour invented during the revolutionary period of 1868–74,5 and the national anthem, the Royal March, was changed to the Himno de Riego6 associated with nineteenth-century liberal and anti-monarchical attitudes (Payne 1993: 40). The republican regime also adopted the first truly national – in the sense of non-monarchical – coat of arms elaborated by the provisional government of 1868, which represented the liberal past. The symbol of the Bourbon monarchy, the three fleur-de-lis, was of course eliminated from the arms. Changing the symbols of the nation by decree within a day of gaining power is a powerful signal of change, and the new elites thus attempted to fashion the Second Republic as an authentic national refoundation, which was intended to touch upon practically all aspects of social life. It was thus not by coincidence that the Constituent Assembly of the Second Republic convened for the first time on 14 July 1931, Bastille Day (Payne 1993: 59).

Republican government and Constitution as a reform programme The almost complete breakdown of the monarchical and conservative sectors of political life after the definitive fall of the dictatorship combined with the widespread euphoria that followed the peaceful take over of power made the new republican leadership jump to the conclusion that the conservative public opinion had been reduced to a minoritarian and entirely insignificant position. The republicans therefore did not take the

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monarchists and conservatives seriously and disregarded them completely in the political equation of the Republic. The first elections to a Constitutive Assembly, which were celebrated in June 1931, seemed to confirm this reading of the political sentiment of the Spanish population as the rightist parties were very weakly represented in the new republican Parliament. The former allies of Primo de Rivera were still shaken from the debacle of the dictatorship and suffered from acute organizational problems, especially the lack of political parties as well as leaders that were not too directly linked with the dictatorship. In this sense, Primo de Rivera’s fall clearly had worse consequences for his allies than for his opponents. The first elections thus fundamentally confirmed the initial coalition of republican left and centre-right parties and the socialists thus also validating them in their disregard of the conservative parliamentary opposition. Although their aim was never to achieve a consensual solution to the problems that Spain, in their eyes, was facing, but rather to embark on an ambitious project of wide-ranging reforms, this misreading of the national sentiment was to become one of the principal weaknesses of the republican project (Payne 2004: 11–15). Although the first elected Parliament was a Constituent Assembly, which already in December 1931 could approve a new Constitution, the profound reforms were not simply put on hold until after the promulgation of a new Constitution but were initiated contemporaneously with the discussions on the constitutional framework. Indeed, several of the more important reforms were linked with acute political problems from the very beginning, the handling of which could not await the Constitution. The programme of profound reforms were directly linked to the former regimes’ lack of action with regards to the most pressing societal problems and thus concerned with at least the following five areas: ●

Regional autonomy (particularly for Catalonia)

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Separation of Church and State and secularization of the State

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Educational reform to favour public schooling

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The Armed Forces and their submission to parliamentary control

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Agrarian reform

The reforms thus tackled all the major societal problems that had plagued Spain for decades and had remained largely unsolved since at least the 1860s. One of the first problems that the new republican regime was faced with came from the Catalanists, who on the eve of the take over on 14 April had declared Catalonia an independent republic, probably not so much to subvert the political order as to press for speedy establishment of regional autonomy. Negotiations began immediately, and already on 21 April 1931

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the interim republican executive could promulgate a decree that established the Generalitat thus giving Catalonia self-government. Implicitly, regional autonomy was a necessary step if the Catalanists were to remain a part of Spain. The question of regional autonomy, at first limited to Catalonia, hence entered the political dynamic of the Second Republic from the very beginning. The concept introduced in the republican Constitution to solve the problem was ‘integral State’ (Estado integral) in its first section, which draws on inspirations from both unitary and federal systems. In line with unitary theory the Constitution proclaimed the sovereignty of the Spanish people and asserted the right of the national Parliament to pass autonomy statutes. Regions could thus not claim autonomy unilaterally, and the measure was meant to ensure that national interests were respected. On the other hand, the thought that the regions should negotiate their own autonomy statutes with the centre and gain regional approval through a regional referendum came from federal theory (Keating 1993: 347). This new constitutional framework thus in principle allowed any region to ask for autonomy provided that it could mobilize a majority of municipal councils and two-thirds of the voters in favour of an Autonomy Statute. In practice, however, this possibility of obtaining autonomy was principally aimed at the Basque Country and Galicia, both of which were experiencing a flourishing of nationalist movements and parties in the light of the Catalan success. Both regions would in fact later begin the process aimed at obtaining self-government, but only the Basque Country would achieve it for limited time in 1936–7 after the beginning of the Civil War. This new way of understanding Spain in which the republicans tried – for the first time in Spanish history – to combine the discourse on the unity of the Spanish nation with a new discourse on the nationalities would have profound and long-lasting effects on the prevailing conception of the Spanish nation among the left and centre-left wing. The Catholic-conservative sacralization of national unity here found its counter-discourse, which would be dominant not only during the republican regime but after the death of Franco as well. Secondly, one of the clearly perceived goals of the republican regime was the secularization of politics and society as a whole. For a long time the left wing had been developing an increasing antipathy towards the Catholic Church at least as strong as the one they felt against conservative interests. Their concept of modernization therefore was inseparable from a laicization and secularization of Spanish society, which placed it on top of the republican agenda in the 1930s. Within a month from taking office, in May 1931, this theme became one of the principal issues of the republican politics as well as of the criticism directed against it. The government proceeded to separate Church and State in the Constitution and other legislation and, at the same time, the burnings of convents of 11–12 May took place, in which more than 100 religious buildings were plundered and torched in Madrid and several other cities. On this and following occasions,

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the government and the authorities as a whole were notoriously slow to react, refusing to protect Church property often arresting conservatives rather than the authors of the crimes. The republicans were particularly keen to control and restrict public expressions of religion, especially in education. This conflict only grew worse over time when Parliament had to discuss the relevant paragraphs of the Constitution and the republicans would eventually pass legislation to deny all clergy the right to teach. Other kinds of public demonstrations of religion were banned too and the economic activity of the Church was severely curtailed. The Prime Minister of the first republican government, Manuel Azaña, recognized that discrimination against the Catholic Church was undemocratic but, nevertheless, justified it as an essential issue of ‘public health’ (Azaña, cited in Payne 2004: 17). The legal initiatives of the government and its laissez-faire attitude towards the anti-clerical activity, of course, outraged the Catholic-conservative and monarchical opposition against the republican regime, helping them to unite. As we have seen, they believed that the separation of Church and State was contrary to the very national identity of Spain. A third priority of the new republican regime was the expansion of education facilities with the aim of providing free and public education for all Spanish children to reduce the alarming illiteracy rates, which in 1930 averaged approximately 44 per cent and reached almost 50 per cent among women.7 The other principal reason to boost public education was to diminish the influence of the Catholic Church over education in Spain. Lastly, it must be remembered that the rapid population growth in the 1920s caused a large increase in the number of school-age children in the 1930s making the expansion of education facilities imperative. In order to cater for the 1.5 million children who did not attend school at all it was calculated that 27,000 schools would have to be built. A sign of the determination to turn this effort into a success was the budget increases of the Ministry of Education and by the end of 1932, 10,000 schools had been built or rehabilitated, but the pace was slowing down due to the lack of public funds caused by the recession (Jackson 1976: 73–4). The need for more primary schools was expanded by another 7,000 schools with the promulgation in 1933 of the Law of Congregations, which meant the closure of the religious primary schools by the end of that year. To eliminate the role of the Catholic education system at the same time as combatting the lack of schooling facilities in general proved very costly and in effect it ended up consuming the majority of the resources of the Republic increasing the public deficits and putting serious limitations on the other programmed reforms. Fourthly, after Primo de Rivera’s military dictatorship and the historical experience of Spain in the nineteenth century with constant military intervention in politics it was also very important for the republican executive to bring the Armed Forces under parliamentary control modernizing and ‘republicanizing’ them. The work on the reform was begun immediately by Prime Minister Azaña himself, who was also Minister of

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War. The main aim was to reduce the number of officers in the Spanish army, some 21,000, and the highest officer/soldier ratio in Europe. A generous retirement scheme was accepted by 8,000 officers, but its cost left few resources for modernization and technical reform. The financial difficulties met by the Republic at the beginning of the 1930s put constraints on the initially ambitious reforms. Furthermore, Azaña’s confrontational style at various times brought him to insult the sensibilities of the army, angering many in its ranks and stalling further collaboration with the republican executive (Payne 2004: 18). Lastly, but certainly not least, was the issue of agrarian reform to solve the problems related to the unequal distribution of the ownership of land and the related problems of poverty of about two million landless farm workers, particularly in the south. This had been a fundamental and unresolved problem of Spanish society for over half a century and it became one of the most controversial reforms of the Republic, not least because the republicans could not agree among themselves about the best solution. The preferences ranged from the creation of Soviet-style agrarian collectives to much more moderate expropriation schemes and it all met with the opposition of the conservatives. The provisional government faced the problem from the very beginning due to an emergency situation of unemployment and misery in Andalusia and Extremadura, which was the object of decrees as early as April 1931. Finally, the reform law, which was approved in the autumn of 1932, was a compromise that dissatisfied most groups. Relatively large amounts of land was made potentially available but the effects of the law were limited, principally due to the lack of funds for expropriation as well as the excessive bureaucracy of the entity formed to take care of the expropriated lands and their redistribution to landless farmers or collectives, the Institute of Agrarian Reform. Once again, the financial constraints to which the Republic was subject severely limited the reach of the programmed reforms. The failure of the agrarian reform was one of the principal causes of the social unrest of 1933 and 1934 among landless farm labourers, whose high hopes were disappointed. This radicalized the rural working class and pushed it into the arms of the anarchist CNT, which had been opposed to the reform from the beginning because it was still capitalist and impeded real revolution. On the other hand, the process also united the traditionally dominant conservative social classes in the rural environments in opposition to the Republic.

The crumbling of the republican coalition and the unification of the conservative opposition In reality the broad coalition in support of the Republic lasted less than a year, and the republican regime was soon criticized by the extreme left and

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the anarchists for being too ‘soft’. They generally expressed their dissatisfaction with the incomplete ‘social Republic’ that had not delivered the immediate social improvements that they had expected. They organized mass-demonstrations against the Republic much as they had done against the dictatorship. This tension represented a deep split within republicanism between the principles of reformism and revolution, which had plagued it since its origins (Duarte 1997: 198–9). The government, however, maintained a tight control over issues of public order, striking hard against demonstrations, instituting martial law repeatedly in various cities and regions. The demonstrators, rightly, saw little difference between the reactions of the dictatorship and those of the republican government. Within a year, opposition against the republican regime was thus forming principally around two poles. On the one hand, a Catholic-conservative and monarchical pole had been formed to whom especially the anti-clerical policies of the republican regime and the non-confessional character of the new State were a provocation. On the other hand, there was the radical leftwing, anarchist, and labour movements to whom the repressive politics of public order served as a catalyst, even if these groups had been part of the original republican constituency. These developments helped to locate a new fault line within the republicans, which was going to make the governability of the Republic increasingly difficult. The problem was that the unity of the left wing and the republican parties had been largely based on the almost complete disintegration of the right wing after the fall of the military dictatorship and the subsequent flight of the King. Neither the constitutional Restoration monarchy nor the Primo de Rivera dictatorship had been able to provide durable solutions to a sufficient number of the grand societal problems. The collapse of the Catholic-conservative right-wing coalition of the 1920s thus helped the left-wing republican coalition to unite, but the apparent republican unanimity was not real and itself merely expressed the increasing polarization of Spanish society and political life.

The swing of the pendulum: the black ‘bienio’, 1933–5 In 1933, the effects of the global economic crisis was felt all over Spain with rising unemployment and scarcity of resources causing widespread discontent particularly among both the urban and rural working class that had put such high hopes in the Republic. This boosted the anarchist and leftist labour movements, but the manifestations of discontent were suppressed violently by the forces of public order which only widened the gap between reformist and revolutionaries within the regime. In the end the socialists could not bear to be part of a government that was responsible for enforcing law and order with violence and opted out, putting an end to the

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broad republican coalition. Prime Minister Azaña nevertheless struggled to keep the government in power, but the President of the Republic, Niceto Alcalá-Zamora had lost faith in the Azaña government and after various attempts he finally succeeded in having Azaña resign in autumn 1933. New elections were called in November, which incidentally was the first time that women could vote in general elections in Spain. The widespread critique of the republican government finally succeeded in making the right-wing forces unite in 1932 to create a new political party, the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas, or CEDA) under the leadership of José María Gil Robles. It was the first mass-based right-wing political movement in Spanish history and it maintained an ambivalent relationship with the Republic not committing itself to its democracy. The disunity of the left wing led the socialists and left-wing republicans to run for elections separately, dramatically diminishing their chances of success due to the republican electoral system. Furthermore, it certainly did not help the former socialist–republican coalition that the anarchists of the CNT ended up encouraging their members not to vote. The centrist republicans under Alejandro Lerroux, somewhat misleadingly called the Radical Republican Party, won the election together with the CEDA, helped by the electoral system that had favoured the socialist– republican coalition in the 1931 elections. The female vote probably also helped the conservative parties, since women were very concerned about the outcome of the Law of Congregation which potentially endangered the school attendance of 350,000 children from Catholic schools. Lerroux in the first instance chose to form a minority government, but the essential support from the CEDA of course also resulted in a large political influence. The Catholic schools were thus allowed to continue functioning and the agrarian reform was revised and in practice put on hold, which caused a lot of unrest in many rural areas. At the time of the 1933 elections the economic crisis was at its highest and social unrest was widespread. Political conspiracies grew everywhere, and in the streets both socialist and fascist groups were behind violent confrontations. The change of power in 1933 did not pacify the country and lead it towards a more constructive path of development. Indeed, right- and left-wing sympathizers were crystallized more and more leading to the formation of two relatively distinct blocs. The plan of the governing parties, particularly of the CEDA, had been to roll back the reforms of the first republican government, but various circumstances meant that a complete annulment was not possible. Instead the reform programme was halted. In relation to an overhaul of government, on 4 October 1934 when the CEDA finally succeeded in becoming a coalition partner of the government with three ministers, it came to riots in many places in Spain as the left wing feared that it was the prelude to a seizure of power like that of Adolf Hitler the year before. Only in Asturias did the revolutionary uprising last more

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than a couple of days and was only controlled by 18 October. It took the army’s Africa Corps under the leadership of General Francisco Franco to put down the revolution with great brutality. Some 1,300 people died or were executed, 3,000 were seriously wounded and approximately 30,000 were imprisoned. The revolution in Asturias became a turning point in the political development of the Republic because it made any collaboration between the right wing and the left wing practically impossible. The polarization of the political landscape was becoming irreversible. In Asturias the success of revolution was in large part due to the close collaboration between the socialists, the communists and the anarchists, which was to become a precedent for the later collaboration in the Popular Front.

The swing back: the Frente Popular In the autumn of 1935 the conservative government became involved in a corruption scandal and had to resign calling general elections in February 1936. Fearing defeat like in 1933 the centre and left-wing parties united with the regional parties of Catalonia and Galicia forming the electoral alliance Frente Popular, the Popular Front. The conservative period served to prepare a re-edition of the pro-republican coalition around the new concept of Popular Front. The anarchists did not join the Front, but refrained from campaigning against the left-wing republican coalition, something they had done in the previous elections. The Front won a narrow victory over the right-wing parties and was able to form a government. But the divisions within Spanish politics were now so sharp that democracy and the republican regime were threatened from two angles: the left wing feared a military coup and the right wing feared a fullblown revolution. The number of strikes and riots was increasing rapidly, started by the CNT, whose membership had risen to over one million. Political violence and terror also flared up with frequent murders of political opponents. By the summer of 1936 the trust in the republican system’s ability to bring about a solution to the divisions of political life in Spain was almost non-existent. It had shown itself incapable of bridging the divide between the two main options in Spanish politics and the two opposing national projects which they stood for. Instead polarization steadily increased. Fearing a coup, the government sent away its potential instigators but this did not prevent them from conspiring against the Republic. The assassination of the right-wing politician and former Minister of Finance José Calvo Sotelo on 13 July provided the right excuse and on 17 July 1936 a military uprising against the Spanish government began in Spanish Morocco. The coup attempt was led by General Mola in the north and General Franco in the south and was able to take over power in several parts

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of Spain, first and foremost the rural areas of the two Castiles, parts of Andalusia, Aragon, Navarre, the Canary Islands, Mallorca and all of Spanish Morocco. In the remaining areas, in particular the large cities such as Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao the uprising was contained and the republican executive remained in charge. The plan had of course been to cease power quickly, but the coup’s lack of total success turned it into a civil war (see Chapter 7 for details). Even if the reforms of 1931–3 represented an attempt to solve the most important societal problems of the time, the lack of consensus behind them combined with the left-republican alliance’s disregard for the monarchicalconservative sectors turned the reform programme into just another contribution to the mounting polarization. Viewed in a long-term perspective, the swinging of the political pendulum from right to left had become more and more extreme and from around 1917 there had been no real attempt at establishing broad consensual solutions. The governments always represented only one side of the increasingly divided Spanish society and largely governed against the other side. In the end the polarization rose to a critical level. An inability to seek consensus had come to characterize the political life of Spain since the beginning of constitutional parliamentarism in the early nineteenth century. Its ultimate outcome was the Civil War. It stemmed from this fundamental failure to solve the pressing problems of Spanish society.

The republican nation and its symbols As has been shown earlier, from the very beginning the republican regime attempted to create its own national symbols and to recycle old ones via formal initiatives. It should not be forgotten, however, that the republican Constitution of 1931 was the only constitution in Spanish history that omitted any explicit and direct reference to the Spanish nation, which points to an essential ambivalence in this matter. There was, in fact, a reference in the draft constitution drawn up by the Advisory Judicial Commission, but in the final version of fundamental law prepared by the Parliamentary Commission, the reference was suppressed. Such ambivalence was also present regarding a proper framework of national symbols where important dates and anniversaries were either created or recast by the republican authorities. In the quickly polarized climate of the Republic the effective celebration of these anniversaries was subject to radical variation from town to town, and from year to year, depending on the colour of the local government and the political mood of the moment. Towns ruled by non-republican forces, of course, celebrated differently from those ruled by republicans. In the radical towns the celebration of the anniversary of the Second Republic, the 14th of April, was turned into a ‘participatory drama’8 that aimed at popular participation,

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whereas the celebration in the moderate towns had a more elitist character consisting especially of military parades and receptions for local dignitaries (Radcliff 1997: 316–17). The ambivalence towards popular mobilization was a continuation of nineteenth-century liberals’ fear of the revolutionary potential of the people. When the republican symbols that the authorities in many places were ‘afraid’ to celebrate competed with other powerful symbols, the purely republican ones almost necessarily looked weak. This competition came not only from Catholic groups and the powerful Catholic symbols, but also from the internationalism of the radical leftist-anarchist labour-related world, as is the case with the celebration of the 1st of May, for example. As both the Catholic and the internationalist symbolic universes were related to different discourses of resistance against the republican regime, their symbols naturally found massive following among the respective constituencies. A holiday with the potential to become a powerful national symbol was the 2nd of May, anniversary of the uprising against the French occupation which ignited the War of Independence in 1808. This anniversary had enjoyed a long history of commemoration during the second half of the nineteenth century rooted in the liberal-progressive nationalist project but had never succeeded in becoming a truly national celebration. Early Spanish socialists had opposed its celebration and the commemoration acquired an ambivalent character. Already during the nineteenth century it was thus ‘polluted’ with certain anti-monarchist and xenophobic tinges. The commemoration in Madrid was celebrated exactly as before the Second Republic, that is basically as a local holiday with a military parade and a placing of a wreath of flowers at the monument (Radcliff 1997: 314–15). The reason behind not changing the celebration was quite simply that the republican regime maintained the same reticent attitude that the left wing had held for several decades. The commemoration was seen as politically incorrect due to being too madrileña at a time of rising peripheral nationalism, and too anti-French for those who saw a model in the neighbouring republic. Only after the beginning of the Civil War did the republicans begin celebrating the 2nd of May due to the mobilizing potential of the myth of the War of Independence. The later famous communist leader Santiago Carrillo, then leader of the Unified Socialist Youth (Juventud Socialista Unificada, or JSU), in May 1937 had to justify why they had suddenly begun to celebrate the 2nd of May: ‘The JSU vindicates today this celebration, it adopts it as its own, because this celebration had been stolen from us, because independence was won by the people’.9 The words of Carrillo thus confirm that the reason why the 2nd of May had not been celebrated in the Second Republic was that the anniversary, according to the republicans, had acquired reactionary undertones. After the outbreak of the war, however, the perceived parallels between the War of Independence and the Civil War immediately came to dominate the rhetoric of the republicans (Alonso de los Ríos 1999: 85–6).

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Developing the authoritarian ideology in the shadow of the Republic On the other hand, the republican regime continued to celebrate the Fiesta de la Raza. We know very little about how exactly it was commemorated, but it seems that the form was adapted slightly, emphasizing a more egalitarian relationship within the community of hispanidad.10 The ‘civic processions’ of schoolchildren through Madrid to the Plaza de Colón that had been customary under Primo de Rivera were thus abolished, but the academic sessions in the Universidad Central of Madrid continued with interventions by important politicians and intellectuals. The republicans were struggling against right-wing interpretations of hispanidad, which emphasized the religious and political bonds between Spain and HispanoAmerica, and instead sought to favour their own more cultural understanding of raza with the Spanish language as common denominator. In 1919, when the 12th of October had only just been made into the national holiday, the philosopher Unamuno had actually criticized the denomination of Fiesta de la Raza proposing instead what he saw as a more realistic name, the Day of the Language (Fiesta de la Lengua).11 On the 12th of October 1933, he again underlined the language as the only neutral common denominator of the many different people living in the area referred to by raza: The celebration of the spiritual raza should not, cannot have a racist meaning in the material sense . . . nor an ecclesiastic meaning – of this or that Church – and even less a political meaning. It is necessary to discard from this celebration any imperialism other than that of the spiritual raza incarnated in the language. A language of Whites, and Indians, and Blacks, and Mestizos, and of Mulattos; a language of Christians, Catholics and non-Catholics, and of non-Christians, and Atheists; a language of people who live under the most diverse political regimes12 [my emphasis]. But by this kind of attempt to come to terms with the concept of raza through defining it as a ‘spiritual raza’, Unamuno came to urge the interpretation exactly in the direction that the extreme right wing, and later the Francoists, were developing it (Pozo Andrés 2000: 265–6, Barrachina 1998: 170–2). The concept of hispanidad and the commemoration of it on the 12th of October were taken up with great enthusiasm by the Catholic-conservative opposition against the Republic, and turned into one of the most powerful symbols apart from the purely religious ones. The concept of hispanidad was thus elaborated further during these years, and quickly became one of the main tools in the radical right-wing ideological reaction against the Second Republic.

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This elaboration was led especially by a group of people linked to the new magazine Acción Española, which came to serve as refuge and nursery for reactionary thinking during the republican period. The very name of the magazine indicates the radical French right of Action Française as a source of inspiration. The movement aimed at reviving Spanish traditionalism, which as a ‘political theology’ was based on the Catholic religion as legitimization of an authoritarian monarchical regime. Despite its relatively limited size in terms of direct popular following; the ideas and doctrines that were elaborated around Acción Española were later to serve as foundations for the Francoist system to a much larger extent than, for example, those elaborated within the fascist party Falange Española (Payne 1993: 171–4, González Cuevas 1998: 339–99). The concept of hispanidad was a key element in this ideological effort, and Ramiro de Maeztu, editor of the review from 1933, was its principal promoter. The inaugural issue of the magazine, published on 15 December 1931, was headed by his article ‘La Hispanidad’, in which he promoted hispanidad instead of raza, as it had the qualities of a proper name and thereby directly evoked that which it referred to: The 12th of October, wrongly called Día de la Raza should hereafter be called Día de la Hispanidad. . . . If the concept of Christianity denominates and at the same time characterises all the Christian nations, why should we not coin another term, like Hispanidad, which also denominates and characterises the totality of Hispanic peoples? (Maeztu 1931: 8 [my emphasis]). The argument was directly copied from a text of 1926 by the priest Zacarías de Vizcarra, whom Maeztu had met in Buenos Aires when he was Spanish Ambassador to Argentina (González Cuevas 1997: 316–17). The interesting point here is not so much the distinction between the terms hispanidad and raza, which remained largely an intellectual affair; in practice the two terms were used as perfect synonyms. But Maeztu’s definition of hispanidad went beyond racial, cultural or linguistic affinity, and instead referred basically to the spiritual affinity derived from the religious spirit lying behind Spanish colonization. This shows how Unamuno’s criticism of the Fiesta de la Raza fitted almost perfectly into the reactionary thinking, even if he and Maeztu meant something different by spiritual raza. Maeztu wanted to revive the religious values of the Tridentine Council and the Counter-Reformation, thereby excluding the entire body of thought derived from the Enlightenment. As a worldview, Maeztu conceived of hispanidad as an alternative to the disorder created by modernity, linking it to fascist-inspired imagery and emphasizing the ideas of ‘historical destiny’ and ‘Volksgeist’. Maeztu continued the discussion of hispanidad in a series of articles in Acción Española during the years 1932–6,13 but above all it was his book Defensa de la hispanidad from 1934 that was decisive in popularizing the concept. In

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it he condensed the historical definition of Spanish traditional ideology, opposing it to both the communism of Soviet Russia and to the materialistic liberalism of Anglo-American inspiration. The book would later become one of the ideological pillars of the Franco regime. In the political context of the Second Republic, the idea of hispanidad served as a platform for the re-launch of the traditionalist ideology, specifically directed against the republican regime. This discourse was based on three equations: America is Spain, Spain is Catholicism, and therefore hispanidad is Catholicism. Catholicism characterizes everything Hispanic, and thus everything non-Catholic is anti-Hispanic. The divine meaning of Spanish history, the ‘historical destiny’ of Spain, had been to defend the Catholic faith, and therefore it had been God’s will that Spain ‘discovered’ and colonized America. The success of the enterprise could only be explained by the greatness of the ideal, and therefore the decadence of Spain and the loss of the Empire were due to the secularization of Spanish society and the loss of that guiding ideal. This theological argument justified, in the context of the 1930s, the need to revive the old Spanish ideal and the monarchical institution that incarnated it, and thus it was transformed into a political ideal in opposition to the then existing regime, the Second Republic. Destiny here meant mission and thus political project.

Conclusions: the republican nation The political-ideological attitude of the Spanish left wing and the centre-left before and even during the Republic was in fact inspired by the Spanish nationalism of the nineteenth century liberal-progressive and republican tradition and even the socialist opinion, which in turn was motivated by the Second International’s stand on the issue. In terms of practical nationbuilding, however, the republican regime was consumed by splits and divisions both from within and without, and every political action – also symbolic action – became dominated by partisanship. The republican regime showed itself unable to capitalize on the majoritarian backing in its initial phases to build the republican nation and could not consolidate a set of national symbols that were broadly accepted and perceived as such. The republicans tended to take the existence of a republican nation for granted, misinterpretating the public euphoria which had characterized the fall of the monarchy and the advent of the republic. Overlooking the multiple reasons for celebrating this change of regime, the new republican elite failed ‘to understand the need actively to take on the political and cultural task of “making the nation”’ (Graham 1996: 136). The republican elites did not realize that it was still necessary to turn the Castilian peasants, the Catalan workers, the Andalusian day-labourers, and so on, into good republican Spaniards. Most of the new elites viewed popular mobilization ambivalently as something dangerous and uncontrollable. The bottom-up link between

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the fragmented constituencies of republican Spain and the republican State was missing, chiefly for this reason. The republican project thus suffered from the absence of an overarching mobilizing nationalism, and instead privileged state construction over building the republican nation. By the Civil War, it was too late to remedy this failure. The Catholic-conservative anti-republican forces did not make that mistake. They produced a set of symbols with sufficient emotional and visual appeal to communicate the idea of common destiny as a political project. Calling Franco’s troops the ‘National Forces’, is an eloquent example of the extent to which they ably linked their cause to an idea of the Spanish nation, which ultimately justified their attack on the republican regime. The fact that very different forces joined and supported the uprising can to a large extent be explained precisely by the power of an appealing national discourse sustained by its own symbols and rituals.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Civil War (1936–9): Military confrontation of the two national projects

The uprising divides Spain The military uprising on 18 July 1936 was closely related to the national question. Even if the republicans did not agree internally on the concept of Spain, the rebels rose against the republican regime because they perceived republican politics to be fundamentally different from their own conception of Spain. The confrontation had been building for a long time and as the uprising neither succeeded nor failed, the conflict developed into a civil war. It would thus ultimately be a question of military power to decide which conception of the nation was going to be dominant. Both sides were coalitions of forces and each therefore contained a variety of positions, but the war itself forced the necessary simplification. As Xosé-Manoel Núñez states: ‘both sides chose nationalism as a tool for mobilization [and] as a rational strategy to . . . efficiently cover up and dilute their internal divisions and political (or national) contradictions’ (Núñez Seixas 2005: 45 [emphasis in original]). In the simplified scheme of national projects that resulted from the outbreak of the war, the republican side was the inheritor of the liberalprogressive way of conceiving the nation, whereas the ‘national’ side represented the Catholic-conservative conception. To this panorama should be added the Catalan and Basque nationalists, with their own national projects to develop. Neither one of the contending parties, however, admitted that it was a civil war and thus an internal Spanish affair. In their propaganda, they both presented it as a war against foreign intervention in Spanish affairs by an 55

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ideological enemy that was going to take over Spain. According to the Francoists, the enemy was communism and its Soviet vassals, and according to the republicans, it was fascism and its German and Italian patrons. This conception of the war permitted both parties to present themselves as the true representatives and defenders of the Spanish nation, and helped obscure the fact that it was largely Spaniards who were fighting on both sides (Aguilar Fernández 1997b). The military uprising and the ensuing civil war split Spain in two halves: the republican zone still under the control of the democratically elected government and the so-called national or nationalist zone under the control of rebel generals. In the republican area, which comprised just over half the territory and approximately 14 million of Spain’s 24 million inhabitants, the political institutions continued functioning under the leadership of President Manuel Azaña. But it was a weakened government that had lost a large part of its political powers due to, among other reasons, the fact that it had armed the large unions to fight the military rebels and inevitably increased their political power in the process. Approximately 8,500 officers and 160,000 soldiers, the majority of the air force and almost the entire navy remained loyal to the Republic, but partly due to the displacement of power that occurred during the first days of the war, almost the entire military organization was in practice dismantled and substituted by the popular militia that the unions and the left-wing parties had created. Due to the de facto dissolution of the State, the left wing and the unions seized sufficient power in various areas of Spain to attempt the social revolution they had dreamt about: the collectivization of rural and industrial estates. In September 1936 a new government was formed in Madrid with the purpose of strengthening the authority of the State and, by militarizing their structure, increasing the fighting efficiency of the popular militia. But the centralization process progressed only slowly and was resisted from many sides. Catalonia and the Basque Country and their respective regional governments had practically no direct relationship with the republican government in Madrid due to geographical isolation and, in line with this, not all militias accepted the militarization process. The internal splits and different agendas became, and remained throughout, a constant problem for the Republic. The nationalist zone in the beginning comprised just under half the territory and approximately ten million inhabitants. Approximately 14,000 officers and 150,000 soldiers sided with the rebels against the Republic. Among these, however, were the two elite units of the army: the Legion, which had been created in Spanish Morocco in the image of the French Foreign Legion and the so-called ‘Regulars’ (Regulares), which were Moroccan elite troops. There was in the rebel zone of course, an obvious lack of supreme authority just after the outbreak of the war. Every general could in principle exert his authority in the area where he was designated general and in this way a series of military power centres arose. This

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military power, however, was centralized relatively quickly and a rigorous dictatorial rule tried thereafter to win the war quickly and roll back the republican reforms but as yet without a common political project with which to replace them. In October 1936, the military junta named Franco supreme leader and transferred to him all authority and powers. The army was the most important element in the new dictatorial State and after having declared a state of war in all the territories controlled by the rebels, the army with Franco at its head was firmly in power. At the beginning of the war the rebel army was relatively small in size, but contrary to the situation on the republican side, the internal structures were intact as was the discipline. There were also civilian militias, particularly Falangists and traditionalists, which supported the rebel cause. They, however, were forced to join the army and submit themselves to its command. The political and social groups that supported the rebellion were also ‘centralized’. They were comprised principally of right-wing forces, monarchists, Falangists and traditionalists. In April 1937 they were all forced into the unitary party, The Movement (El Movimiento), which became the only legal political party. The Church had not participated directly in the rebellion, but gave its blessing to it and thereby helped to legitimize the Civil War. In the nationalist zone a counter-revolution took place, which stood in sharp contrast to the often revolutionary circumstances in the republican zone. Large rural and industrial estates, which had been expropriated during the Republic, were given back to their original owners and in general traditional, conservative values were used as guidelines: private property, Catholicism, law and order.

International involvement in the war In spite of the purely Spanish reasons behind the conflict, the Civil War was presented by both parties as a war of liberation, fighting foreign infiltration, as explained above. The outside world interpreted the war as stemming from the clash between fascism and communism and therefore a conflict with a clearly identifiable European dimension. It is this perception in European countries far from Spain that led large bodies of volunteers to participate in the war on both sides. In total between 40,000 and 50,000 volunteers came to Spain to fight on the side of the Republic in the renowned International Brigades, while Franco’s side, on the other hand, received the help of between 140,000 and 150,000 volunteers. Of these, the approximately 100,000 Italians constituted the largest contingent: the aid to the Nationalists against the Republic’s anti-clerical and anti-Catholic violence worked well in Mussolini’s propaganda aimed at Catholics in Italy. From the outset of the war the rebellion received military, financial and political support from Salazar’s authoritarian Portugal, Mussolini’s fascist

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Italy and Hitler’s national-socialist Germany. Already during the first weeks of the war, Germany and Italy helped the rebels by sending airplanes and battleships, so that General Franco’s African army could cross the Strait of Gibraltar and join the forces on the Spanish mainland. Soon thereafter the Wehrmacht created a special expeditionary corps, ‘the Condor Legion’, which from November 1936 was employed on the nationalist side principally as flying artillery. They commanded 140 battle-ready fighter aircraft but also some tanks and a few ships. The members of the Condor Legion only served for relatively short periods before being replaced in order to fulfil the Wehrmacht’s most important objective – to give the largest possible number of German soldiers practical war experience. In total approximately 19,000 men served in the Condor Legion until the end of the war. Today the Condor Legion is talked about particularly in connection with the destruction of the Basque town of Guernica on 26 April 1937 because of the international outrage the attack caused; the official neutrality of Hitler in the war was false. The war reporter George Steer stated that he had found pieces of bombshells displaying the German eagle and as the story went around the world the denial by the Franco regime was not believed. It was even said that the Basques themselves had blown up the town! The number of casualties has been a matter of dispute, but it is certain to have been significantly lower that the immediate Basque accounts reporting more than 1,650 deaths. The most recent investigations seem to indicate figures as low as 160 casualties, possibly because the citizens in reality were relatively wellprepared because they feared such an airstrike. Even if the attack on Guernica is the Condor Legion’s most well-known effort during the war and is famous for being history’s first terror attack on a civilian population, the Legion had in fact already attacked Madrid and other towns in Andalusia and the Basque Country in similar ways before Guernica. Deployed as they were under the Francoist supreme command, the Condor Legion strove to realize the German concept of ‘operative air war’ which meant a type of airborne warfare which was relatively independent of army operations on the ground. The leader of Legion Condor, Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, wrote in his diary that the attack with fire- and explosive bombs had been a ‘technical success’ and estimated the ‘amount of destruction’ of the town to have been 75 per cent. The ensuing propaganda war led to many claims but there is thus little doubt that a full-scale terror attack was attempted. Contrary to the authoritarian countries, the democratic European nations with Britain and France in the lead, attempted to avoid intervening in the Civil War. The politics of non-intervention in reality prevented the Spanish Republic from getting any help from the outside and from buying the necessary weapons and ammunition. In this way the Republic was a victim of particularly a British–French attempt at avoiding unleashing a European war, an interpretation that once again underscores its dimensions. Only Mexico and particularly the Soviet Union supported the Republic materially.

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Of great importance also was the creation of the International Brigades, made up of anti-fascist volunteers recruited through campaigns in Europe and the United States. The initiative behind the creation of the brigades and the enrolment campaigns came from Komintern, the Communist International. Even if many of the volunteers lacked practical military training, the brigades came to play an important symbolic role for the survival of the Republic.

The Civil War as a conflict of different national narratives Both sides appealed to history. The historical reference par excellence was the War of Independence of 1808–14. As the war against Napoleon had entered the historical master narrative as a war against a foreign invader, its usefulness for propaganda purposes in the Civil War is obvious. Therefore, as explained above, both parties also began celebrating the 2nd of May fervently, even if they had not done so before the outbreak of the war (Serrano 1999: 316–17, Aguilar Fernández 1997b). Both sides also celebrated the Fiesta de la Raza. The republican regime continued to celebrate it in all three years of the war (Alonso de los Ríos 1999: 88). In 1937, the republican General Miaja thus complained that the Francoists were trying to appropriate the commemoration for imperialist goals. The Francoists responded that the republicans probably had celebrated the Fiesta de la Raza to the sound of the International, trying to underline the fundamental incompatibility, in their eyes, between the republicans and the commemoration. They found it inconceivable that communists could celebrate unity of the Fatherland within a framework that was Catholic (González Calleja and Limón Nevado 1988: 82–3). The imperialist element of hispanidad, nevertheless, was a sensitive issue on the Francoist side during the Civil War. In fact, in most Hispano-American countries hostility towards Franco was widespread due to the rhetoric of imperialism, and Francoist intellectuals tried to underline the fact they were referring to a spiritual empire. General Miaja had thus also tried to hit the sore point of the enemy. On the whole, however, the Francoist side instrumentalized the concept of hispanidad most efficiently. They strove to monopolize the interpretation of hispanidad, seeing it as a sum of the ideas of Catholicism, empire, raza, and unity. Hispanidad was thus not just a historical concept referring to Spanish history; it was also seen as a project of regeneration, at least by some Francoist intellectuals. Solidarity with the Hispano-American peoples was invoked in a maternalistic tone, and generally the American public remained suspicious of Spanish rhetoric. This did not matter greatly, because it continued to be a discourse principally destined for internal Spanish consumption. It supplied a series of simple images, symbols and

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myths, which were to leave their imprint on the regime and the collective mentality (González Calleja and Limón Nevado 1988: 47–96). The republicans, on their side, did not rely solely on patriotism in their propaganda. They tended to mix their national enthusiasm with other political myths which they considered their movement to represent, such as progress, liberty, democracy, equality and so on. The Francoists, on the other hand, concentrated largely on the national dimension in their rhetoric. Furthermore, the Catholic Church sided with the rebels, which from the very beginning of the Civil War permitted the rebel side to present their cause in religious terms as a Crusade against the infidels. This greater simplicity gave the Francoist side an advantage in comparison with the diffuse nature of republican propaganda (Álvarez Junco 1997: 63–6, Núñez Seixas 2005: 67, Aguilar Fernández 1997b). The Church, however, participated not only in terms of lending legitimacy and practical support; it also held a particular place in the Francoist conception of the Spanish nation. The defence of the nation and of Catholicism was common to almost all factions on the Francoist side, and the old conservative idea of consubstantiality between Spain, the nation and Catholicism was adopted with enthusiasm. The concept of hispanidad and the related ideas of raza and empire were part of this ‘package’ since they were based on the idea of Spain as evangelizer of America and defender of Catholicism. This body of ideas had been developed during the 1930s in reactionary circles around journals like the above-mentioned Acción Española, as one of the nationalist currents that participated on the Francoist side. According to Núñez, they did not form a coherent ideology at the time of the war itself, but afterwards they supplied the main ingredients of the doctrine that was later called ‘National-Catholicism’.1 After the victory of the Civil War, the doctrine became a fundamental pillar of the Franco regime (Núñez Seixas 2005: 55–60, Botti 1992: 89–100, Aguilar Fernández 1997a, Saz Campos 2003). The peripheral nationalists generally sided with the Republic because it was clear that victory by the rebels would mean the end to their aspirations of autonomy. Only Catalonia, however, had a functioning autonomy statute at the time of the outbreak of the war, whereas the statutes of the Basque Country and Galicia still had not been ratified. Practically the entire region of Galicia fell under the control of the rebels immediately after the outbreak of the war, whereas the Basque Country was divided between the Francoists and the republicans. In October 1936, the republican Parliament ratified the Basque autonomy statute and Basque autonomy was set in motion. The fact that the peripheral nationalists sided with the Republic was thus due not so much to any kind of national identification with the Republic but because of its commitment to regional autonomy. The best example of this ambivalent attitude is that the strongly conservative and Catholic PNV which, after initial doubts, finally sided with the Second Republic even if its ideological preferences were much closer to those of the rebel side. The rivalry and

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disputes between the powers that emerged in the republican zone after 1936 thus contained a strong centre-periphery component. Especially the Basque nationalists, but to a lesser extent also the Catalan nationalists, saw the exceptional wartime circumstances as an opportunity to claim their independent spheres of power. With the aim of furthering their own cause, the Basques even committed serious disloyalties towards the republican authorities during the war. Their support for the republican regime, however, depended on its responsiveness to their claims, both immediately and in the future after an eventual victory over the Francoists. They were fighting for an asymmetric federal or confederal republic, and saw their own war effort as a proof of this new type of relation between the peoples of Spain, characterized by solidarity instead of Castilian paternalism. The republican regime, on its side, regarded the regional governments as usurpers who exploited the exceptional circumstances for their own purposes, and it therefore attempted to counteract their claims and regain control of the mechanisms of power. This dynamic contributed to reawaken reactive patriotism among the republican elites, and already during the first year of the war the tendency to emphasize the unity of Spain increased markedly (Núñez Seixas 2005: 62–7). The process of forging one coherent national project and ideology out of the ideas and views of the different factions behind the uprising is to a large extent demonstrable in the process of accepting, adapting and refashioning the national symbols. Initially, there was no agreement among the different factions as to which kind of national project was represented. As the historian Rafael Cruz notes, ‘[t]he military rebellion on 18 July had no flag’ (Cruz 2005: 167). Originally, the uprising aimed at achieving national reintegration through the restoration of order and civilization, and thus not at overthrowing the Republic. The initial lack of political definition had as a natural counterpart the coexistence of various symbols in the streets of the cities taken by the rebels. Cruz describes how, in most places, the generals of the uprising initially were honouring the republican tricolour flag and cheering ‘Long live the Republic!’ The failure of the uprising, however, made a clearer political – and symbolic – definition necessary, which inevitably led to an intense struggle over symbols between the various factions behind the uprising. Each organization had its own flag, its own anthem and its own colours, and they were all trying to influence the military authorities to impose their symbols and interpretations. The bicolour flag was generally associated with the monarchists, but, as Cruz notes, ‘[t]he flag displayed by the Renovación monarchists . . . was the Cross of Santiago; the one displayed by the Carlists contained the X-shaped Cross of Burgundy; Acción Católica and Acción Popular had their own flag; the Falangists used the red and black flag’ (Cruz 2005: 165). Without going deeper into this matter it is clear that, initially; the rebel side, reflecting the coexistence of various projects, had no single agreed set of symbols (Saz Campos 2003).

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During the remaining weeks of July after the uprising, and into the early weeks of August, however, the bicolour flag became increasingly dominant. It thus took approximately one and a half months before the bicolour red and yellow flag, as the first important symbol, was declared the official flag of Spain by a decree of 29 August 1936. Thereby, the tricolour flag was turned into the symbol of the enemy, the Republic. In the decree, the National Defence Junta implicitly recognized the flag as the outcome of the symbolic struggle by stating that it was the preferred flag of the majority of the population (Cruz 2005: 167, Serrano 1999: 102, O’Donnell y Duque de Estrada 2000: 357–9).2 It took the other national symbols longer to reappear or be fashioned. The Royal March was re-established as the ‘National Anthem’ half a year later by a decree of 27 February 1937 (Lolo 2000: 447–50). Apart from the unfortunate fact that the Royal March lacked lyrics, it was not unanimously perceived to be the national anthem, and other hymns disputed its symbolic pre-eminence. By then, the musically more attractive Falangist hymn Cara al sol, created in 1935 by the composer Juan Tellería,3 for example, was already widely sung among the Francoists (Cruz 2005: 168, Serrano 1999: 112–13). The Francoist system of symbols was not complete, however, until the promulgation of a coat of arms. As a temporary solution, a supplementary Order of the National Defence Junta of the 13 September 1936, two weeks after the decree on the flag, authorized that the republican coat of arms should remain in the national flag (O’Donnell y Duque de Estrada 2000: 357). This is a remarkable decision given the fact that the coat of arms was the most clearly national of the principal symbols, whereas both the flag and the anthem had a clear monarchical origin. Being a complex symbol, however, the quick decision to authorize use of the republican coat of arms was probably due to the difficulty of reaching an agreement on the issue at this early stage before the movement had been unified under the direction of Franco. The process of substituting the coat of arms thus took significantly longer than it had taken to inaugurate the aforementioned two national symbols. Only on 2 February 1938, after the unification of the Movement and with Franco as undisputed leader of the Francoist state in formation, was a new coat of arms promulgated by a decree. The text clearly signalled the need to manifest the change of regime in a new design of symbols: ‘After having been instituted, through the glorious national revolution of 1936, a new State, which is radically different in its essences from the one it is substituting, it becomes necessary that this change is reflected in the national emblems.’4 The design was mainly inspired by the coat of arms of the Catholic Monarchs. The way of disposing the fields, the eagle of Saint John, the open royal crown, as well as the yoke and the arrows were taken directly from their coat of arms. The only difference was that the kingdom of Navarre substituted the kingdom of Aragon-Sicily. From the national coat of arms of

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the provisional government from 1868, the Francoist design included the crowned columns of Hercules with bands which read ‘PLVS’ and ‘VLTRA’ in the archaic form of writing that so pleased the Franco regime. Lastly, a band with the motto reading ‘VNA GRANDE LIBRE’ was of purely Francoist invention (Serrano 1999: 102–4, Menéndez Pidal de Navascués 2000: 219–20). The new coat of arms thus did not simply restore those of Alfonso XIII, which were similar to both those of the provisional government and the Second Republic. By choosing the coat of arms of the Catholic Monarchs as its source of inspiration, the Franco regime broke completely with the liberal inheritance, searching instead for its symbolic and historic references in medieval Spanish history, in the reconquest and in the reign of the Catholic Monarchs. The Civil War was thus fashioned as a parallel to the reconquest and a kind of Spanish version of the medieval crusades, hence the insistence on calling it a ‘Crusade’. By early 1938, thus, the Francoists had elaborated a set of national symbols in line with the composite ideology of the regime as monarchical ma non troppo and molto National-Catholic in the manner of the Catholic Monarchs and their Inquisition, that is with the elimination of whoever was found to deviate from the proper definition of the national body. A little over a year later, the military completed their part of the task by winning the Civil War thereby consecrating the Francoist definition of the Spanish nation.

The results of the Civil War Put very simply, the Civil War meant that the conflict between the two different and increasingly opposed visions of the Spanish nation were to be decided by military means. Even if neither of the two coalitions of forces had agreed internally on a particular idea about the Spanish nation, the logic of the war would force them increasingly to do so, particularly on the Francoist side which applied a military unity of command-logic to all aspects of leadership. The fact that this logic could not be implemented in the same way on the republican side was precisely one of its principal weaknesses, both in terms of warfare as well as in terms of producing a credible alternative vision of Spain. The passivity of the democratic nations and the active intervention of Germany and Italy were decisive for Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War. Another important factor was the internal conflicts on the republican side. During some of the most decisive months for the war effort anarchists and communists were fighting each other bitterly behind the front, which was in sharp contrast to the unification of forces, ideologies and symbols in addition to the hard discipline that Franco succeeded in imposing among his troops and supporters. As the relative strength of the two contending forces

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changed in favour of the nationalists, the republicans at various times sought a negotiated solution to the war. But Franco wanted an unconditional surrender, which he finally achieved with the victory of 1 April 1939. The direct consequence of this defeat was the military dictatorship of Franco that was to last more than thirty-six years until his death in 1975. The Civil War was a total war with extensive use of destructive weapons causing great material damage and innumerable casualties. Exactly how many people died is difficult to assess. The most cautious estimates speak of 145,000 deaths in the battlefields. The death toll from the repression of opponents behind the lines was almost equally high, approximately 135,000, to which have to be added the 50,000 people executed by the Franco regime between 1939 and 1945. Approximately 400,000 were wounded in battle operations and became totally or partially invalid and until 1945 as many as 300,000 prisoners of war were kept in jail or concentration camps. More than half a million people fled the country resulting in a real brain drain, since a large number of the exiled were intellectuals and scientists.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Franco regime (1939–75): Victory of the National-Catholic project

Military victory of one national idea The Civil War produced a profound fracturing of the national community as it was consolidated by a dictatorship which deprived approximately half of the citizens, the losers of the war, of their identity as Spaniards. The new State that appeared after the victory had its roots in the years of war. Franco emerged already in October 1936 as the personification of the regime accumulating both the roles as Head of State and as Head of Government, granted him by his fellow generals, besides being the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. Somewhat later, in April 1937, the various parties of supporters – the Falangists, the Carlists, the monarchists and the Catholic conservatives – were amalgamated into a single party, the National Movement, also headed by Franco, and since then his authority had been practically absolute. The regime rested on three institutions: the army, the Church and the Falange converted into the central column of the National Movement, but the regime would allow for a limited pluralism under the form of the so-called ‘political families’. It was basically an authoritarian and conservative regime consonant with Franco’s own ideological preferences which were, however, always secondary and malleable to some extent to serve his principal interest of remaining in power. He maintained control through a strategy of ‘divide et impera’ continuously shifting the balance of power between the different ‘families’ within the regime according to internal and external pressures. One of the best examples of these adjustments is the changing attitude of Franco’s regime during the Second World War. Despite having signed a 65

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secret German–Spanish friendship treaty, Franco declared Spain to be ‘neutral’ when the Second World War broke out in September 1939. There were no spare resources for a new war and the General did not dare to send the army out of the country fearing a republican rebellion. In the summer of 1940, when Germany was having success on the battlefield, Franco let Spain change its official status to ‘non-belligerent’ and gave the Falangists a more prominent place within the regime to give the appearance of a more Germanfriendly political line. Franco and Hitler actually met in October 1940, but whether Franco really wanted to enter into the war remains uncertain. On the one hand, he demanded a high price for entering into the war – Gibraltar and French Morocco, which would give Spain the control over the entry into the Mediterranean – and, on the other, Spain was of only marginal interest to Hitler. Spain never actually entered the war and instead sent the so-called Blue Division to fight on the eastern front from summer 1941. It was a division of voluntary Falangists that were enrolled in the German army to fight the Soviet Union in an ‘anti-communist crusade’. Approximately 40,000 men served in the Blue Division. In the summer of 1942, when the fate of Germany in the war no longer seemed so certain, Franco started to tone down the fascist politics and adjusted the internal balance between the ‘political families’ beginning a gradual removal of the Falangists from the central ministries favouring instead the Catholics within his government. From October 1943 the regime officially returned to the policy of neutrality and limited the diplomatic and commercial connections with Germany. However, the fascist character of the Franco regime remained so clear that most observers expected the regime to be removed at the end of the war. But the Allies did not agree on what to do about Franco’s Spain but did view his regime as a pre-war relic and emphasized the help from Italy and Germany as decisive in winning the Civil War. Conceiving Spain as the only remaining fascist regime represented an interpretation that still divided the world into fascist and anti-fascist states. The Soviet Union and France favoured intervention in Spain to get rid of Franco, whereas the United States and Britain opposed meddling in internal Spanish affairs. In the end, the attitude of Britain and the United States won: Franco was allowed to stay in power, but was isolated internationally as a punishment. After the Second World War the Franco regime emphasized a new anticommunist version of the victory in the Civil War presenting itself as the victor over communist infiltration in Spain. According to the regime, it practically invented anti-communism. There are clear indications that Franco and his closest companions foresaw the future division of the world into communist and anti-communist states as in fact did happen with the coming of the Cold War. In their own analysis, all they had to do was to wait for it to happen and, effectively, the anti-communist stance would eventually operate to lift the international isolation of the regime somewhat.

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Post-war economy Economically, the Civil War ruined the already troubled economy of Spain. The war effort itself is estimated to have cost approximately one year’s GDP and the war had destroyed a large number of public buildings, private houses and infrastructure. Also agriculture, still the mainstay for very many Spaniards, had suffered, with the cultivated area being reduced by a quarter and the cattle population by a third. The human losses mentioned above were not only tragic for all those directly concerned, it also meant a serious economic loss for the country since it reduced the work force considerably. Furthermore, among the imprisoned and exiled were many of the most qualified Spaniards. The Spanish economy in 1939 thus was set back in its development by decades and resembled what it was like at the turn of the century: only by the mid-1950s did it regain its pre-Civil War level. The difficult conditions of life in post-Civil War Spain was directly reflected in the demographic growth, which slowed down considerably particularly in the 1940s. By the end of the decade the population had reached twentyeight million after an increase of only 8 per cent. In the 1950s the population grew by 8.8 per cent reaching 30.5 million in 1960. One of the first problems to hit the Spanish economy in 1939 was serious food shortages and consequent increases in the prices, particularly in the towns and cities, resulting in the first and only reverse exodus from industrial towns back to the countryside. But lack of fertilizers and the backward nature of the agricultural production together with a series of bad harvests in the 1940s meant that agricultural production was not normalized until the early 1950s. Industrial production was hit at least as badly by the war as the agricultural, which was a serious problem at a time when the country could not afford to import. The Second World War made it difficult and expensive to buy anything abroad and when the war was over the international isolation of Spain continued to cause difficulties in its economic relationship with the outside world. In its fascist-inspired origins the Franco regime was fundamentally anticapitalist as regards economic policy. Partly as a kind of ideological selfdefence against the punitive isolation and, partly due to the economic deterioration caused by the Civil War and the Second World War, Franco therefore tried to cure the economy by import substitution and the creation of a largely self-sufficient market. The means to control this process were a series of state interventions in the economy such as a whole range of subsidies, heavy restrictions on imports and exports, a tight control with the creation and expansion of private businesses and the creation of a stateowned holding company, the National Institute of Industry (Instituto Nacional de Industria, or INI), inspired by Mussolini’s Italy. The politics of self-sufficiency not only attempted to solve temporary difficulties but was related directly to the goal of turning Spain into an independent power.

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Therefore, particular emphasis was placed on industries of strategic military interest and foreign investments in Spain were blocked. The policies of import substitution and self-sufficiency were maintained until the late 1950s when they had been superfluous for a while and were causing more harm than benefit by spending valuable resources on keeping alive inefficient productive activity. A secondary explanation behind maintaining the autarchic economic paradigm, however, probably lies in its constituting a valuable tool to the regime for controlling Spanish business life and giving its supporters lucrative business opportunities.

The Francoist national project In terms of nationalist projects, Franco’s military victory also meant one for the by then relatively unified, nationalist project embodied in the Catholicconservative and traditionalist idea of Spain developed in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Anyone with another conception of Spain was classified as ‘Anti-España’ – an idea originally launched in the late nineteenth century by philologist and right-wing ideologist Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo (see Chapter 3) – and forced to convert to the right nationalist credo or literally driven out of the country or eradicated. After the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’ conflicting nationalist projects and the pecuniary difficulties of the State, Franco’s military dictatorship staged the first – and only – decided attempt at nationalizing Spaniards. He backed it with the necessary political will and to some degree, unlike earlier attempts, also the means to realize it. But the attempt came too late, and it was a forced nationalization based on the neutralization of half the population, without ever attempting to integrate the vanquished. For many Spaniards it was impossible to identify with the image of Spain projected by the Spanish nationalism of Franco. The Francoist nationalization therefore came against the wrong background: the victory in a civil war. To try to nationalize a defeated but significant part of the population by imposing ideas they rejected, was obviously not going to work. What worked was brutal force and oppression. To a large extent, therefore, the nationalization process was a prolongation of the Civil War by other means, aimed at consolidating the split in the national community instead of favouring a unifying and reconciliatory discourse on the nation. Despite the fact that the regime was closely allied with the Catholic Church, the Francoist State showed no forgiveness towards the vanquished. If repression had been harsh in the Francoist rearguard during the war, it became institutionalized after the victory with the aim of ‘cleansing’ Spain of the ideologies and all their supporters that had corrupted its true identity: a language which paralleled the harsher part of the turn-of-the-century regenerationist and Primo de Rivera’s rhetoric. The principal recipients of repression were of course communists, Jews and

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freemasons, but enemies comprised all supporters of the republican regime including the defenders of separate Basque and Catalan identities. The means to obtain the purification of Spain was mass executions, exile, imprisonment and redemption through penal labour. It is estimated that at least 10,000 people were executed in the first five months after the victory (Balfour 2000: 266) and the total number of executions between 1939 and 1945 might excede 50,000. Over half a million people went into exile of which only about 100,000 returned to Spain. Furthermore, up to about 500,000 were interned in concentration camps that were created during the Civil War and the last of which continued functioning until 1947 (Rodrigo 2005) and several thousand passed through forced-labour camps. Last but not least, the nationalization process was driven forward through the education system, the media, military service, etc.

Victory in symbols In fact, the efforts towards nationalization had begun quickly after the outbreak of the war. As soon as the military leaders grasped the need to unify, the official rhetoric focused on the symbols considered to be national with actions which have just been considered. Having established the national symbols in these years, they remained basically unaltered during the entire period of the dictatorship. Perhaps the only significant effort at changing or enhancing these symbols was the attempt to find suitable words for the national anthem. Immediately after the Civil War, the writer and member of the Spanish Royal Academy José María Pemán thus composed a lyric to the Royal March, but it was never accepted as a new national hymn (Serrano 1999: 112–13). In practice, the Falangist hymn ‘Cara al sol’ was adopted as an unofficial national anthem by the Franco regime and used, for example, in transmissions of the national radio company as its identification mark. Besides the flag, the anthem and the coat of arms, special attention was also dedicated to fashioning a new calendar of holidays and commemorations. The Franco regime, not unlike the contemporary regimes in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, developed a particular predilection for ceremonies in which to represent itself as the creator of a new historical epoch and at the same time inheritor of a glorious past. This profusion of ceremonies created a sort of temporal lapse in which, at each celebration, the progression of time seemed to stop or even return to its origin, fusing past and present (Barrachina 1998: 181). The historical moments and events with which the regime was identified thus merged in a mosaic of simultaneity. Even if a sort of continuity was created with the various different events and regimes this was done without bothering about creating a chronologically coherent master narrative. The task of the Francoist ceremonies was to transform past events into eternally present ones as classical lieux de mémoire (see Chapter 1 and

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Nora 1984–92). The events or regimes that were being commemorated, like for example the Catholic Monarchs to whose rule the Franco regime owed a large symbolic debt, represented abstract values and qualities more than precise events, regimes, or historical figures inserted in any specific historical narrative. The Civil War was a kind of purgatory that, on the one hand, brought together all the other elements and, on the other, paralysed history since the enemy had been defeated. The victory in the Civil War, of course, constituted the Franco regime’s principal source of legitimacy and in its own eyes gave it the right to hold power and govern Spain. Following the final victory on 1 April 1939, the celebrations that took place all over Spain naturally culminated in Madrid. The 19th of May 1939 was declared ‘Day of the Victory’,1 and for two days a ritual of power, both in terms of the military power of the victorious army as well as in terms of religious legitimization of this power, was staged in the capital. From 1940, the grandiose military parade was repeated in Madrid each year on the 1st of April, the actual anniversary of the victory, turning the military parade into an authentic topos of the Franco regime. The parade, which generally lasted for hours, was used not only to repeat the triumph in the Civil War, collapsing past and present, but also to enthrone Franco as the ‘undefeated Caudillo’ (Caudillo invicto). Despite the basically immutable character of the event, its representation was often given an ideological twist, especially in the media, fine-tuning it to the national and international context of the time. The civil, internal character of the war was thus often blurred to instead represent it as Spain’s successful fight against communism (Tranche and Sánchez-Biosca 2000: 202–7, 295–321).

Out of isolation into the growth of the West During the 1950s the international isolation of Spain was lifted as the Cold War changed the priorities of the Western Allies, first through bilateral accords with the Vatican and the United States in 1953 and later through membership of the United Nations in 1955 and of the OEEC, the World Bank and the IMF in the late 1950s. This partial integration into the developed West stood in sharp contrast to the development of the economy. Despite the limited liberalization of the late 1940s, Franco continued to view self-sufficiency and extensive state control over the market as necessary for political and economic stability. Towards the end of the 1950s the economy was so plagued by rising inflation and continually increasing balance of payment deficits stemming from the overvalued peseta and industrial uncompetitiveness that it was on the verge of a breakdown. Spain was risking being disconnected from the economic boom which was taking place in the surrounding economies. The necessity of the moment made Franco reshuffle his government putting the so-called technocrats from Opus Dei2 in charge of the most important economic ministries. Their

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proven loyalty to the regime enabled them to convince Franco of the need to liberalize the economy opening it to the economic boom of Western Europe. Their plan was to loosen state control and let the free market take over to a certain degree but, very importantly, this was to be achieved without political, cultural or social liberalization. After two years in office the technocrats launched their grand ‘stabilization plan’ in 1959 which aimed at reducing inflation as well as rectifying the balance of payments situation. The harsh reforms can be split in three groups: the first group was aimed at reducing public expenditure by an impressive 75 per cent and disciplining the regime’s use of finance. The second was aimed at liberalizing the conditions of production in Spain. It was made easier for firms to export and the peseta was made a convertible currency resulting in a devaluation of 50 per cent, making Spanish exports more competitive on the international market. The third was aimed at facilitating and increasing economic exchange with international businesses and finance in order to make it easier and more attractive to invest in Spain. The immediate effect of the harsh plan was a deep, but calculated recession. Spaniards had to accept decreasing wages and many lost their jobs as the public sector was drastically reduced and many firms had to close. But the economic situation quickly showed signs of stabilization; imports went down as a consequence of the devalued peseta and reduced purchasing power while, on the other hand, foreign companies began investing in Spain and Spanish firms started to export, and tourists started arriving en masse. The deficits were reduced and Spain received its share of the generalized economic growth in Europe. On the whole, the Spanish GDP grew by an impressive average of 6.8 per cent per year during the period 1961–74, only surpassed by Japan within the OECD. This economic growth and the general improvement in the standard of living found its reflection in a veritable ‘baby-boom’ as the population grew by an impressive 11 per cent over the 1960s reaching thirty-four million at the end of the decade.

Adapting the legitimization discourse and the symbols Contemporaneously with the radical changes in economic policy, the legitimization discourse of Francoism changed from focusing almost exclusively on the legitimacy of origin to increasing the focus on the legitimacy of exercise. The Civil War and the victory as heroic deeds were thus de-emphasized in favour of legitimacy derived from the achievements of Francoism and a discourse on peace, stability and economic development (Aguilar Fernández 1996a: 61–208). The ideological dimensions of the Day of the Victory were thus considerably toned down, the celebration of having

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won a war against fellow nationals was incompatible with this new emphasis. The only really memorable element remained the fact that the victory meant the end of the hostilities, which was exactly what the Victory Parades came to embody (Aguilar Fernández 1996a: 114). From 1958 onwards, the Victory Parade was thus moved into the month of May, allegedly for climatic reasons (Tranche and Sánchez-Biosca 2000: 207). But this move also meant celebration of the parade on a date different from the actual anniversary of the victory, thus avoiding overly direct connotations that might be provoked by the date, and as such the move matched the contemporaneous changes in the legitimization discourse. In honour of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the end of the Civil War, in 1964 the Victory Parade was renamed the Peace Parade. The fact that this celebration probably was the largest propaganda operation of the entire Franco regime illustrates the extent to which it had chosen by then to emphasize peace over victory. The army had come to be officially honoured more for its status as institutional regime guarantor than for its decisive role in its origins. The unpleasant memory of the Republic and the Civil War, however, still constituted the barrier to the positive interpretation of the Franco period. Francoist official discourse insisted ad nauseam on the idea that Spaniards, in spite of all their many heroic virtues, were intrinsically unable to live under a democratic regime without resorting to violence. The Spanish people were characterized by incorrigible defects that Franco called ‘the familiar demons’ (los demonios familiares), such as uncontrollable passion when dealing with politics, destructive criticism, a tendency to political fragmentation, serious risk of falling into the hands of demagogues, just to name a few. The political culture of Spaniards was, in other words, unfit for democracy. In order to illustrate this almost racial predisposition, the Francoist discourse used various historical examples of political instability over the preceding 150 years. The favourite was the Second Republic, which incarnated, in the eyes of the Francoists, all the worst things that would happen to Spain, including civil war, if it ever dared again to establish democratic rule. The logical conclusion from this reasoning was that the Spaniards needed Franco and his regime to secure progress and prosperity. Elsewhere, I have called this the ‘myth of the ungovernable character of the Spaniards’ because of the lessons that Spaniards was supposed to learn from their experience of the chaos of the Republic as compared with the order of the Franco regime (Humlebæk 2000: 369–703). The myth was used to make people refrain from revolution and other violent ruptures. Having established itself by a military coup and a violent and avowedly counter-revolutionary civil war, the legitimizing myth of the Franco regime perpetuated its markedly anti-revolutionary character. It was also consonant, however, with the particular status of the Civil War within the Francoist discourse as a unique turning point of history, which by definition was non-repeatable. The gradual changes in the legitimizing discourse implied a different social learning from the war. From being represented as a heroic deed it was

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increasingly interpreted as a national tragedy in which everybody had his or her share of guilt. Particularly at the level of the socially dominant discourse more than at that of the regime, ‘We were all guilty’ became the implicit consensus with regards to the atrocities of the war and the reasons for them. The editorials of the dominant Catholic paper Ya on the anniversaries of the war in 1965 are a good example of this discourse. The Civil War, which was termed the ‘great national tragedy’ in both editorials, was viewed as something negative instead of justified or necessary, which found its meaning and justification only and exclusively in the regime it led to. It was not questioned whether the war was inevitable or not, but it was presumed to have had a cathartic effect. The value of a victory in a civil war was to be measured by its ability to create peaceful cohabitation (convivencia) between those who had fought each other on the battlefield. The real, moral, significance of the victory was that both parties defeated their own negative tendencies, so that it could be ‘a victory of everybody and forever over civil war’. The victory’s ultimate sense thus was to forever avoid civil war; a conclusion that was perfectly in line with the anti-revolutionary reading of the myth of the ungovernable Spaniards. But the wish for reconciliation resulted in an inner contradiction between opposing conceptions of the nation, which explains why the Francoist discourse could not accept the idea of reconciliation. On the one hand, the editor espoused the Francoist conception of the war as a purging of foreign elements, resulting in one, purified national community. On the other hand, to talk about cohabitation and reconciliation acknowledged that the national community had been split into two as a result of the war, and that the Franco regime had consolidated this division. If the war and the legitimacy resulting from victory were more or less deemphasized, the legitimacy derived from the achievements of the Franco regime, from its ‘peace’, became a constant in the self-legitimation of the regime. Victory and peace were constantly linked, as if without the victory there would have been no peace. Both the victory and the uprising were seen as the origin of a new epoch of peace and prosperity that had taken Spain beyond the former phase of polarization and intolerance. The changes in legitimizing discourses to a certain extent also correspond to a slow change in the conception of the nation. The legitimacy of origin derived from victory in the war constituted an anti-democratic type of legitimacy of an absolutist power, which relied on the particular historical interpretation of the Civil War explained above. The legitimacy of exercise, however, derived from the peace and prosperity produced by the dictatorship, and on the contrary, was a fundamentally democratic type of legitimacy because it depended on Spaniards’ satisfaction with the regime. The contradiction between these two discourses grew, especially during the 1960s, as it became clear that the Franco regime would not abandon victory in the Civil War and military supremacy as a fundamental source of legitimacy. Following the logic of its conception of history, it was impossible for the

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dictatorship to do so, and real reconciliation was therefore impossible. The regime thus grew increasingly schizophrenic. This contradiction ended up undermining the popular legitimacy of the dictatorship as reconciliation and the peaceful cohabitation of the ‘two Spains’ became an inescapable part of any idea of further progress. The second half of the Franco regime is one of those cases where the official discourse does not fit with ‘the experiences of nation’ possessed by individuals, thus causing an alternative national identity to arise. The official nationalism of Francoism was increasingly rejected by the Spanish population and, instead, other, alternative identities strengthened (Quiroga 2013: 32–3). This mismatch between message and receiving population meant that the most important issue on the agenda of any postFranco regime would therefore be the real reconciliation of all Spaniards.

Division as the origin of consensus The fundamental division of the Spaniards into two camps – Francoists and anti-Francoists – thus persisted beneath the surface even though more and more powerful social movements were pleading for real reconciliation. But the dictatorship was unwilling to let go of its original legitimacy probably unsure of the consequences of doing so. The inaction of the Franco regime in terms of healing the wounds of the Civil War, combined with the length of the dictatorship and a series of historical developments in the 1960s, resulted in a growing social consensus around a few deeply felt social and political needs. First, the real reconciliation of the divided nation was a growing demand in contrast to the pretended reconciliation practiced by the regime in the last decade and a half of its existence. In the context of the late 1960s and early 1970s this meant acknowledging the Civil War as a collective tragedy in which everybody had his/her share of guilt. Ultimately, however, this recognition of responsibility and of the Civil War as a tragedy would of course entail leaving behind the legitimacy of origin on which the regime continued to base its raison d’être. It made only half-hearted attempts to do so. Secondly, increasing sections of the population wanted political liberties that directly challenged the regime’s ideological core. This, however, did not mean a return to the pre-Civil War republican democracy. The problematic legacy of the Republic, as conveyed by the regime and its agencies, had convinced a majority of Spaniards of the Republic’s share of guilt for the Civil War. But by the 1960s various developments made many Spaniards long for a ‘normalization’ of the regime in its Western European setting. Spanish society had changed profoundly over the previous decades; the industrialization and the related rural exodus, the economic growth and the appearance of a consumer society made Spanish society much more similar to that of the other European countries. In addition, the regime’s new discourse rested on increases in wealth and general satisfaction, in its essence

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a democratic legitimacy, although it did not envisage its own democratic demise. Furthermore, the effects of mass tourism in Spain which had begun around 1960 and the contemporaneous experiences of between 1.5 and 2 million Spaniards as emigrants in other European countries caused an increased openness towards foreign cultures and political systems. Last but not least, a series of developments within the Catholic Church spurred by the Second Vatican Council of 1962–5 made the Spanish Catholic Church distance itself from the dictatorship. This was a significant development, losing the support of one of its principal pillars in delivering a high degree of social support or at least social acceptance in the Spanish population. Thirdly, but closely related to the above, ‘Europe’ was acquiring the characteristics of a code word for all the desires of the Spanish population. ‘Europe’ in this context meant democracy, economic development and social welfare, but perhaps most importantly ‘Europe’ meant to solve social and political problems in a civilized way. It derived, most probably from the experiences of emigrant Spanish workers and the messages they sent home. The favourable perception of ‘Europe’ meant West Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and France. Fourthly, there was a rising general consensus among Spaniards to acknowledge the demands of the Basque and Catalan nationalists. The groundwork of the myriad associations directed at preserving the cultural traditions of the two regions cannot be overestimated in this regard. They were of course directed principally towards the Basques and Catalans themselves but in a wider perspective they made all Spaniards sensitive in a non-militant way to their aspirations. A concession of some kind of autonomy was becoming an increasingly inescapable part of a post-Franco future. All in all, by the 1960s the exceptional conjuncture created by the Civil War was in many ways over and so were the immediate effects it had generated on Spanish society. New generations of Spaniards had grown up who had not experienced the Civil War as a fundamental condition of life that explained the fears and ways of participating and not-participating in society. These younger generations longed for ways of participating in politics and in the decisions that were to shape the future of Spain. The issues mentioned above were in a way the beginning of a list of political priorities to be handled by any post-Franco government or regime, and they certainly did not reflect the intentions of the dictatorship. It was its inaction in these regards which caused dissatisfaction. This rapidly developing social consensus in part explains why a majority of the Spanish population did not consider a continuation of the Franco regime to be desirable though given the oppressive force of the dictatorship that might happen. But the alternative national identity which was developing at the margins of the regime also explains why a violent overturn of the dictatorship was becoming increasingly improbable. Franco himself was worried about the continuity of his regime from the very beginning. Preoccupied with not repeating what he considered to be the

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errors of Primo de Rivera he wanted to leave a permanent legacy. When in the summer of 1969 he named Juan Carlos to be his successor and future king of Spain, he therefore might have thought that the succession question had been resolved. Indeed, he said in his new year’s address that same year: ‘all is lashed down and well lashed down’ (todo ha quedado atado, y bien atado).4 However, he ended the address with a rather explicit promise to stay in power as long as he lived. By reinventing the monarchy, Franco himself probably believed that the continuity of his regime was secure. Yet by perpetuating his personal power till the time of his death, he implicitly prepared for discontinuity. As Franco showed himself unable to provide durable solutions to the ‘after Franco’ situation despite his assurances to the contrary, the probability that he would die of old age and that the regime would die with him was – if only in retrospect – becoming a probable outcome. Even if the Basque separatist movement Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA)5 actually disturbed Franco’s plan for Francoism without Franco by assassinating his successor as Head of State, Admiral Carrero Blanco, in December 1973, the admiral, as Franco’s contemporary, hardly represented a durable long-term solution. If a number of fundamental uncertainties thus could be kept under control – above all the risks of military intervention and emotional calls for revenge particularly from the left wing – a negotiated transition looked probable. The distance between the regime and socially dominant discourses is clearly visible in the newspaper editorials on the anniversary of the Francoist victory in the Civil War from 1975,6 just a few months before the death of Franco. The conservative daily ABC used the anti-revolutionary argument on the succession issue mirroring the increasing sense of insecurity concerning ‘after Franco’. The editor believed that the majority of Spaniards wanted a ‘normal’, in the sense of non-violent and orderly, succession. This is a perfect example of how the Francoist socialization of the memory of the Civil War, in turn, prepared for the transition with its emphasis on broad consensus, non-violence and transition by reform. The Catholic daily Ya, on its side, contradicted itself in a rather desperate attempt to find a positive legacy in the Civil War and the Victory. The editor thus maintained that any civil war was an effort to establish cohabitation (convivencia) with the other part, when the war had been just the opposite. Despite the contradiction, however, the imperative of reconciliation was clearly perceived. Therefore, for a new regime to achieve the list of political goals or just a substantial part of them, a whole new kind of politics would have to be developed: an anti-revolutionary approach based on broad consensus and negotiation that were to break with the dictatorship as well as with practically the entire history of parliamentarism of both the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. A fundamental condition for realizing these goals was to leave aside the immediate past of dictatorship and civil war, because there was a risk that the related demands of justice and revenge should upset the political process.

CHAPTER NINE

The death of Franco: Solution and postponement It is telling for the complex situation surrounding questions of national belonging and national pride in Spain that the first thing which comes to the mind of most Spaniards when asked about the Fiesta Nacional is bullfighting, and not the national day. In this case, the translation in English would be closer to ‘National Celebration’ than to ‘National Holiday’, but in Spanish, Fiesta covers both meanings. Bullfighting in general is simply called ‘Fiesta Nacional’, a term that also often heads the pages of the newspapers which are dedicated to bullfighting. According to the anthropologist Carrie B. Douglass, this usage goes back at least to the eighteenth century. This, however, is not to say that the definition as a ‘national’ spectacle is not polemical; in fact the debate over the issue has lasted as long as the usage. The adjective ‘national’ is thus not used in certain regions of Spain, or by those who dislike the bullfight, who by doing so refuse to identify the(ir) nation and the bullfight (Douglass 1997: 21, Shubert 1999: 35). Yet, in many ways, the bull functions as a less polemical national symbol than, for instance, the national flag. Many companies use the black Spanish bull in their advertising as a symbol of identification that invariably relates the product to Spain. The legendary giant billboards in the shape and colour of a black bull that can be found along the highways all over Spain are a case in point. Equally interesting, however, is the fact that these signs that had been used to advertize for Osborne Brandy not only survived new legislative measures against billboards in the countryside, they were declared national artistic monuments. There are many other examples of this more or less official identification of Spain with the bull. One of the mascots of the 1982 soccer World Cup hosted by Spain, for example, was a bull, just as was the emblem of the 1986 World Swimming Championships, also held in Spain.1 77

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The slow beginning of the transition Juan Carlos succeeded Franco as Head of State as Franco had designated. He was crowned on 22 November 1975, two days after Franco’s death when the dictator’s dead body was still on lit de parade in the Royal Palace. According to a later expression he became the ‘motor of the transition’, but at the time many Spaniards nourished fears that he would in fact attempt to continue Francoism. The Francoist origin of the royal proclamation was the main reason behind the problems of legitimacy of King Juan Carlos and the monarchy, which were rather prominent during the first years of his reign.2 He had been educated under Franco’s supervision and required to swear loyalty to Franco and his regime various times. Furthermore, he had never publicly signalled anything to indicate that he would not follow the intentions of Franco. Despite the doubts concerning his political preferences, the monarchy remained one of the few institutions, perhaps the only one, which had the potential to build a bridge across traumatic Spanish history and serve as a facilitator reconciling las dos Españas. Once proclaimed King of Spain in November 1975, he therefore had to start working restlessly to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the Spanish people, on the one hand, and, on the other, he had to be cautious for fear of arousing the diehard supporters of the regime nicknamed the ‘bunker’ from Hitler’s last refuge. The misfortunes of his own grandfather, King Alfonso XIII, and, more recently, of his brother-in-law, King Constantine of Greece, must have served as a reminder of what might happen to a monarchy that collaborates too closely with a military dictatorship. It is well known that Juan Carlos shamed the initial doubts about his political orientation. After a soft beginning under the still-existing Francoist institutions Juan Carlos showed himself to be a convinced democrat. His father, don Juan, had worked from exile to cleanse the monarchy of antidemocratic connotations, actions which helped convince opponents of the monarchy that it was in fact a possible solution. Juan Carlos, for his part, demonstrated that he was able to turn the project into reality by patiently avoiding serious conflicts with the bunker thereby pacifying the resistance against the monarchy from the Francoist sectors of society. When time was ripe he could set the democratic reforms in motion. To begin with the King let the last Francoist head of government, Carlos Arias Navarro, continue as Prime Minister even though it was clear to most observers that he was too tied to his Francoist past to be able to push thorough democratic reforms. The democratic opposition demanded election to a constituent assembly, but this was regarded as being too radical by even the most reformist Francoists due to the possible reactions from the Armed Forces and the bunker. The reform process stagnated and to many it looked as if the confrontation with the Franco regime had been postponed indefinitely.

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This coincided with a hitherto unseen wave of strikes that first and foremost were a reaction to the increasing economic crisis but which contained an element of protest against this political stagnation. The imbalances of the economic model of growth of the 1960s were in fact linked to the dictatorship’s lack of political legitimacy. The workers were induced to accept their lack of rights to organize by low unemployment and steady wage increases, and the business sectors of society were ‘bought’ with limitations to competition and privileged financing (Biescas 1991: 62). The dependence on these mechanisms made the government reluctant to take the necessary economic precautions when the first oil crisis struck in 1973, simply because the regime was afraid of unleashing a crisis that could threaten the system. The retail price of oil thus only rose by a factor of 2.6, while the cost price in reality rose by a factor of 5.3. At the same time, wages continued to rise and the fiscal pressure was kept more or less unaltered. This kind of politics which in the beginning was financed through Spain’s enormous foreign currency reserves was very expensive for the State and therefore only suitable as a means to tackle a brief crisis (Serrano 1991: 114). The oil crisis coincided with the final phase of the Franco regime and the country was absorbed by the internal tensions related to Franco’s approaching passing and the expectations and fears related to regime change, which made the system even more vulnerable to popular reactions. After the death of Franco the popular demand for fundamental change grew but the reformist ministers of the government could not make thorough reforms. All in all an untenable situation, which in July 1976 provided the King with the right excuse to sack Arias Navarro and name Adolfo Suárez as new head of government. Suárez also had a Francoist past as director of state television and radio and vice-secretary of the National Movement. The immediate popular reaction, therefore, was disappointment. Suárez’ Francoist past, however, helped keep the Francoist hardliners off their guard, and quickly he shamed the initial disappointment by navigating skilfully between the opposed demands of the bunker and the popular mobilization for reform. In close collaboration with the President of the Francoist Parliament, Torcuato Fernández Miranda, and King Juan Carlos, as well as with opposition leaders, particularly the socialist Felipe González and the communist Santiago Carrillo, Suárez advanced the reform towards democracy decisively. There obviously was an age factor in this as many of the important drivers of the reform process, such as King Juan Carlos, Adolfo Suárez and Felipe González, belonged to a young generation who had not participated in the Civil War and who were in their thirties or early forties as the transition was taking place. But just as importantly other leaders, such as Torcuato Fernández Miranda or Santiago Carrillo, were more so to say contemporaneous with the Francoist system and secured another but just as necessary kind of credibility to facilitate the reform.

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Transition to democracy by reform from within In November 1976, a year after Franco’s death and only four months after taking office, Suárez managed to persuade the unrepresentative Francoist Parliament to approve a Law for Political Reform (literally Ley para la Reforma Política). By passing the reform as a law the Suárez government was able to share the responsibility for the transition towards democracy with the Parliament. In the following referendum on 15 December 1976, it was approved by 94 per cent of Spaniards despite the recommendation of the left wing to vote no. They wanted a rupture with the Francoist system but also demonstrated their wish for moderation and reform, which contained an important lesson for all the political actors. The law thus prepared the terrain for the establishment of a certain degree of trust among the parties aiming at a constructive and peaceful process of democratization. The supremacy of law was maintained as a political principle, the sovereignty of the people of Spain was established through general suffrage and human rights were accepted as fundamentally inviolable. Further steps towards the democratization contained in the law were the legalization of the political parties and the trade unions as well as amnesty for political prisoners and exiles. The legalization of the political parties was the next important hurdle to overcome for the Suárez government. Most of the parties were legalized in February 1977, but the problem was the Spanish Communist Party (Partido Comunista de España, or PCE), which Suárez initially had promised the army not to legalize. But as the elections were drawing closer, it became clear that the democracy would be seriously deficient if the communists were not given a fair representation in Parliament.3 Suárez solved the situation by legalizing the PCE in April 1977 during Easter, which of course caused uproar among the Armed Forces but who nevertheless remained loyal to their commander-in-chief, King Juan Carlos. In return for the legalization, the communists accepted the monarchy and the bicolour Spanish flag as replacement for the republican tricolour that they had used since republican times signalling thus an open-minded attitude and willingness to find solutions that could reconcile the country in democracy. The efforts were leading to the first democratic elections in more than forty-one years that took place on 15 June 1977, exactly half a year after the referendum on the Law for Political Reform. A series of recently formed parties and political personalities on the political centre and right wing had grouped around Suárez in the coalition Union of the Democratic Centre (Unión Centro Democrático, or UCD). The UCD won the elections with 34 per cent of the votes, which according to the electoral system translated into 47 per cent of the seats. The PSOE came in a close second with 29 per cent of the votes and 34 per cent of the seats. The Francoist survivors, who had formed the Popular Alliance (Alianza Popular, or AP) only got 8 per

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cent of the votes and the PCE only 9 per cent. The electoral system, which was detailed in the Law for Political Reform, was designed to avoid a repetition of the weak governments of the Second Republic. It therefore favours the conservative rural areas and the largest parties aiming directly at a two-party system (Maravall and Santamaría 1986: 85, 97–8). The elections gave the new political system and Prime Minister Suárez renewed legitimacy to continue the political reform process and begin tackling the impending economic problems, which had remained unsolved due to the crisis of the political system and the resulting lack of legitimacy. In the beginning of October 1977 a broad political deal, the so-called Moncloa pacts named after the official residence of the Prime Minister, was signed by all the main political parties as well as the most important trade unions and employers’ associations in a manifestation of the new consensus politics that were to characterize the transition to democracy. It was agreed that the constitutional process should be conducted on a consensus-basis, meaning that the resulting text should be agreed to by all the main political parties. Besides this agreement on principles, the pacts also contained a socio-economic programme that promised a modernization of the tax system and a series of social measures to improve the economic situation of the Spanish families, among other measures to fight the soaring inflation that had reached 26 per cent and the institution of unemployment benefit. As their counterpart the unions agreed to make a serious effort to reduce the level of conflict which had risen ten-fold during 1976–7.

The nation in transition: a unique opportunity of consensus In terms of national discourse, it was difficult to use any discourse of Spanish nationalist affirmation after the death of Franco due to its monopolization by his regime. For any Spaniard who had lived under the dictatorship, expressions such as ‘Spain’, the ‘Spanish Nation’, or cheering ‘Viva España’, immediately evoked the Francoist discourse. It was not for nothing that the Francoists during the Civil War named themselves ‘the nationals’, as a consequence of their claim to be the true and legitimate representatives of the Spanish nation. The leitmotiv of the dictatorship was ‘Spain: One, Great and Free’ (España: Una, Grande y Libre), as can be seen, for example, on coins from Francoist Spain, many of which, by the way, continued in circulation until the late 1990s. ‘One’ referred to the absence of all peripheral nationalist demands and to the centralist administrative structure. ‘Great’ contained the heroic connotations of the imperial age. Finally, ‘Free’ did not mean liberty in a democratic sense, but rather national sovereignty in reference to the resistance against attempts of foreign powers to intrude into Spanish politics.

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The Franco regime represented in many ways a nineteenth-century project of nationalizing the Spaniards being implemented in the twentieth, but it came too late. For many Spaniards therefore the Francoist project of uniting the nation was unattractive, particularly to those who had lost the Civil War. Furthermore, it was realized basically through coercion which conferred it an element of brutality that may have contributed to controlling the way the Spaniards behaved but which in what regards feelings of belonging and political values – so central to identification with a national project – worked against its intention, namely to nationalize the Spaniards. To nationalize means to make people identify with the more or less official national identity and ought to result in a match between the official national discourse and the identification of the majority of the population. But the coercion used by the Franco regime to achieve this and the non-inclusive way in which it was done made many Spaniards reject this national identity and opt for alternative objects of identification, either a different kind of Spanish nation or different nations altogether, as sketched out above in Chapter 8. The failure of Franco’s project of ‘uniting’ the nation in his own image brought about a unique opportunity of ‘unity of will’ across very large sectors of Spanish society if not behind a new national idea then at least behind a new national project for Spain, which was shared even by many of the Francoists, who had come to acknowledge the impossibility of nationalizing the majority of the Spaniards the way Franco would have wanted to do. This new national project consisted in a blend of democratization, modernization and Europeanization, the contours of which were not very clear, but which had been shaped by opposition to the Francoist vision from within the regime and from without. Nevertheless, this blurred vision of a different kind of Spain in which the Spaniards would be able to live together ‘in peace’ in solving their problems and no longer feel backward vis-à-vis their European neighbours was nourished by the vast majority of the population. This went directly against Franco’s national project on at least two dimensions: he had insisted that democracy, which he termed ‘inorganic democracy’, was a fundamental part of Spain’s evils and had legitimized his regime as an alternative using the term ‘organic democracy’ to signify a limited participation channelled through the so-called natural organs of society like, for example, the families and the vertical unions. He had also built his Spain against Europe, partly as self-defence against the international isolation of Spain after the Second World War, but also at least in part as a consequence of his own ideological preferences. Despite the softening in practice of the separation between Spain and the rest of Europe during the last two decades of Francoism, Europe and Spain were still portrayed as antagonists in Franco’s discourse until the very end. But paradoxically, the vast majority of the Spaniards by then nourished a strong desire for Spain to become more European. A silent revolution was taking place during late Francoism, which led to the development of this different national identity

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that on certain central issues was almost completely opposed to the official version.

‘Unity of will’ not amalgamation This ‘unity of will’ which worked in favour of a process of democratization, modernization and Europeanization of Spain did not, however, mean the amalgamation of the two formerly opposed visions of the Spanish nation, which had confronted each other in the Civil War and which in a democratic setting translated basically into a right-wing conception and a left-wing conception of the nation. It simply meant that they acquired a common goal – a democratic, European and forward-looking future for Spain – which for a period would overshadow their differences. In this way the ‘unity of will’ solved the old problem of two different ideas of Spain – at least temporarily – and contributed to the reconciliation of the nation. The old parameters of that conflict, which were basically inherited from the nineteenth-century models of ‘either–or’, were changed by being channelled into the new democratic system through the unity of will where consensus or at least negotiated solutions to all the important societal problems were to be the general tone. Their differences regarding the conception of Spain could very well have remained hidden for a long time or maybe even never have become an element of conflict had it not been for the other nations in Spain and their claims for recognition and reparation of injustices suffered during Francoism. Their status – as nations or something inferior – and their place in Spain would cause innumerable conflicts to arise between the right-wing and left-wing conceptions of Spain as well as internal conflicts and inconsistencies particularly within the left wing. The relative peace among the two visions of Spain that they arrived at during the transition to democracy would therefore be of temporary character only. In retrospect, the period of consensus and search for a common ground seems more like a truce than a lasting solution to the problem of division. Partly as a result of this dynamic, the left wing developed a problematic relationship with the Spanish nation. The Francoist dictatorship repressed not only the supporters of the Republic, but as we have seen also the manifestations of the sub-national cultures of Spain. This explains the paradox that most Catalan and Basque nationalist political forces, even if moderately conservative in their majority, were close to the left-wing opposition parties in exile. The attainment of democracy and of regional autonomy by the so-called ‘historical nationalities’ became inextricably linked, as was evidenced in the 1974 programmatic declaration of the united democratic opposition, the Junta Democrática: 1 . . . the legal recognition of all the democratic liberties, rights and duties.

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... 9 The recognition, under the unity of the Spanish State, of the political personality of the Catalan, Basque and Galician peoples, and of that of the regional communities that decide democratically [to become so].4 On the one hand, the peripheral nationalists supported democratization together with the rest of the democratic opposition and, on the other, the leftist parties supported devolution and decentralization to the point that they were dissuaded from adopting any ‘national’ discourse regarding Spain. In the mid-1970s, both the PCE and the PSOE actually defended ‘the right to self-determination’, as the political scientist Andrés de Blas Guerrero has often pointed out (see, for example, Blas Guerrero 1988, Alonso de los Ríos 1999). As a consequence of the community of interests between the leftwing and the peripheral nationalists, the very name of the country was often avoided by the left during the transition. Instead paraphrases such as ‘this country’ or ‘the Spanish State’ were, and in many ways still are, the preferred ways of referring to Spain if one wants to avoid being associated with the excesses of the dictatorship5 (Santiago Güervós 1992: 194–251, Núñez Seixas 2001: 723–4). This reflects apparent doubts within the left wing about the exact definition of Spain and the nation, and what the relationship between these two entities might be. For the right wing there was never much doubt, the nation was Spain, period. Therefore, although almost all parties agreed on the convenience of democracy and that it entailed some kind of regional autonomy, they did not agree on a definition of the nation nor on how the Spanish nation and the other ‘historical communities’ should fit together. The central problem thus became how to connect democracy, a national discourse and a discourse on the nationalities. The coalition between the left wing and the peripheral nationalists was intimately related to questions of historical justice, which was to become very important some twenty-five years later, when the main common understandings of the transition were to be critically reviewed (see Chapter 14 for details). This broad agreement, which reflected the sentiment of a large share of the Spanish population, held that the Catalans and Basques needed some form of reparation due to their suffering unjust repression under Franco and therefore had a legitimate demand for some kind of regional autonomy. However, neither the scope of such autonomy nor the process by which it was to be achieved were clear.

Settling the national question anew: the Constitution of 1978 The complicated relationship between democracy, various national discourses and the discourse on the nationalities would have to be clarified

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in a new Constitution, which would have to be written, once the regime change had materialized. But the particular characteristics of the Spanish transition made this process very delicate. Instead of a rupture with the dictatorial past, the process of writing the new constitution became a part of the reform process that had the introduction of democracy – and as such a rupture with the Francoist past – as its goal, but which in every one of its steps had to give the appearance of a reform characterized by respect for the existing Francoist legislative and institutional framework. The reasons for this are to be found particularly in the discourse of legitimization of the dictatorial regime. Using the Republic as deterrent, the Franco regime insisted that the Spaniards were incapable of managing themselves in a democracy without resorting to violent confrontations and that they therefore needed a regime like that of Franco. This discourse, called ‘the myth of the ungovernable character of the Spaniards’ (see Chapter  8), cultivated the fear of a repetition of history, particularly the threat of a new civil war, as a central and very effective element. After more than thirty years of socialization through the schools, the media, etc. of the dictatorship the indoctrination had shown its effect convincing everybody – both victors and losers of the war – that the Civil War had been a tragedy. The time around the death of Franco was marked by this overwhelming fear of a repetition of a civil war-like scenario, also because Franco had not taken care of the continuation of the regime in a convincing way. This fear made it imperative to avoid any kind of revolutionary state. For the same reason, the search for consensus became an inescapable political principle for the process of change after Franco. As noted above, the two formerly opposed sides had never been reconciled, and the task therefore was to create or to search for consensus. All in all, it had to be a rupture that appeared as continuity or at least a change so gradual that the Spaniards would not experience it as a rupture, because a consensus-based democracy would be a completely new thing in Spanish constitutional history. The process of writing the Constitution between July 1977 and December 1978 has to be seen in this complex interplay between continuity and rupture that marked the Spanish transition to democracy. The delicate balance occurs in that the first democratic elections in June 1977 in reality were not called as elections to a constituent assembly so as not to offend the sensibility of the Francoist hard-liners. To do that would have been the same as admitting that the transition was characterized more by rupture than by continuity. But as soon as the elections passed it was proclaimed as a fait accompli that the newly elected Parliament was in fact a constituent assembly.6 Even if a broad agreement was thus quickly reached on the need for a new Constitution, the politicians did not agree on how to achieve it. The first option considered by Prime Minister Suárez was to constitute a small commission of distinguished UCD members of Parliament to write a draft to be debated in Parliament, but the idea was discarded by the left wing. Secondly, Suárez considered having a commission of experts – not

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necessarily members of Parliament – writing a short and concise draft. Also that option was dropped after the socialist leader Felipe González’s remark that the members of Parliament should be more than enough for writing a constitution. In the end an agreement was reached on the formation of a seven-member Commission of MPs representing the parliamentary groups that were to write a proposal for a new democratic constitution (Suárez 1996: 105–7).7 In early May 1978, the Commission handed in a draft proposal to the Parliament and then the long and difficult discussion began successively in the two Chambers. In total, over 2,000 proposed amendments were discussed and a number of changes were introduced to the original text. On 31 October 1978 the amended Constitution was approved in a joint plenary session of both chambers by 551 positive votes, against eleven negative votes and twenty-two abstentions. Fourteen parliamentarians were absent. Those who voted against came principally from the ex-Francoist rows and the Basque nationalists, who in the end opted out of the broad consensus as a consequence of not having been part of the negotiations (the representative of the ‘Catalan–Basque minority’, Miquel Roca, was in fact a Catalan) and of not having seen their demands met. The consensus achieved in the Parliament was thus remarkably broad although not total. The last steps in the approval of the new Constitution were the approval by referendum on the 6th of December and lastly the signature of King Juan Carlos on the 27th of December. The Constitution turned Spain into a parliamentary monarchy in line with the model of the Scandinavian monarchies, reserving mainly a symbolic role for the monarch. The parliamentary system had two chambers: a Congress, where the real political negotiations were to take place and a Senate, which in time was planned to function as a chamber of territorial representation and a forum for the new autonomous regions that the country was to be divided into. In line with other modern, Western constitutions, it created a Constitutional Court where the constitutionality of laws could be tried, which was particularly important in view of the coming decentralization process with the division of competencies between the central State and the self-governing regions. The Catholic Church ceased to be the State Church although its particular role in Spanish history and culture was asserted and freedom of faith was introduced. The Armed Forces were placed under civilian – parliamentary – control and an Ombudsmaninstitution was created. In short, a modern democracy in keeping with the democratic regimes in the rest of the Western world was envisaged. It is thus clear that both the seven ‘Constitutional Fathers’ during the elaboration of the draft Constitution as well as the Parliament at large during the discussion of it were looking to other democratic systems in Europe and beyond for inspiration. But it is equally clear that they were studying Spanish history very closely as well for arguments in favour of the new system. The political elites of the transition were obsessed with

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avoiding the problems of democratic pre-Civil War Spain, and therefore the change of regime and the institutional set-up of post-Franco Spanish democracy were the antithesis of that of the Second Republic. Almost everything was done differently. First, the new regime was a monarchy instead of a republic, and secondly, the transition process was different in so far as the democracy was established by gradually changing the system from within instead of by revolutionary take over. Thirdly, the Parliament was bicameral instead of unicameral and fourthly, the electoral system was based on proportional representation instead of on provincial electoral districts. Last but not least, the national territory was divided into relatively uniform Autonomous Communities instead of an asymmetrical territorial division. That in fact Spanish history played a huge role in the elaboration of the new democracy is clear when one studies the debates on the Constitution as well as those on the 1976 Law for Political Reform where certain central characteristics were already laid out (Aguilar Fernández 1996a: 231–61). On a number of issues the Spanish Constitution of 1978 is unclear and contradictory, a fact which is often recognized in the literature on the subject. It is thus a common view among constitutionalists that the ambivalences and ambiguities to some extent were intentionally included by the Constitutional Commission in order to make the Constitution useful as a point of departure for different political scenarios. Suárez later recognized that it was an explicit aim of the process to write a Constitution with which both right wing and left wing could govern although he did not link this fact explicitly to the ambiguities of the text (Suárez 1996: 108–9). Apart from that, the imperative of consensus mentioned above – which is a general although mostly unspoken principle behind all European constitutions (Ziller 2005: 270), but precisely not characteristic of Spanish constitutional history – almost necessarily had to result in a constitutional text which is in part ambivalent and unclear. A prominent example of these ambivalences and contradictions which furthermore is directly related to the national question is the Constitution’s attempt at regulating the relationship between Spain understood as one, unified nation – a community of people based in a common culture and a common history – and Catalonia and the Basque Country with their demands for extensive autonomy as an expression of their status as independent, historically conditioned and justified communities. Article  2 expresses the broad but therefore also unclear political consensus regarding the relationship between Spain and the regions attempting to combine Spain’s unity and plurality: 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.8

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On the one hand, the Constitution is based on the ‘indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation’ and, on the other, it also acknowledges the ‘nationalities’, the exact nature of which remains unclear. The plural nature of Spain is, thus, clearly consecrated in the democratic Constitution, although this plurality does not mean simply pluri-national, and remains largely unspecified. It took much negotiation to arrive at the compromise contained in this article, and one of the most heated polemics concerned precisely the term ‘nationality’. The concept defines a community, which clearly is not quite a nation, but which at the same time is something more than just a region; a kind of ‘semi-nation’ or ‘almost-nation’. This ambivalent situation was, of course, the result of a compromise between, on one side, the Catalan and the Basque nationalists who wanted to be considered nations and, on the other, the conservatives of the UCD and the AP for whom there was only one nation, namely Spain. The left-wing parties served as moderators and were behind the compromise centred on the term ‘nationality’ (Solé Tura 1985: 82–102, García Cotarelo 1986: 142–4). Article 2 also establishes the three principles of unity, autonomy and solidarity, which rule the relationship between the nation, the nationalities and the regions. These principles are to a certain extent contradictory, which is only natural since their function was to satisfy both those who wanted autonomy and those who were afraid of the dissolution of Spain. According to Jordi Solé Tura, then member of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya, or PSUC) and member of the Constitutional Commission for the communist parliamentary group, Article 2 of the Constitution was ‘an accurate reflection of the . . . contradictions in the transition . . . and an almost exact image of the then existing correlation of powers’ (Solé Tura 1985: 101). Contradictions and ambivalence were thus a fundamental part of the constitutional compromise.9 There had been other attempts to introduce different types of autonomy in Spanish history. The short-lived First Republic of 1873–4 attempted to introduce a federal system in Spain, which however ended so disastrously that federalism became stigmatized. In 1914, the Restoration regime gave Catalonia a limited autonomy through the Mancomunidad, which originally was aimed at all regions that desired this status. Also the Primo de Rivera dictatorship initially planned to extend the system to the entire Spanish territory, but then decided to abrogate the only existing Mancomunidad – Catalonia – in 1925. In 1930, at the Pact of San Sebastián, the republican forces promised the Catalanists regional autonomy in exchange for their support for the Republic. The very coming into being of the Second Republic was thus linked to giving autonomy at least to Catalonia (Payne 1993: 27). With regards to the form of state, the 1931 republican Constitution introduced the concept of an ‘integral State’ (Estado integral) in order to integrate regions with autonomy (in the first instance at least Catalonia) and the rest of the country. The conception drew on unitary theory in that it proclaimed the sovereignty of the Spanish people and asserted the right of

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the national Parliament to pass autonomy statutes thus ensuring national interest. But it also drew on federal theory in so far as the regions should negotiate their own autonomy statutes with the centre bilaterally and gain regional approval through a regional referendum (Keating 1993: 347). The preconditions for obtaining autonomy were that a region should mobilize a majority of municipal councils in the region and two-thirds of the voters in favour of an Autonomy Statute. Contrary to the present Constitution, the attainment of autonomy depended entirely on regional initiative, the regions were not predefined, and autonomy was not automatically extended to the entire Spanish territory (Olábarri Gortázar 1985: 126–8). Despite the fact that the republican Constitution did not formally give special treatment to any region, there was a clear indication of asymmetry in its conception of Spain as an ‘integral State’. This tension between the principles of symmetry vs asymmetry and the attempts to solve it were to be a constant in postFranco Spain and would mark the principal successes as well as the principal defeats of the democratic Constitution.

National problems and tension between symmetry and asymmetry The regions which were thought of when discussing extended selfgovernment were principally the Basque Country and Catalonia due to the presence of strong nationalist movements in those regions and the history of repression during Francoism. But Galicia also had to be reckoned with as it shared many of the defining traits with the two other regions such as its own autochthonous language, its own distinct culture and a nationalist movement, particularly as the solution chosen avoided mentioning the Basque Country and Catalonia explicitly and instead relied on defining characteristics of regions liable to obtain the highest level of autonomy. For over a century, the Basque Country and Catalonia had increased their relative importance within Spain in economic and demographic terms due mainly to the fact that they both represented poles of industrialization, which had attracted population from other parts of Spain. If at the beginning of the twentieth century, Catalonia’s two million inhabitants represented 11 per cent of the Spanish population, in the 1981 census the population had reached almost six million and represented approximately 16 per cent of the Spanish population of 37.7 million. The Basque increase was even more impressive as it grew from 600,000 inhabitants in 1900 to over 2.1 million in 1981 increasing its relative share from 3.2 per cent to 5.7 per cent. On the other hand, Galicia, due to an opposite demographic history of emigration to other parts of Spain and Latin America grew considerably less, losing relative weight in terms of the Spanish population. In 1900 the population was equal to Catalonia’s two million inhabitants and in 1981 it had only grown

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to 2.7 million, diminishing its relative share of the Spanish population from 11 per cent to 7.3 per cent. In the Constitution of 1978, the right-wing forces were against mentioning Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia explicitly because that would have been to sanction their special status. For the same reasons they were against a formulation similar to the republican constitution due to its clearly asymmetrical set-up that would acknowledge a qualitative difference between the Spanish regions. The new form of State was denominated the State of the Autonomies (el Estado de las Autonomías), which expressed precisely the opposite: a generalized system of autonomous regions. Despite the reluctance to be explicit about it, the autonomy framework drawn up by the Constitution was in many ways clearly aimed at meeting the demands of the above-mentioned three so-called ‘historical regions’. The intention with regards to the use of the term ‘nationality’ was thus clearly limited to these three regions. Contrary to the Constitution of 1931, the Spanish State was now regionalized by means of defining a system of regions which would all have the right to autonomy. The definition of the regions, however, was not clearly defined, which caused a number of conflicts. The Basque nationalists, for example, wanted the province of Navarre to be a part of their autonomous region, which the Navarrese did not approve of.10 They instead opted for a single province region and so did a number of other provinces that did not belong clearly to one particular region, namely Murcia, La Rioja, Madrid, Asturias and Cantabria. In some of these cases there was historical evidence confirming their claim to be independent regions; in other cases, such as Madrid, the resulting autonomous regions were definitely without any historical underpinning. In what would appear to be fundamentally a bottom-up process, it was, in principle, up to each region to negotiate whether it wanted autonomy, and which type. That it was in fact the intention of the executive to extend autonomy to all the regions – whether they wanted it or not – became clear even before the Constitution was passed. The so-called ‘pre-autonomous’ regimes, which initially were given only to Catalonia and the Basque Country, were thus extended to many more regions in 1978 by decision of the Minister of Territorial Administration, Manuel Clavero.11 These ‘preautonomous’ bodies enjoyed certain limited legislative and executive powers and were constituted by a mix of provincial and parliamentary representatives and served to calm the demand for autonomous powers. This generalization of the autonomy process was of course a symmetrical measure that served as a way to limit the special status of the aforementioned ‘historical regions’. In principle, the right to autonomy for the regions and nationalities asserted by Article 2 could be obtained following two routes contained in Articles 143 and 151: the ‘fast’ route of Article 151 was more rapid, and gave quicker access to a higher level of autonomy than did Article 143. To put the mechanisms of Article  151 into motion it was necessary for the autonomy statute in question to be passed by a regional referendum, with a

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simple majority in each single province of the region, not unlike the previsions of the republican Constitution of 1931. The ‘slow’ route of Article 143 gave a lesser degree of self-government to the other regions, but with prospects of changing to full autonomy after five years. To initiate a process of obtaining autonomy under Article 143 required backing by the provincial councils in the provinces concerned and two-thirds of the municipal councils. These councils would then draft an autonomy statute which would have to be approved by the national Parliament as an Organic Law, the highest-ranking type of parliamentary law. In reality, however, a number of alternative routes to greater autonomy existed, which blurred the picture of two nicely distinguishable routes to rather well-defined regions. The Constitution enabled the Parliament to devolve extra power to particular regions by means of organic law without necessarily reforming the statutes. This happened in the case of Valencia and the Canary Islands; and Navarre was given its own particular route to greater autonomy conserving their medieval privileges, the fueros, that had survived Francoism due to the pro-Francoist attitude of the Navarrese in the Civil War. The Andalusian case is particularly illustrative both of the original intentions as well as of how the actual process became uncontrollable, at least to some extent. Andalusia is the largest Spanish region and also the most populous. It increased its relative weight in the Spanish population during the first half of the century, its 5.6 million inhabitants representing 20 per cent of the Spaniards in 1950. But as industrialization largely took place elsewhere in Spain Andalusia became the largest ‘supplier’ of workforce to the industrialized regions thus losing relative weight in the Spanish population. In the 1981 census the population had reached 6.4 million and represented 17 per cent of the Spaniards. In 1980 the southern region surprised Suárez and the UCD executive by almost succeeding to obtain autonomy via the ‘fast’ track of Article 151. The Suárez government then defined the exceptional conditions that Andalusia had to fulfil if the region was to obtain autonomy via Article  151 like the ‘historic nationalities’, which involved gaining a majority of the electorate in each single province. Only one province, Almeria, out of the region’s eight provinces failed, but the government – faced with popular uproar in Andalusia – decided to concede full autonomy to the region in 1980 (Gibbons 1999: 19–20). It thus became clear that it had not been intended that Andalusia should use Article 151, and even the Statute of Autonomy of Galicia was halted for a long time after the Andalusian ‘shock’, demonstrating that, in reality, the privilege of ‘nationality’ and the access to autonomy through Article  151 was aimed only at the Basque Country and Catalonia. The difference between the two types of autonomy was thus only apparently a question of full or limited autonomy and in reality also only in the first instance a question of a quick and a slow route to autonomy (Clivillés 1983: 641, 727–8, Alonso de Antonio 1991: 202–3). The alternative routes to a greater level of autonomy than that initially conceded by the

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autonomy processes through Article  143 blurred the picture considerably already causing from the outset a competition between the regions for higher levels of autonomy and status, which became known as ‘autonomy fever’. If the extension of autonomy to all the regions was a symmetrical measure aimed at limiting the special status of the aforementioned ‘historical regions’, Article  151 and the term ‘nationality’ were the principal asymmetrical ‘concessions’ in a generally symmetrical constitutional set-up of regional self-government. The clashes outlined above are examples of the conflicts between the central government and the autonomous regions over the control of the autonomy process and, during the early 1980s, there were many more examples of these conflicts between top-down and bottom-up politics in autonomy issues. The so-called ‘autonomy accords’ between the PSOE and the UCD from summer 1981, following the 23-F coup attempt and the subsequent LOAPA-law are examples of this to which I shall return below in Chapters 11 and 12. Similarly, the fact that the central government often did not, or only with several years of delay, give the autonomous regions the financial possibilities to effectively take over the competences that in theory had been transferred to them is yet another example of this power struggle.

CHAPTER TEN

The new democratic Spain: Mobilizing identities Not to have defined the autonomy system in detail undoubtedly was one of the major virtues of the new Constitution, but it also created a series of problems. Indeed a solution like this was necessary to achieve the broad political consensus in which the Constitution was elaborated. The kind of open-ended process that the fundamental law described in addition to the already described tension between the principles of symmetry and asymmetry almost necessarily created a climate of relative nationalist tension. Since the autonomy statutes were a matter of bilateral negotiations between the central administration and every single region, and since access to higher levels of autonomy depended – at least to some degree – on ‘identitarian’ mobilization, necessarily the interested parties had to prepare through nationalist or regionalist mobilization of the respective collective identities. Due to stigmatization of Spanish nationalism after the Franco regime, the Spanish side in this conflict suffered a relative symbolic disadvantage vis-à-vis the peripheral nationalists. This stigmatization, together with the slow and problematic genesis of the new form of State described above, were the most important factors that recommended great prudence when it came to discussing Spanish national symbols. At issue were the definitions of the State, the nation, the nationalities, the autonomous regions and the relationship between them. Under the given circumstances it was better to deal with and mention the Spanish national symbols as little as possible. Some of the regions, particularly Catalonia and the Basque Country, on the contrary moved to mobilize their regional constituencies around their respective identities. They thus proceeded to create and/or institutionalize their own national symbols such as national flag, anthem and holiday. The election and institutionalization of the national holidays of Spain, Catalonia and the Basque Country is particularly illustrative of the nation-building activity in the early years of democracy and the conditions under which it took place in each of the respective communities. 93

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Identitarian mobilization in the periphery The ‘Diada’, which is celebrated each year on the 11th of September, was declared ‘the national holiday of Catalonia’ by a law of June 19801 long before the discussion of a Spanish national holiday was even taken up. The date is the anniversary of the fall of Barcelona to the troops of Felipe V – the Bourbon contender for the Spanish throne in the War of Succession – on 11 September 1714. The defeat meant the end of the relative autonomy that the region as part of the former kingdom of Aragon had enjoyed within the Spanish kingdom until that date. It was first commemorated in 1885, but despite various initiatives to make it official over the years, it was only in 1914, on the bicentenary, that it became an official celebration sponsored, among others, by the then recently created Mancomunidad of Catalonia. In the celebration, the 1714 defeat was interpreted not only as an end but also as a new beginning in the sense of moral rebirth. After becoming an official commemoration the celebration was increasingly politicized, being used to push political demands for autonomy (Michonneau 2001: 165–77, 229–51). After having been repressed under the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, the commemoration was again allowed by the Second Republic. Under the Franco regime it was banned once again, but it continued to be celebrated unofficially in a more or less public way, and from the mid-1960s the number of people participating in these unofficial and illegal celebrations grew noticeably. After Franco, the commemoration was allowed again in 1976, and in 1977 just after the institution of democracy the ‘Diada’ was the scene of a huge demonstration of about one million people asking for a statute of autonomy (Llobera 1996: 196–8). The law of 1980 took up the cathartic argument of the defeat, combining the ‘painful loss of liberties . . ., an attitude of vindication and active resistance against the oppression [and] the hope of total national recuperation’. Adversity in the form of loss of autonomy and oppression was seen to have nourished an increasing awareness of regional identity and hopes for its recuperation. Since the ‘Diada’s’ institutionalization in 1980, it was customary for the President of the Generalitat to give a speech to the nation. In these speeches during the 1980s and 1990s, the then president, Jordi Pujol, generally interpreted the war and the defeat in 1714 as a sign of the will of the Catalans to survive as a people. Pujol, however, often went beyond the heroism of the sacrifice to underline the pragmatic character of the Catalans, asking rhetorically what happened on 12 September 1714. According to him, the Catalans went back to work and reconstructed the country, thus showing a strong self-confidence and will to maintain their language and culture in the face of adverse conditions. By implicitly counter-posing the 1714 defeat as the ‘blackest hour’ of the Catalan culture and nation and the present, Pujol thus capably emphasized the hardworking character and the strong civic spirit of the Catalans (Llobera 1996: 199–201).2 The Basque counterpart, ‘Aberri Eguna’ (Day of the Fatherland), which is celebrated each year on Easter Sunday, was officially declared the ‘National

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Holiday of the Institutions of the Autonomous Basque Region’ by the Basque regional Parliament on 29 April 1981.3 The day commemorates the supposed ‘conversion’ from Carlism (see Chapters 2 and 3) to Basque nationalism on Easter Sunday 1882 of the founder of Basque nationalism and the PNV, Sabino Arana. Although it is disputable whether Arana’s patriotic illumination by divine inspiration actually took place in 1882, it was first celebrated in 1932 as a fiftieth anniversary. Afterwards, it was celebrated on and off even though it was illegal during Francoism. The original proclamation by the PNV in 1932 was dense with religious symbolism equating the redemption of the Christians through the crucifixion of Christ with the resurrection of the Basque people by Sabino Arana as the founder of the PNV: The Day of the Resurrection of our Lord. Day of the Basque Fatherland. One single day in which two beloved memories merge: the Resurrection of our Lord, who by triumphing through his own death gives us the clearest possible proof of his divinity; the resurrection of the Basque race, saved from its death by Sabino.4 The refoundation of the holiday in 1981 avoids religious references, maintaining, nevertheless, the celebration on Easter Sunday justified by the historical legitimacy of almost fifty years. Despite the more laic tone, the Basque national holiday reveals a completely different and much more essentialist symbolism than the Catalan civic nationalism commemorated in the ‘Diada’. The nation is presented as a natural and even God-given entity. In its fusion of the nation and the Catholic religion it actually comes close to the National-Catholicism of Spanish right-wing nationalism. The institutionalization and the commemoration of these alternative national celebrations in both Catalonia and the Basque Country reveal very active nation-building activity as well as nationalist mobilization around symbols and values found to be central in each region. As explained above, the central government was forced to use other means in the struggle for defining the new State form and a national constituency. In a certain sense, the discourse on the Spanish nation was up against the mobilizing power of the symbols of the peripheral nationalists and had to fight them with its own political power, as was manifested, for example, through the attempts to control the autonomy process, as shown above.

Mobilizing Spanish identity by reaction The situation of relative ‘symbolic disadvantage’ of the Spanish nation visà-vis the peripheral communities with strong identities created certain anomalies that can be considered at least in part legacies of the dictatorship. As with other sensitive issues on which there was no broad consensus, most legislative initiatives of the early transition years regarding the symbols of

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the nation were thus done through royal decrees, which emanate directly from the executive and do not pass a process of debate and vote. In this way what was perceived as a potentially harmful public debate could be avoided. Despite the Suárez government’s apparent reluctance to enter any debate or take any decision regarding the national symbols, it could not totally avoid dealing with the issue. Even if it was done as implicitly, gradually and ‘silently’ as possible the executive had to decide on which symbols and commemorations from the previous regime it wanted to discard due to the necessity to distance itself from the dictatorship. As time was passing the transition was taking on an increasingly dominant aspect of rupture that would make such decisions necessary. On the other hand, the democratic regime would also have to decide on which symbols and commemorations from previous regimes to preserve and recycle due to the necessity of signalling a fundamental continuity of the national community. And lastly – although this endeavour could be postponed somewhat – it would have to decide sooner or later on which new symbols and commemoration to invent as a manifestation of the need to ground the democratic regime on a new kind of legitimacy.

The discarded symbols and commemorations Probably the part of the task of reorganizing the symbolic framework that first became necessary was to relate to the foundational symbols of the Franco regime, especially the anniversaries of the Civil War: the 18th of July and the 1st of April, the Day of the Victory. As explained above, the Day of the Victory and the related Victory Parade had in 1958 already been moved away from the actual anniversary and thus decontextualizing it. In May 1976, the Victory Parade took place as usual, but in 1977 with democracy ‘around the corner’ so to say, the pressure against this Francoist ritual became too great and the still Francoist executive changed the name Victory Parade into the more neutral ‘Day of the Armed Forces’ (Día de las Fuerzas Armadas) by a Royal Decree.5 A year later, the then democratically elected government sanctioned a new Royal Decree on the Day of the Armed Forces, which changed the rhetoric substantially. The event was defined as a ‘national celebration . . . of the Armed Forces of the nation [aimed at] contributing to a warm and real integration of the Spanish people with its armies’.6 The integration of the Armed Forces into the new regime was an issue of the utmost importance to the new democratic government. The Francoist commemoration of the victory in the Civil War, which was contrary to the dominant ideas of reconciliation in the transition, was appropriated and transformed into a celebration of communion between the army and the nation, which was particularly useful at the time. With respect to the 18th of July, the official inaugurations of public works and other official commemorative events that were the common practice of

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the Franco regime ceased immediately after the death of Franco. The character of the national holiday of the 18th of July, nevertheless, was actually ratified by a royal decree on civic holidays passed by the still Francoist Parliament during the summer of 1976.7 It was not until 1977 that it was abolished by another decree passed by the new democratic government.8 Both decrees dealt with the calendar of national holidays, and did thus not treat the issue of the 18th of July specifically. In 1977, it was abolished by not mentioning it in the decree on holidays, which shows there was a will to cancel the Francoist commemoration, but also that the government did not want to make a clear public statement on the issue.9 The only discussion of the decree that abolished the 18th of July as a holiday within the press was to be found in the new left reformist daily El País.10 The abolishing of the Francoist national holiday was met with satisfaction, but El País remained critical towards the ‘gradualist’ approach of Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez, favouring thus a clearer symbolic rupture as the one enacted by the Second Republic: ‘[The 18th of July] is the exact opposite of that which a historical commemoration should offer in order to serve as symbol of union and consensus between the Spaniards’. The editor reminded readers that other nations recall the conquest of liberties, the proclamation of independence, or a victory over an invading power as foundational events, but bloodshed between ‘brothers’ cannot constitute the basis for a common memory. The Civil War was conceived of as the consecration of the division of the national community, and to commemorate this would not help the wound to heal. The editorial also drew attention to the fact that Spaniards were in need of a new national lieu de mémoire: We Spaniards, now, need a new date that may serve as a symbol of consensus of the whole country; that does not provoke bad feelings in any of the sectors that constitute the Spanish community. . . . Possibly, the promulgation of the new Constitution may be the most advisable date as a common denominator of all the Spaniards. With the abolition of the Francoist holiday of the 18th of July, Spain lacked an official national holiday, a broadly accepted national lieu de mémoire in the sense described by Nora (see Prologue and Nora 1984–92). But raising the question of the need for a new commemoration of unity and consensus went against the gradualist approach of Suárez, and nothing was done in this sense for the next years. It is interesting, however, that El País mentioned the promulgation of the new Constitution as a possible new holiday already in the summer of 1977 when the Constitutional Commission had not yet even been officially designated. Equally interesting is the fact that El País did not mention the day of the first democratic elections the month before as one of the possible holidays Spaniards might choose. It is clear that the abolition of the 18th of July was due to a conflict with regards to the conception of the nation. It consecrated the division of the

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nation on which the Franco regime was founded, but which was contrary to the inclusive way the nation was conceived of in the new democratic regime. By mid-1977, both foundational dates of the Francoist regime, 18th of July and 1st of April, had disappeared from the new calendar. The process of changing and abolishing these dates demonstrated the negotiated character of the transition. As shown above, both commemorations were changed gradually, and the most important initiatives were not taken until the first democratic government had been elected. Furthermore, the measures taken were always very discrete and subtle, which shows that the authorities were seeking to provoke as little debate as possible, or ‘to not hurt susceptibilities’ as it is usually expressed in Spain.

The ‘recycled’ commemorations An equally delicate task was to decide on which symbols and commemorations to keep and recycle and how to achieve this. In the case of the national holidays really only one date remained, the Día de la Hispanidad on the 12th of October, as the other obvious candidate, the anniversary of the uprising in Madrid against the French occupation in 1808 on the 2nd of May had been ‘regionalized’ and turned into a purely madrileña festivity long before. As in the case of the other holidays, initially no visible changes were made to the Día de la Hispanidad after the death of Franco. It was simply reconfirmed as a national holiday both in 1976 and 1977 in the already mentioned Royal Decrees on civic holidays. As the former Francoist holiday of 18th of July was being dismantled, however, the 12th of October indirectly obtained a more prominent place in the official calendar. Until the anniversary of the constitutional referendum began being celebrated around 1980, it was the only commemoration of national scope. King Juan Carlos took over the celebration of the 12th of October from the Franco regime with great enthusiasm. Although it seems that Alfonso XIII played a role in pressuring for the institutionalization of the commemoration as a national holiday back in 1918, it is doubtful whether Juan Carlos perceived himself to take up a monarchical tradition.11 Indeed he never mentioned such a link in his speeches. As on previous occasions, the promotion of hispanidad was first and foremost a nationalist project, although the King always presented it as something different with a larger scope. For the Spaniards, belonging to the community of hispanidad should be a reason for feeling pride in being Spanish. On his first Día de la Hispanidad as King of Spain, in October 1976, Juan Carlos went to Columbia to celebrate with the Colombian President in Cartagena. It was the first time that a Spanish Head of State had been to Hispano-America to celebrate the anniversary of the discovery, and this was widely recorded in the Spanish media. But the initial enthusiasm of a celebration of HispanoAmerican scope faded away quite quickly, and in fact 1976 was the only

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time the King went abroad to commemorate the date. In 1977 he celebrated with the Mexican President in the Canary Islands, in 1978 there was no Día de la Hispanidad event, it was only indirectly commemorated through another event dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe,12 and in 1979 there was no event at all. From 1980 onwards, when the celebration of the 12th of October was restored, the official acts were always held in Spain, and from 1985 almost only in Madrid.13 These displacements of the ceremony, just like all the other details of the commemoration were neither discussed nor justified anywhere, nor were they established by any decree. Presumably, the decisions were taken by representatives of the King, the government and the organizing Instituto de Cultura Hispánica. The most important part of the celebration during these years was an academic event celebrated in collaboration with the Instituto de Cultura Hispánica and its successor institutions, in which the central element was the speech by the King. Often this was then combined with the inauguration of an exhibition or a piece of infrastructure. The speeches of the King constituted the focal point of these celebrations, on which the newspapers would focus their attention. When it comes to the contents of these speeches, at least until approximately the mid-1980s, it was quite ‘old-fashioned’, showing surprisingly many similarities with the Francoist discourse on similar occasions. The ideas of Maeztu regarding ‘blood community’, ‘universal order’ and ‘historical destiny’ thus shone through quite clearly, for example, in the speech from 1976: Our community, possessor of unifying biological traits; sharing in a series of basic beliefs about mankind, its dignity and its destiny; inheritor of a cultural patrimony that includes not only the glory of the past, but also the vitality of the present, is a community that is called upon to fulfil a universal function from which it cannot abdicate (Juan Carlos I 1996, vol. 1: 50). This combination of a past of glory, a present of vitality, and the idea of a destiny – not so much in the sense of a predetermined path, but rather in the sense of a challenge – was practically identical to the early Francoist discourse on hispanidad. The re-appropriation of the celebration of the Día de la Hispanidad by the King and the new democratic regime offered an opportunity to reinterpret the Spanish history to make it more compatible with the new democratic Constitution and promote a laic vision of the Spanish nation. An effort could also have been made to transmit the new plural conception of Spain contained in the Constitution. But none of this was done or even attempted. Not only were the central parts of the celebration like the academic event celebrated in collaboration with the successor to the Instituto de Cultura Hispánica and the inaugurations continuous with the way the Día de la Hispanidad was celebrated during Francoism. Also the content of the

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speeches by the King showed an incredibly high degree of resemblance with the official discourse on hispanidad of the Franco regime. Instead of reinterpreting Spanish history in accordance with how it was expressed in the transition, the commemoration continued to purport a traditionalist and providentialist vision of Spanish history focused on the reconquest as a symbol of unity and conquest as a civilizing mission in both its religiousCatholic and cultural-Western aspects. As in the case of the official commemoration, the newspaper coverage did not significantly update the concept of Spain that operated in relation to the commemoration. A critical current – expressed most clearly in El País – was promoting a different relationship with Hispano-America, which was an attempt to refound the transatlantic relationship in democratic and laic values, instead of the National-Catholic values of the inherited concept of hispanidad. Instead of the neo-colonialist relationship between the madre patria and the American offspring it was envisaged as an equal relationship, based on popular exchange and understanding. But the plurality in this conception referred to the plurality of the Hispano-American nations and not to a new plural conception of Spain.

The new commemorations Sooner or later the democratic regime would have to decide on which new symbols and commemorations to create as a manifestation of the new values and legitimacy of the national community on which the democratic regime rested, although this task was postponed somewhat due to the particularities of the transition to democracy. A special legitimacy was, and is, attached to the new democratic Constitution. Especially the ratification through referendum on 6 December 1978 was felt as a historic moment as it was approaching. The editorials in the newspapers between 31 October, the day of the approval of the Constitution by the Parliament, and 6 December, the day of the referendum, were replete with the notion of a turning point of enormous historical importance. Thus, La Vanguardia in an editorial entitled ‘The collective destiny’ stated that ‘today the Spaniards . . . will pronounce before themselves and before history’.14 The positive outcome of the referendum was interpreted as a definitive closure of both the dictatorship and the interim period that had lasted three years from the dictator’s death in November 1975. It was the beginning of a new and unique era of democracy in Spain. This was of course amply reflected in editorials.15 There had been other important historical moments since the death of Franco that could have constituted possible candidates as new national holidays. Especially the referendum on political reform of 15 December 1976 and the first democratic elections of 15 June 1977 were important steps on the path to democracy and both had been perceived in much the same way. But the importance of both dates faded away in comparison with

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the ratification of the new democratic Constitution. The already mentioned editorial of El País from 17 July 1977 confirmed this perception of the relative historical importance of these various dates. Neither the anniversary of the referendum on political reform nor that of the elections were thus mentioned as a possible new national holiday, and in fact, neither was afterwards commemorated to any significant extent. Already in the summer of 1977, El País thus noted that the Spaniards needed a new date that could serve as symbol of the consensus of the whole country. The idea was to establish a celebration of this new master narrative and the related notion of a new kind of Spanish identity. The Spaniards were, of course, the same as before the change of regime, but in the transition they had accomplished something that was radically different from earlier Spanish history. The editor furthermore launched the idea that the promulgation of the future Constitution might be a suitable date for such a commemoration. What it was impossible to know then, in July 1977, was that the ratification of the Constitution would be problematic in the Basque Country, and that it therefore would constitute a divisive commemoration for many in that Autonomous Community. Seen from the present, therefore, another date like, for example, the anniversary of the first democratic elections might have constituted a more neutral commemoration of this new Spain. It was, however, only around 1980, in the midst of the disenchantment with democracy, that the need to decide on a suitable commemoration was voiced. By that time, it was clear that the date which was perceived to be the most important lieu de mémoire of the new democracy was the anniversary of the constitutional referendum on 6 December 1978. During the UCD executive, that is to say until and including the third anniversary in 1981, practically no official commemoration of the constitutional referendum was celebrated at national level. But from the second anniversary in December 1980, some left-wing media started encouraging to commemorate the Constitution and celebrations of various kinds were organized around the country. In Madrid, a group of about a hundred army officers thus organized for the second consecutive year a commemorative dinner to show their ‘respect of the Constitution’, in Las Palmas a Plaza de la Constitución was inaugurated to prevent ‘the anniversary from passing unnoticed’, and various municipal, provincial and regional Parliaments celebrated plenary sessions to commemorate the anniversary. The majority of the municipalities of Asturias thus celebrated extraordinary plenary sessions ‘in support of the Constitution’.16 These were months in which rumours of the preparation of military coups were circulating constantly and the Constitution was perceived to be under threat, which explains the defensive tone of these commemorative activities. At around the same time, the idea that the anniversary of the referendum should be considered the national holiday of Spain began to take form. On 20 November 1980, the three socialist groups in the Parliament had filed a proposal of law precisely towards this end:

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[T]he 6th of December 1978 [constitutes] not only a historical date, but the date on which the Spanish people began a new phase presided over by the principles of justice, liberty, and democratic cohabitation and [it] therefore constitutes a date that all the peoples and nationalities of Spain should commemorate.17 The arguments of the preamble precisely referred to the referendum as an epochal change, which therefore aptly symbolized the foundation of the new democracy. The fact that the new period inaugurated by the Constitution was characterized by ‘the principles of justice, liberty and democracy’ also conferred the date with an impartial quality, according to its proponents, which should enable its celebration also in Catalonia and the Basque Country, where national holidays of Spain were not very popular.18 Between the proposal and the parliamentary debate on it, however, the assembly became the scene of the failed coup attempt of 23 February 1981. The development of the autonomous regions set off by the Constitution had led to a constant affirmation of the identity of especially Catalonia and the Basque Country, and an intense process of creation of symbols such as national holidays, as explained above. This apparent ‘dissolution’ of Spain into Autonomous Communities had been one of the causes of the coup attempt. The result of the putsch was an increase in support for the democratic institutions, as well as a relative increase in support for a Spanish national discourse vis-à-vis the peripheral nationalist discourses. For the first time, as explained above, the national elites became aware of the importance of strengthening democratic national symbols and removing Francoist symbols. The symbols of the nation were thus the object of various legislative initiatives and debate during the remainder of 1981 (see Chapter 11 for details).

The quest for identity of the ‘slow’-track regions The last decades have also seen the rise of a number of regionalist parties in Spain, in part due to the de-legitimization of the Spanish nationalist discourse after Franco, in part due to the ‘spiralling’ dynamic created by the creation of the Autonomous Communities (Núñez Seixas 2000: 125). Examples of this movement are the Aragonese, Alavese, Navarrese, Valencian and Canarian regionalist parties.19 Usually they belong to the right of the political spectrum, and their representation generally remains limited to their respective regional Parliament. Despite claims to a regional ‘autonomous’ identity with its own particular cultural and historical roots and demands for further devolution of power, these parties do not seek independence from Spain, and instead contextualize their demands within a general acceptance of the Constitution of 1978 and of the Spanish national project (Flynn 2001: 713, Núñez Seixas 2001: 737). In a certain sense, they exemplify that the system of ‘Autonomous Communities’ created by the Constitution ‘rewards’ identitarian mobilization.

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In what Núñez Seixas has termed a ‘continuous imitation effect’, the regionalists invariably have demanded the ‘homogenization’ of the competence levels achieved by the Catalans and the Basques on the basis of nationalist vindication (Núñez Seixas 1999: 157). They therefore generally contest the principle of special rights for the so-called ‘historical nationalities’, demanding instead equal levels of devolution to all regions. Just as much as an imitation, the regionalists thus represent a reaction against the peripheral nationalists, and this is especially evident along the ‘borders’ of the Catalan and Basque nationalist movements in the cases of, for example, the Aragonese, Alavese and Navarrese regionalist parties. The Spanish regionalists parties have their own distinctive brands of national identification, which is different from the national vision emanating from the centre of political power in Madrid, and different from that of the peripheral nationalists. This seems to suggest that the best way to conceptualize Spanish national identity is in the plural, Spanish national identities, a conception which is increasingly accepted. The fact that the system of ‘Autonomous Communities’ created by the Constitution ‘rewards’ identitarian mobilization in terms of political power was also clearly reflected in the symbols. All the autonomous regions thus proceeded to create their own symbols, and also the regions which had never existed before, such as Murcia or Madrid. Despite being almost the last region to achieve to self-government, the laws on the symbols of Madrid were actually the first of a long series of laws on symbols of the new autonomous regions, apart from the laws on the national holidays of Catalonia and the Basque Country treated above. The period from April 1984 to June 1985 thus saw the approval of a succession of laws on the various symbols of the regions of Asturias, Galicia, Valencia, La Rioja and Extremadura.20 Curiously, therefore, Madrid, a region that had been – rightly – accused of being an artificial construct of the new constitutional regime and of lacking proper historical identity, was actually the first region to take up the issue of symbols after the Basque Country and Catalonia. In April 1984, the 2nd of May was thus proclaimed the official regional holiday of the recently created autonomous region of Madrid in a regional law.21 The anniversary of the popular uprising in Madrid against the French in 1808 had, as already explained above, enjoyed a long history of commemoration during the nineteenth century rooted in the liberal-progressive nationalist project of the early nineteenth century, characterized by a more democraticplebiscitarian conception of the nation. Already during the nineteenth century, however, it was ‘polluted’ with certain anti-monarchic, anti-Catholic and xenophobic tinges, which gave it an ambivalent character. According to the exposition of motives in the preamble of the law, ‘[the] 2nd of May 1808 occupies a place of honour. On that day the people of Madrid earned a decisive place in history, in the defence of the Spanish Nation’. The law thus exalted the decisive role of Madrid in the ‘defence of the Spanish Nation’. In an audacious move, however, the cry for the independence of Spain, which the uprising launched against the French, was

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transposed onto the community of Madrid: ‘This day shall earn a decisive importance in the immediate historical future in the life of the people of Madrid, as a symbol of the right to self-government’. The symbol of independence par excellence, the War of Independence, was thus transformed into a symbol of Madrid’s right to regional autonomy, completing the mutation of the 2nd of May from an originally national lieu de mémoire into a regional or local one. The law thus instrumentalized the old symbol of the 2nd of May to promote the creation of an independent identity for the region of Madrid. Contemporaneously, another law was passed that completed the symbols of Madrid with a flag, a coat of arms and an anthem.22 Unlike the holiday, these symbols had to be created ex novo. The text of the law first justified that collectives need a series of symbols with which to identify and that Madrid thus had the right to create a set of symbols for itself: ‘The people of this region has a past and reason for exaltation. In spite of the unjust identification [between] Madrid [and] centralism that is generally made, a series of collective feats are conserved in the popular memory and tradition’. The regional collective identity was explicitly demarcated from the identification with centralism. The text of the law, however, specifically referred to the predominantly immigrant character of the population as a reason for not referring to a common past: But the people of Madrid is fundamentally a young, new, people with an accelerated demographic growth since the beginning of the century due to the arrival of people from all the regions of Spain, and in this way [Madrid] is, and is increasingly destined to be, a melting pot of the different Spanish cultures. Despite the fact that the people of Madrid ‘have a past’, the symbols of Madrid thus conceived of the regional identity that they underpinned in a completely different manner from the largely essentialist and historicist conception contained in, for example, the later law on the national holiday from 1987 (see Chapter 11 for details). The explicit rejection of essentialism was confirmed in an interview with Joaquín Leguina, the socialist President of the region at the time and an active participant in the formulation of the law: ‘We did not appeal to historical reasons; what is more, we denied them’.23 The result was a truly voluntarist definition of regional identity: anybody who lives in Madrid and wants to consider him- or herself madrileña/o is welcome to do so. The point was made clear in the paragraph on the official anthem: The anthem of the autonomous region of Madrid could not be simply purist (casticista) due to the plurality and diverse origin of our people, nor traditional in the sense of those [hymns] that exalt forms of exclusion or aggressiveness; it should be, and is, a new anthem.

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Any kind of clear-cut definition of the people of Madrid based on essentialism or exclusion was explicitly rejected. The definition necessarily had to find its point of departure in the present. The anthem itself has been called an antihymn due to its unorthodox lyrics. President Leguina convinced the poet Agustín García Calvo to write a hymn with those characteristics, as he himself stated: ‘It should not be something patriotic in the proper sense of the word. Anthems are a war-thing. This one has been made with a sense of humour’.24 With irony the anthem thus described the half-fortuitous coming into being of the autonomous region: And I was the centre Now the choir is breaking up Now the peoples are becoming States And here walking around empty-handed I will be alone Everyone wants to be one I am not going to be less Madrid, one, free, complete Autonomous, unbroken!25 Actually, an autonomous region of Madrid with only one province was only the final possibility among various ones contemplated by the legislators. According to Juan Barranco, at the time a socialist deputy and member of the commission that wrote the Statute of Autonomy of Madrid, it was attempted to include Madrid into Castile-La Mancha, which the representatives of the latter rejected. The possibilities of splitting up the municipalities between the two Castiles or creating a federal district like Mexico City were also contemplated before the idea of an autonomous region of Madrid was – somewhat resignedly – accepted.26 For these reasons, Madrid was the secondlast autonomous region to get its statute, which was also included – not entirely correctly – in the anthem: ‘I am the last Autonomous Entity’. The fact that the 2nd of May remained a local-regional holiday and that almost no national politician ever discussed the possibility of restoring it as a national holiday, was mainly due to the connotations with which the anniversary had been associated since the nineteenth century. However, it demonstrates the difficulty or even impossibility of rehabilitating and vindicating the liberal heritage of the Spanish nation. It had already been difficult for the Second Republic to build a strong republican-liberal framework of symbols and references to national history, but after the republican experience and the Francoist instrumentalization of its memory it became practically impossible to recuperate the liberal periods and symbols as points of reference. After the creation of the system of autonomous regions, the 2nd of May, however, was recycled as a new symbol of the region of Madrid, and the old symbol of independence was thus transformed into a symbol of the right to regional autonomy. The creation of the regional holiday of Madrid was only

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the first of a whole wave of new regional symbols created during the 1980s. While the celebration of the renovated national holiday left out any kind of reference to the new plural conception of Spain, the new regional identities were instead underpinned by their own symbols. The ‘career’ of the commemoration of the 2nd of May thus demonstrates another important dynamic of the transition, that of the consolidation of the Autonomous Communities and their creation of identities. All together, the dynamics surrounding the 12th of October and the 2nd of May also confirm that the consolidation of this new State form linking unity and plurality happened by means of a process of identitarian mobilization. Each unit created its own symbols in order to consolidate its claims vis-à-vis the other units. It would go against this logic to express plurality through any one symbol such as the national holiday, for example.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The new European Spain: United and divisions forgotten?

Agreement in positive and in negative The democratic Spain with European ambitions that emerged during the transition was built on what the former opponents (and inheritors to the opposing national projects) could agree on and in a series of ways to avoid the issues that still divided them appearing in public and causing problems for their peaceful coexistence. The issues on which a majority of Spaniards agreed were: 1) democracy for Spain; 2) a ‘return’ to Europe (Spanish politicians talk of ‘vocación europea’, a term that contains almost religious connotations) which means to secure the development, the democratic consolidation and to escape from the feeling of backwardness; and 3) that the transition to democracy was turned into a reason for being proud of being Spanish. The divisive issues were principally two: 1) the immediate past of dictatorship and its place in the present (in terms of national history and questions of guilt, vengeance and historical justice and their relevance for the politics of the present); and 2) the constitutional set-up with regards to the essence of Spain and the complicated geometry resulting from the attempt to accommodate the Spanish nation and the other nations or nationalities and regions in Spain in a way that would satisfy if not all then at least the majority of demands.

Regional autonomy and democratic consolidation After successfully completing the constituent period with a new democratic Constitution, Suárez called new general elections in March 1979. Despite a 107

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significant drop in participation from close to 79 per cent in June 1977 to 68 per cent in 1979, the results did not change much with respect to the first democratic elections and Suárez could form his second government. In the first municipal elections just over a month later, the UCD obtained relatively poor results and the left wing took over power in over half of the provincial capitals including all the larger cities of the country. The same situation was repeated in the first regional elections in the Basque Country and Catalonia in March 1980 following the promulgation of their respective autonomy statutes in December 1979. The UCD lost both elections to the moderately conservative nationalist parties of the two regions: the newly formed federation Convergence and Union (Convergència i Unió or CiU1) in Catalonia, and the old PNV in the Basque Country. Internally in the governing UCD conflicts were mounting due – at least in part – to the fact that the UCD was a coalition of different political forces that had been born in power. The poor election results increased the unrest within the party which had a hard time agreeing on which line of reform policy to follow, particularly in tax- and family-related politics. Suárez favoured a progressive social-democratic line of politics but large parts of the party were far more conservatively minded and due to the crisis the legislative reform process practically came to a standstill. Another important task in the second UCD government was the negotiations on self-government with a number of regions, in particular the Basque Country and Catalonia. More and more loud protests were heard from army headquarters about the granting of self-government to those ‘historical regions’, which they saw as the first step towards dissoluting the Spanish State. Since the Civil War the army had regarded the defence of the unity of Spain as its particular duty and, even according to the new Constitution’s Article 8, it was still the task of the army to defend ‘the unity of Spain’. Substantial sectors of the army therefore regarded the new Autonomy Statutes as a threat to this unity. To make things worse, ETA had not decreased its terrorist activity after the Amnesty Law of October 1977 and the granting of autonomy to the Basque Country, as might have been expected, on the contrary, it had increased it, turning 1980 into the hitherto bloodiest year of its history with ninety-two killings.2 This of course did not dampen the military’s traditional opposition to regional self-government. The internal conflicts of the UCD ended in a huge crisis at the party’s congress in January 1981 and Suárez had to resign as leader of the party in favour of a compromise candidate Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo, who also was to take over as Prime Minister. The young Spanish democracy was totally unprepared for such a crisis that seemed to confirm all the worst premonitions about parliamentary democracy that Franco had cultivated. This was the occasion in which a group of military officers chose to attempt a coup d’état. During the inauguration debate for Calvo Sotelo as new head of government, on 23 February 1981, Lieutenant Coronel Antonio Tejero and a group of civil guards took the whole Parliament hostage including the entire government. They claimed backing from various military commanders including high-

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ranking members of staff of the royal house. In that complicated situation it was actually King Juan Carlos, who apart from being Head of State is also the supreme military commander, who personally phoned all the commanders of the military regions during the night persuading them all except the commander of Valencia, Milans del Bosch, to desist from taking part in the coup. Realizing that they were alone, Tejero and his men surrendered at noon on the following day (Powell 1991: 89). That night was by far the most dramatic in the short history of the new Spanish democracy. There had been many rumours about conspiracies and since the early transition period one of the unknown factors of the political equations had always been the reaction from the group of Francoist nostalgics located on the extreme right wing and within certain military circles. The discontent was principally centred on two issues: the wave of terrorist attacks by ETA which according to the army was not handled in the right manner by the democratic authorities and the autonomy process which was viewed as a dissolution of Spain within military circles. At first the coup attempt seemed to support the suspicions that democracy was in danger, but as the coup attempt failed it was actually turned into a valuable asset for the democratic system. As a result of the coup, the army did actually obtain the right to participate actively in the fight against ETA, but that was outweighed by the legitimacy gained by the King and by the change in public opinion. From the generalized disappointment with democracy because the new regime could not solve all problems the coup caused a rapid increase in the support for democracy rallying approximately three million Spaniards a few days later. Lastly, but not least the failure of the coup put an end to the military’s urge to conspire against democracy. There have of course been other minor incidents with unsatisfied military men but after 23 February 1981, it ceased to be a real threat. The coup attempt, popularly known as the ‘23-F’, thus at the same time became a demonstration that the democratization had advanced so much that a return to authoritarian times was no longer possible. On 24 February, Calvo Sotelo was finally inaugurated as the new head of government. The attempted coup was to mark his government in so far as it would try very hard to strengthen the democratic institutions and get the autonomy process under control. The result was a series of deals regarding the development of self-government between the governing UCD and the PSOE with the purpose of harmonizing the autonomy process thus putting an end to the conflicts between the regions (Powell 1991: 88). As it had been intended, the accords speeded up the autonomy process. The Statute of Galicia had been approved in April 1981, and that of Andalusia was approved in December 1981. The remaining twelve Autonomy Statutes were approved within the following two years (Zaldívar and Castells 1992: 146, 327). The accords also resulted in the Organic Law on the Harmonisation of the Autonomy Process (Ley Orgánica de Armonización del Proceso Autonómico, known as the LOAPA) that was intended to contain excessive demands for self-government and limit the various types of autonomous

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powers that the regions and ‘historical nationalities’ could obtain via the two different routes, as described in Chapter  9. The law, however, meant imposing restrictions on some of the new Statutes, which made the Basque and Catalan nationalists appeal it to the Constitutional Court and parts of LOAPA were later, in August 1983, deemed unconstitutional by the Court (Alonso de Antonio 1991: 209). New, softer legislation on the subject was approved by the PSOE government in 1983, but in practice the verdict meant that the LOAPA was put to the side and instead the Constitutional Court was given jurisdiction over the question of how far the State and regional powers might stretch their respective competencies towards each other or even overlap. This was done case by case and was to occupy the better part of the rest of the decade. Between 1981 and 1993 the Court resolved 847 cases, the majority of which had been taken to court by the Basques and Catalans. In that sense, the Constitutional Court played a fundamental role in the making of that modus vivendi that was to be a backbone of the autonomy system (Gibbons 1999: 20–1).

Continued economic crisis and Europe as solution in waiting In the economic field the second legislature of the UCD became marked by the second oil crisis which began just as the politics of stabilization which had resulted from the Pacts of Moncloa were beginning to bear fruit. The crisis hit the Spanish economy very hard precisely because the last Francoist government had subsidized the oil prices to avoid letting them rise in proportion with the real market price in 1973–4. As a consequence, energy saving measures had not been taken in Spain to the same degree as in the neighbouring countries and the country continued to be very dependent on oil. Decisive steps to deal with the situation had to wait for a larger political willingness to pay the price for the necessary adjustments and reforms. During Calvo Sotelo’s government, Spain was accepted as a member of NATO. The membership was seen as a way to give the army a non-political role, which accorded with the political situation in the country. At the same time, NATO membership was part of the strategic concerns regarding accession to the European Economic Community (EEC). The negotiations with the EEC were only proceeding very slowly and Calvo Sotelo, who had himself been chief negotiator, believed it would enhance Spain’s possibilities of being accepted into the EEC if the country demonstrated its goodwill in the security policy agenda. In that way NATO membership was used as a lever in the negotiations with the EEC. The entire left wing was against Spanish membership of NATO, when Calvo Sotelo passed the accession through the Parliament on 29 October 1981, and it remained one of PSOE’s electoral promises prior to the victory in 1982 that they probably intended

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to withdraw Spain from NATO. But when they got in power, they changed their attitude and postponed the decision regarding NATO membership to sometime after clarifying the relationship to the EEC, in accordance with the principle of using NATO membership as leverage.

The socialist decade Calvo Sotelo did not succeed in making the UCD into a homogenous party either. During the summer of 1982 the coalition dissolved and in August he had to resign and call new general elections. The dissolution of the UCD in the centre-right and the internal divisions of the PCE on the left wing benefitted the PSOE, who came out as the election’s great victor with 48 per cent of the votes and an absolute majority in Parliament. The participation rose to 80 per cent in 1982 in contrast to 1979, when it had only been 68 per cent, which at the time had been interpreted as a crisis for the new democracy. These facts gave the newly elected Socialist government an increased legitimacy in comparison with the previous UCD governments. Furthermore, the victory of the PSOE and the change of government meant another important step for the democratization process, as the system had shown itself capable of handing over power to those who represented the defeated in the Civil War and the marginalized opposition during the Franco regime (Powell 1991: 90). In economic policy the socialists chose to focus on the macroeconomic imbalances, and during 1982–5 their policy produced favourable economic results: the trade balance deficit and inflation were reduced, but unemployment and the public budget deficits continued to grow as a consequence of the adjustments. From 1985, however, economic activity began to increase again (Serrano 1991: 125–30). The necessary adjustment of the economic structures had been postponed during a decade due to the political instability. The economic policy of the first half of the 1980s, however, was governed by another very important political goal, namely the accession to the EEC. This concern contributed to the focus on controlling inflation and the creating of international confidence in the Spanish economy instead of, for example, focusing on the sharply increased unemployment, which therefore can be regarded as a sort of price to pay for accession to the EEC. The right wing constituted a weak opposition to the socialists, as it had a hard time finding its own feet after the electoral debacle. The relationship of the right wing with the Franco regime was unresolved, as it was its role in democracy (Maravall and Santamaría 1986: 106). The balance of power swung to the left and stayed there during the 1980s. The socialists got almost absolute powers with absolute majorities in Parliament helped by the Constitution and the electoral law which had been explicitly designed to favour the constitution of strong governments. The Socialist Party was a ‘young party’ in the sense that its parliamentarians had an average age of around forty years, which in very real terms was a

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generational change among the politicians in power. In its quest for power it had moved towards the political centre as being social-democratic. The fact that the PSOE could form a majority government offered the party the possibility of making government more effective, which had been a problem for the former democratic governments. The first socialist executive under Prime Minister Felipe González had major objectives: to make the decentralized system of autonomous regions work, to handle the economic crisis efficiently and, last but not least, to finalize the negotiations with the EEC and achieve full membership. This last goal meant, however, that the programme of structural economic reforms and tight budgetary control had to be continued in order to live up to the accession criteria. To a large extent these policies were contrary to classical socialist politics, but given the priority that the European cause had among the population the PSOE could, nevertheless, expect to increase its standing via the benefits obtained from the prospective EEC accession.

Europe as solution to Spanish problems Since the very beginning of the twentieth century, to many Spaniards – particularly reformist intellectuals – Europe had appeared as a solution to the problems of Spain. The 1898 Generation was responsible for the introduction of this idea of Europe as a reform catalyst and particularly the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset who in 1910 coined the famous phrase: ‘Spain is the problem and Europe the solution’.3 Although Franco later on would have a much more ambivalent relationship with Europe, both in real terms and as an idea, the dictatorship did actually apply for membership of the EEC in 1962, but was rejected because it lacked democracy. More than twenty years had to pass before this issue had been solved sufficiently for a new application to be accepted. As one of its first decisions after the first democratic elections, the newly elected Spanish government applied again in July 1977. The reasons were to consolidate the new democracy, improve the economy and an imprecise idea of ‘returning to Europe’, more or less as had been the case with both Portugal and Greece (Dinan 1994: 130, 477). There was for Spain a close connection between democratization and integration into Europe, which, among other reasons, was induced by the role played by ‘Europe’ as the symbol of democracy during the Franco regime. It was therefore not so much the accession to the EEC itself that helped democracy as the long-nourished hopes to the accession, which were related to the symbolic role (Ortega 1994: 218). Spain became a member of the EEC together with Portugal and Greece in the third enlargement. The accession of Greece, which was granted entry in 1981, was treated separately, but there was a clear tendency to view the applications of Spain and Portugal together. First, the relative poverty as well as the fact that their population would amount to approximately

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20 per cent of the existing Community, threatened to knock the integration process off course. Secondly, the agricultural and fishing sectors constituted the main problems in the negotiations due to, among other reasons, the subsidies of the EEC to these areas. Especially France was against Spanish membership as the two countries were going to compete in exporting fruits, vegetables and olive oil. Thirdly, the high unemployment rates in Spain and the recent Spanish history of emigration made the EEC countries fear an invasion of cheap Iberian workers. However, the Spanish negotiators were also hesitant to accept the conditions for becoming a member state. The country had to introduce VAT and limit the state subsidies to different productive sectors and thus broke with a long and well-established tradition that dated back at least to the Francoist policies of import substitution (Dinan 1994: 130–3). Despite the fact that the failed coup in February 1981 helped to convince at least the European Parliament of the necessity to integrate Spain, nothing much happened. The French opposition to Spanish and Portuguese entry continued to obstruct the negotiations and not even the arrival of the socialist Francois Mitterrand as President of France in 1981 helped to decrease the French opposition to Spanish membership. But after their arrival in power, the socialists succeeded in improving the climate between Spain and France, which was decisive in advancing the negotiations during 1983 and 1984 and finally, in June 1985, Spain could sign the Treaty of Accession. On 1 January 1986, Spain thus finally became a full member of the EEC, which was seen as a great national achievement by most Spaniards. They celebrated that they ‘entered into Europe’, as the headlines of El País stated, as if the European ‘house’ used to be somewhere else and that now the Spaniards were allowed to come in. The accession was perceived as a guarantee of the final consolidation of democracy and continued progress towards Western European standards at all levels of social life. Alongside negotiating with the EEC, Spain had reached a set of bilateral accords with the United States and NATO about the continued membership of the transatlantic organization, the contents of which, among others, implied that the United States should close a couple of its military installations in Spain. In spring 1986, after becoming a member of the EEC, the socialists thus held the promised referendum about the continued membership of NATO and obtained the approval of the Spanish people. The membership and the easier access to the European market coincided with a turn in the general economic conjunctures and the beginning of a period of economic growth in Spain. The coincidence between the two resulted in a generalized perception that interpreted the membership as having very positive effects on the development of Spain. A more balanced view would have had to include the ‘price’ for the accession in terms of high unemployment and low economic activity in the years before the actual accession into the analysis, but criticism of the conditions set up for Spain never reached much beyond the political establishment. Also in this respect

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the importance of the symbolic value of a membership outweighed any criticism of the conditions that was or could have been voiced. Membership of the EEC had been connected to hopes and prophecy-like statements in a completely different way than that of any other national political project. In many ways the discussion on Europe drew on the inheritance from the 1898 Generation and particularly on the ideas of Europe as solution to Spanish problems formulated by José Ortega y Gasset even though Europe awoke more confidence in the 1970s and the 1980s than was the case then earlier in the twentieth century. Parallels were drawn between the processes Europe was facing and those that Spain had to face, which should offer Spain a possibility to contribute to finding solutions to the problems that were hindering the further development of the EEC/EU at the time. Last but not least, the role of Spain in relation to establishing what can be considered to be the European culture was underlined even though it most often is necessary to go far back in time to identify the Spanish contribution (see for example Abellán 1994: 420). In this way the resonance from 1898 helped to domesticate Europe in the Spanish context, and at the same time these expressions of Spanish nationalism were an attempt to give Spain self-confidence and identity in its meeting with Europe. The relationship between the regions, Spain and Europe was very often debated, particularly the question of the future of regions within the EEC/ EU. From quite early on it was clear to most observers that many European regions saw a possibility in the EEC/EU to act independently of their respective states although some also maintained that in the long run it would cause a decline in separatist tendencies (Brunner 1994: 39). It certainly is not difficult to find statements by Basque or Catalan nationalists from the 1980s and 1990s that applauded the EEC/EU in ways that were clearly marked by the wish to diminish the relative weight of Spain/Madrid. Their pro-European attitude was thus clearly related to furthering their own sub-state nationalist cause and can only with reservations be taken as Europeanism. Another example of the close relationship of the Catalan and Basque nationalists with the European institution is their involvement in the different fora for regions within or with relations to the European institutions. At various times the Committee of Regions created by the Maastricht Treaty has thus had a president from Spain, for example, the Catalan socialist, Pasqual Maragall between 1996 and 1998. This generally positive attitude towards the EU, particularly from the most separatist Spanish regions, however, very clearly seems to have changed negatively after the finalization of the text of the Constitutional Treaty in 2004, for exactly the same reasons. During the negotiations of the Constitutional Treaty the representatives of the regions fought for a special role for the European regions. But as the negotiations on the Treaty text were coming to an end it became clear that the Union envisioned in the Treaty remained a union of member states with very limited political influence and only consultative powers for the regions and as a result their

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interest in the EU cooled down considerably. Evidence of this new turn in the relationship between the Spanish separatist regions and the EU can be seen in the result of the referendum on the Constitutional Treaty celebrated in February 2005: participation rates were lower than the average of Spain in both regions, also in both regions the percentage of affirmative votes were lower than the average.4 The nationalists had lost faith in the EU as a way to further their nationalist cause.

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CHAPTER TWELVE

The national holidays in democracy: Struggling national discourses

Between the 23-F and the ‘era’ of the quincentennial The issue of a national holiday had been left almost untouched since the death of Franco, as mentioned above. But during the spring of 1981, the most important symbols of the Spanish nation were the object of a series of legislative initiatives as a side effect of the failed coup attempt and the subsequent necessity of a strengthening of the national discourse. The development of the autonomous regions set off by the Constitution had led to a constant affirmation of the identity of especially Catalonia and the Basque Country, accompanied by an intense process of creation of national symbols such as national holidays. This apparent ‘dissolution’ of Spain had made parts of the military establishment very nervous and was one of the causes of the coup attempt. The result of the putsch was an increase in support for the democratic institutions, as well as a relative increase in support for a Spanish national discourse vis-à-vis the peripheral nationalist discourses. For the first time, the national elites became aware of the importance of strengthening democratic national symbols and removing Francoist symbols. After the coup, a series of laws or proposals on the national flag, the coat of arms and the national holiday were thus discussed in the Parliament. The initiative behind the Law on the National Flag came from the government and was dated 13 April 1981, that is to say only seven weeks after the 23-F coup attempt.1 The initiatives behind the Law on the Coat of Arms of Spain from November 19792 and the proposal of law on 117

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the national holiday from November 1980,3 on the other hand, both came from the socialists and both antedated the coup attempt. By their proposals the socialists, thus, had actually anticipated the debate on the national symbols that the 23-F coup attempt was to cause. The pre-coup political context of late 1979 and 1980 was determined by the UCD’s internal problems, which were taking the party further and further away from the political centre, impeding it from exercising a decisive governance. With respect to the symbols, the legacy of the dictatorship was still visible everywhere in the form of street names, monuments, flags with the Francoist coat of arms and so on. Precisely the fact that the Francoist coat of arms had not been officially substituted inspired the socialists to present the corresponding proposal of law in late 1979. The socialist proposals were surely aimed at putting pressure on the government to begin a process of substituting Francoist values and symbols with constitutional and democratic ones. The goal of the November 1980 socialist proposal was to convert the 6th of December, the anniversary of the constitutional referendum in 1978, into the national holiday of Spain, instead of the 12th of October. This was a clear attempt to refound the nation on democratic values. As can be deduced from the above, the proposal, however, was not discussed until after the 23-F coup attempt. After the parliamentary debate in May 1981, it was agreed to take it ‘into consideration’, which normally means that a commission will study the proposal and elaborate a law, which is passed back to the Parliament. Later the same year, negotiations between the opposition and the government were begun, but they came to nothing. The 23-F coup attempt meant a change in the attitude of the new UCD government under Calvo Sotelo. They became aware of the necessity to strengthen the democratic national symbols and remove the Francoist symbols. This change of attitude accounts for the acceleration of the parliamentary process of the two socialist proposals, and for the presentation of the proposal of law on the national flag. But the dynamic of the coup attempt also had an effect on the socialist leaders, who became aware of the necessity to reach broad accords on these issues with the centre-right. The problem of the national symbols was too sensitive and too important to be conducted as block politics. It was imperative to reach broad consensuses to find durable solutions capable of preventing future military interventions in politics. Therefore, it is highly probable that a private meeting between the hierarchy of the UCD and the PSOE decided to ‘park’ the proposal on changing the national holiday in order to avoid further hurting the sensibility of the army. Juan José Laborda, socialist senator at the time, recalls that the theme was never debated in the weekly Monday-meetings with Alfonso Guerra in which the parliamentary group of the Senate would discuss the parliamentary issues of the week.4 Probably due to the stalling of the normal parliamentary proceedings caused by the coup attempt it took half a year before the proposal reached the Parliament,5 despite the fact that it had been submitted for ‘urgent’ treatment. The debate on 19 May still only constituted a preliminary step,

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before the eventual elaboration of a law. Therefore the debate was not very extensive; it was a simple question of letting the parliamentary groups express their consent or dissent with respect to taking the proposal into consideration. Despite the fact that all groups agreed to take the socialist proposal into consideration and that most interventions were rather brief, significant differences appeared which were indicative of the future quarrels over the issue of commemorating the Constitution. The spokesman of the proponents, Gregorio Peces-Barba, one of the ‘fathers’ of the Constitution, alleged the lack of a national holiday in Spain and the common practice of celebrating the constitution in democratic countries in defence of the proposal. The Constitution was the most important symbol of the new democratic regime and yet there still did not exist any occasion to celebrate this new communion of all Spaniards. These arguments were basically subscribed by the Mixed parliamentary group, by the communist parliamentary group and by the parliamentary group of the Catalan Minority. Miquel Roca i Junyent, from the last-mentioned and himself another of the constitutional ‘fathers’, expressed it even more clearly: ‘the political regime that the democracy has installed in Spain . . . needs its proper symbols. And there can be no better symbol in a democratic regime than the celebration of its Constitution’. In this interpretation, the democratic regime, and the Constitution as its main symbol, constituted a new beginning even if these did not necessarily deny the previous national history. The UCD government agreed with the need for celebrating the Constitution and the plan for turning the 6th of December into a holiday, although not a working holiday. According to the spokesman of the government, Miguel Herrero Rodríguez de Miñón, also one of the seven constitutional ‘fathers’, the fact that the Constitution of 1978 only represented one small step in the long history of Spain was a reason for not wanting to institute it as the national holiday of Spain: We, the Spaniards, . . . are an old people with an old and long history, a history that no matter how dramatic it may be does not offer . . . a definitive interruption that permits us to synthesise in one single date the daily and secular plebiscites . . . that constitute our national being as Spaniards. It is into this secular history that the Constitution of 1978 is inserted as one more step. The government opposed the view that the Constitution and the democratic regime constituted a new beginning. It was just one step in Spain’s many centuries of history, and, according to the government, the secular evolution of Spanish national identity could not be subsumed in one single date. It was impossible to find a suitable national holiday. Furthermore, and this was going to be a constant problem with respect to commemorating the Constitution,6 the government was against ‘mythicizing’ the Constitution, alleging that it was better to apply it: as if the consolidation of democracy

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and the commemoration of its foundation were at odds with each other. At the time, just after the 23-F, the issue of consolidating democracy was of extreme importance. According to the proponents of the new holiday, the Constitution was a new beginning that due to the broad consensus behind it represented a completely new kind of Spanish identity, which accordingly merited its own commemoration. But according to the government, the Constitution was simply the expression of an already existing national identity that already had its own festivities: it was more important to continue celebrating these than to institute another holiday dedicated to the Constitution. This fundamental disagreement repeated the struggle over defining the transition itself as rupture or reform. The government saw the promulgation of the Constitution as one event in Spain’s long history, and thus obviously did not conceive of the Constitution itself or the change of regime in terms of rupture. The proposal, on the contrary, aimed at a representation of the constitutional referendum as a radically new event in the Spanish context in an attempt to redefine the transition as more rupture than reform. This attempt was resisted successfully by the government. Having agreed to take the proposal into consideration, the next step normally is that such a proposal is passed on to the relevant parliamentary commission, which has the task to thoroughly study the proposal and elaborate a law that is sent back to the plenary assembly for amendments and eventual approval. It seems that negotiations between the political parties were initiated in late November 1981 in order to begin elaborating a law as envisaged in the proposal. At the same time, however, the government issued a decree which ratified the Día de la Hispanidad as the national holiday of Spain.7 Apparently the initiative was motivated by a conflict with the Generalitat that had declared the 12th of October an ordinary workday in 1981 causing some polemic8 and thus had no direct relation with the ongoing debate on the 6th of December. By declaring the 12th of October ‘a working holiday of national scope’ the government avoided future attempts to declassify the holiday in any of the autonomous regions. The decree, however, also represented the first time that the Día de la Hispanidad was explicitly appropriated by the democratic regime. The 12th of October was, thus, recycled as a national holiday for the second time – Franco had already done so in 1958 – and also this time it was done without mentioning its antecedents, as if it was a new national holiday. The decree was, nevertheless, also a statement in the dispute between the two candidates to the position as the national holiday. According to the UCD government, the 6th of December was not as adequate a symbol of the Spanish nation as was the 12th of October. This initiative notwithstanding, the anniversary of the constitutional referendum in 1981 saw the largest ever official and popular celebrations occur across the country.9 The recent memories of the 23-F putsch created a propitious climate towards celebration of the Constitution, and also conferred on it a defensive note, like the year before. Requests to turn the

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6th of December into a national holiday continued to arrive from other institutions.10 Only two weeks before on the anniversary of Franco’s death, 20 November, the ultra-right wing had succeeded in uniting at least 150,000 people in Madrid under the sign of the national flag. There were many flags at the manifestation with the Francoist coat of arms, even if their use had been prohibited by the laws of the national flag and the new national coat of arms, both passed during the preceding month of October.11 In this context, it was decided to turn the Day of the Constitution into a defence of the national flag. An official appeal was issued to adorn the private and public buildings with the national flag in a deliberate attempt to ‘reconquer’ it from the ultra-rightwing. Many different personalities from King Juan Carlos to Felipe González expressed their happiness with this initiative. Felipe González thus stated that the goal of the celebrations was: ‘to rescue a date and a symbol: a date like the 6th of December, the day on which the Constitution was approved, and . . . that which we may consider the most important symbol of the unity of the Spaniards, which is the flag’. By late 1981, thus, the national symbols of Spain had been partially ‘updated’. The national anthem had not been touched, whereas the flag and the coat of arms had been changed and adapted to the new democratic regime. As for the national holiday the government had chosen simply to confirm the already existing Día de la Hispanidad without any adaptation, which clearly denotes a temporary solution. One of the few clear instructions that Felipe González gave to the entire parliamentary group after winning the elections in October 1982 was to always seek the largest possible consensus on all issues, even if the socialists themselves represented a comfortable majority.12 The discussion of the proposal in May 1981 had not shown a large consensus behind changing the national holiday from the 12th of October to the Day of the Constitution. Even if important sectors of the PSOE were still in favour of this, the sense of responsibility that came with aspiring to govern the country probably impeded them from pursuing this goal. The priorities had changed, and the 6th of December was slowly but steadily transformed into an official holiday, but not the national holiday.

From the popular celebration of the Constitution to the ‘puente de la Constitución’ 13 The socialists had won the elections in late October and even before formally constituting the government in early December one of the first initiatives of the new Socialist government was to issue an order that the anniversary of the referendum on the Constitution was to be commemorated in schools at all levels through different educational activities.14 Most schools, however, already dedicated time to teaching the Constitution, but these initiatives had

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not been dictated from the government and therefore had a more voluntary character. The only real innovation of the socialists with respect to celebrating the Constitution was that they inaugurated the, now traditional, reception in the Parliament celebrated on the 6th of December, despite the fact that they had very little time to prepare it in 1982. The reception was organized by, and probably was also the idea of, Gregorio Peces-Barba, the socialist representative among the constitutional ‘fathers’, and one of the signatories of the proposal to convert the 6th of December into the national holiday of Spain. The idea was to invite representatives of all Spanish society, as he himself explained in his short welcoming speech: The aim has been to symbolise that this is the house of everybody, . . . because not in vain the Parliament, according to the Constitution, represents the national sovereignty that resides in the Spanish people, and in this way . . . this is today and will always be the house of the people. . . . That is the meaning of this invitation.15 The intentions of representativity behind the official reception were undoubtedly noble, but the character of the event remained, of course, elitist. The proposal to convert the 6th of December into the national holiday of Spain was not mentioned by the socialist hierarchy at the reception, or elsewhere in relation to the anniversary, but the new Prime Minister, Felipe González, commented on the anniversary at the reception. He was not unsympathetic to the idea of ‘upgrading’ the commemoration: I am sorry that there has not been enough time to celebrate this day as I would have liked to do. But from now onwards, the government will think about the possibility that this may be a holiday, even if it is necessary to consider the other festivities of the year and the proximity to the 8th [of December], festivity of the Immaculate Conception.16 He thus seemed to be in favour of giving the 6th of December holiday status, but significantly, he did not mention the possibility of turning the anniversary into the national holiday of Spain. He also acknowledged that in the end this was a problem of the working calendar. It thus seems reasonable to conclude that at the time of their arrival in power, the PSOE no longer intended to transform the 6th of December into the national holiday of Spain. As an indirect result of the new official celebration, the popular and official festivities around the country suffered a decline. Indeed media attention to the commemorative activities outside Madrid declined markedly and instead concentrated on the official reception. Where previously the political parties, and especially the PSOE, had been involved in organizing commemorative activities all around Spain, they now concentrated mostly on the official reception. Paradoxically, then, the myriad popular and official activities in

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1981 had been triggered, at least in part, precisely by the lack of an official ceremony and by the reluctance of the UCD government to institute one. The attitude of defence of the Constitution, which had been another reason for the large mobilization that year, was also disappearing from the commemoration, thus depriving it of another motivating factor. Just before the fifth anniversary in 1983, the government issued a decree of which the essence was to officially denominate the anniversary the ‘Day of the Constitution’, a denomination that already had been used officially for at least two years.17 The short preamble and the first article read: With the aim of solemnising adequately the anniversary of the date on which the Spanish people through referendum ratified the Constitution, the government has considered opportune to adopt the means to achieve this aim. . . . Article  1. The 6th of December of each year, anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution by the Spanish people, is declared Day of the Constitution. The decree did not add anything new to the commemoration, except giving its denomination an official stamp. The decree did not touch upon the holiday status of the anniversary at all, and bore no resemblance to the proposal of law from 1980 except in its second article, in which it stated that institutions at the different administrative levels were to commemorate the anniversary solemnly and through public acts. In spite of the politicians’ blocking of the socialist proposal, in a survey from 1984 made by the Centre for Sociological Research (Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, or CIS) Spaniards showed a clear majority – 60 per cent – in favour of turning the Day of the Constitution into the national holiday of Spain.18 Only in late December 1985 was the 6th of December turned into a working holiday through the decree on the working calendar for 1986.19 The preamble of the decree justified the change of status of the 6th of December in the following terms: The date of the ratification by the Spanish people of the Spanish Constitution is a historical moment that symbolises the guarantee of democratic cohabitation and the consolidation of the constitutional State in our country. It is therefore adequate that the date of the 6th of December not only is celebrated with the solemnity that the evocation in itself contains, but that it also constitutes a concrete reference in the everyday life of the Spanish people and an occasion to revive the link between citizens and the Spanish Constitution. For this reason it is adequate to declare the 6th of December, Day of the Spanish Constitution, a labour holiday, of national reach, with the character of a civic commemoration.

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At a first glance, it thus seems that the socialists here achieved a substantial part of their proposal of law from 1980. The constitutional referendum was mentioned as a historical moment that symbolized the foundation of the new democratic regime, as in the original proposal. But the fact that the change of the holiday status of the Day of the Constitution was ‘hidden’ in the annually repeated decree on the working calendar, instead of being dedicated its own decree or a law preceded by parliamentary debate as initially proposed, reveals that – once again – the intention was to arouse as little debate over the issue as possible. In fact, the change of status of the 6th of December was not reflected on at all in the newspapers on the following anniversary in 1986. That year, the 6th of December fell on a Saturday and the new holiday thus caused some changes in many people’s life. Furthermore, the fact that, at the same time, the government was already preparing the law that would convert the 12th of October into the national holiday of Spain20 confirms the conclusion from earlier that the PSOE did not intend to transform the 6th of December into the national holiday of Spain. The decree simply turned the anniversary into a holiday, but one which would be of secondary importance with respect to the national holiday. Whether this development was the fruit of an internal agreement between different factions of the PSOE, or of a premeditated strategy that aimed at ‘absolving’ the PSOE from the compromise of its 1980 proposal is impossible to say. In 1987, the PSOE finally passed a law which ‘establishes that the Day of the National Holiday of Spain is the 12th of October’.21 This was then the third time that the commemoration had been renamed and recycled as a national holiday, and also this time the new law did not mention the antecedents, as if it was a new holiday. If on the other two occasions the commemorative rituals did not change, this time a new commemoration was also created. Due to the necessary readaptation of a holiday that had many inconvenient connotations, the caution taken in the formulations was extreme. To begin with, the denomination Día de la Hispanidad disappeared, as the term hispanidad entailed uncomfortable neo-colonialist connotations, and instead the holiday was denominated aseptically ‘the Day of the National Holiday of Spain’. In the preamble the legal text began with acknowledging the complexity of the Spanish national community: The commemoration of the national holiday, a common practice in the present world, is aimed at solemnly recalling moments of the collective history that form part of the common historical, cultural, and social patrimony, which is assumed as such by the great majority of the citizens. Without underestimating the indisputable complexity implied by the past of a nation so diverse as the Spanish one, it is necessary that the historical event which is to be celebrated represents one of the most relevant moments for the political cohabitation, the cultural legacy, and the very affirmation of the state identity and the national character of that people.

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The first sentence is very telling with regards to the delicacy with which one has to approach this kind of question in Spain: to have a national holiday is something normal among our neighbouring countries, therefore, we also may have one. This was not a law that simply declared a certain day to be the national holiday of Spain; it excused the declaration, arguing that it was a common practice. In spite of the emphasis on the plurality of the Spanish national community and the need for coexistence, the text recognized that this situation made the creation of a truly national holiday difficult. With a democratic criterion, the date that encountered least resistance would be elected. In this regard, it is significant that the expression ‘national identity’ was considered too problematic in the Spanish context making the legislators opt for ‘state identity’. The preamble then referred to the actual situation in Spain with regards to national holiday(s): The existing legislative framework of our country in this regard is characterised by certain confusion, since, at least at a formal level, various dates coexist as holidays of civic or exclusively official character. A new regulation, thus, is necessary in order to assign unequivocally the adequate solemnity to one single date. Obviously, the text referred to the 12th of October and the 6th of December, which according to the working calendar were the only holidays of ‘civic character’ at the time. The preference for the 12th of October was justified in the following terms: The chosen date, the 12th of October, symbolises the historical moment at which Spain, on the verge of concluding a state-building process on the basis of our cultural and political plurality, and the integration of the kingdoms of Spain into one single monarchy, began a period of linguistic and cultural projection beyond the European frontiers. All references to the conquest and colonization, to Christopher Columbus and even to America were avoided. This was the ‘loudest’ silence of the new law: a commemoration that was to be celebrated on the anniversary of the first landfall of Columbus in America did not mention either the man or America. In spite of the extreme care taken to be politically correct, the justification resorted to precisely the two classical myths that served the development of the concept of hispanidad. On the one hand, the myth of the reconquest and the unification of Spain, and, on the other, the myth of the discovery and colonization of America. Despite the apparent will to avoid this concept, the idea behind the new law was practically the same. The law was passed in Parliament using an express procedure called ‘lectura única’. Since the initiative came directly from the government, the law had not been processed in any parliamentary commission, all of which indicates that a previous accord had been arrived at with the other main

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parliamentary groups before the law reached the plenary session. This way of acting followed the general modus of the transition, when pacts about the most delicate issues were made outside the Parliament. The parliamentary debate on the law principally treated the issue of distributing the roles of ‘National Holiday’ and the less important ‘official holiday’ between the two dates in question, the 12th of October and the 6th of December. To convert the Day of the Constitution into a holiday in late 1985 thus also served to deflate the discussion between the two candidates for national holiday. Both were to remain holidays; it was simply a question of deciding which one should be the most important. The spokesman of the PSOE argued that the 12th of October ‘not only supplies the measure of the historical signification of Spain, but also the importance that the 500th anniversary of an encounter and a discovery that marked universal history acquires for us’. In short that the 12th of October had ‘history’ whereas the 6th of December had none. Significantly, nobody argued – not even those in favour of the 6th of December – that the constitutional referendum represented a symbolic foundational moment for the new Spanish democracy, as had been done in the preamble to the proposal of law from 1980 and in the decree from December 1985. It is difficult to know exactly why the PSOE finally chose to promote the 12th of October. Within the PSOE different factions existed, some more constitutionalist and others more historicist, to put it bluntly. The electoral victory and arrival in government of the socialists tipped the balance between these two principles in favour of the historicist option. According to Laborda, Felipe González, among others, consciously sought to integrate the historicist concept of Spain, which until then had been the almost exclusive dominion of the right wing, with the vague concept of the Spanish nation with which the socialists themselves were operating. The result was a sort of pragmatic accord between the national values of the right wing and those of the left wing. This accord included a modernized discourse on hispanidad,22 which insisted less on raza and the predominant position of Spain, and instead emphasized the idea of hispanidad as a kind of summary of the last five centuries of Spanish history that proved Spain to be an old nation. This revised discourse on the nation explains the preoccupation with the fact that the national commemoration ‘symbolised history’, as shown by the citation of the spokesperson above. This emerged even more clearly in the defence of the law by another deputy of the PSOE, Beviá Pastor, in response to the critique made by the spokesperson of the left-wing United Left (Izquierda Unida, or IU): [For] a people that has a past, it is not bad . . . that it elects as a symbol, as a date that helps, co-ordinates and unites everybody, that not only [refers to] something that one generation has experienced with more or less drama, but [to] something that recollects everything in one bundle. . . . That it should be . . . a symbol not of something which these generations are experiencing, but of something that is like a summary, a synthesis of an entire people.23

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The Constitution and its ratification through the referendum, in this conception, clearly could not compete with the almost 500 years of history since the discovery of America. The 23-F coup attempt had convinced the PSOE of the need to find a holiday backed by a broad consensus, especially including the centre-right, but also – if at all possible – the peripheral nationalists. In this sense, the Day of the Constitution remained a controversial holiday in some peripheral nationalist circles, particularly among the Basque nationalists. Not that they were particularly happy about the 12th of October, but the Day of the Constitution would have been worse from their point of view. This tacit agreement with the choice of the 12th of October is shown in the fact that neither the Basques nor the Catalans intervened in the debate, and in the fact that both groups only abstained in the vote of the law instead of voting against. The Catalans even withdrew a series of partial amendments without further comment, an evident sign of a previous accord with the proponent government.24 It is also likely that the need to reach an agreement with the conservative AP in order to have the backing of an ample majority favoured the selection of the 12th of October. Lastly, as noted by the IU spokesperson, there is little doubt that the decision was influenced by the conjuncture of the quincentennial of the discovery, an occasion for which large-scale festivities were being prepared at the time of voting the law. The above citation of the PSOE spokesperson confirms that the coincidence of the national holiday and the upcoming festivities of the quincentennial was an extra encouragement to choose the 12th of October as national holiday. In this sense, it was a law ‘made to measure’. Possibly, it was considered that the grandiose festivities would have a positive effect on the weak consensus underlying Spanish national identity. The fact that in Madrid there is no street or square dedicated to the Constitution mirrors this tortuous way of constructing a holiday. To change the name of a street or a square in Madrid and dedicate it to the Constitution would have been too controversial, or so it was believed by the politicians.25 In contrast, for example, the surrounding suburbs of Alcorcón, Leganés, Móstoles and Getafe all have at least one street and/or one square dedicated to the Constitution. Madrid has only a monument to the Constitution, but significantly it was not paid for by the State, but by the municipality and the provincial administration.26 Following the inauguration in 1982 of the official commemoration of the Constitution in the Parliament, the popular as well as official festivities began to decrease. Around the country the Constitution was still commemorated by extraordinary plenary sessions of municipal, provincial and regional Parliaments, official receptions, inaugurations of squares, streets and parks dedicated to the Constitution, popular festivals and so forth. But over the years these commemorations decreased slowly but steadily, and especially their popular and participatory character declined markedly. In Andalusia, for example, official acts like plenary sessions at all levels of the local-regional administration in commemoration of the Constitution were numerous in the

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early 1980s. But in 1988, on the tenth anniversary of the Constitution, the only official act in the entire region was an extraordinary plenary session of the city council of Almeria and the subsequent inauguration of a commemorative plaque.27 The remaining touch of popular content was largely reduced to concerts, festivals and the like, and thus generally de-contextualized the constitutional anniversary by using it merely as an occasion for public events. The official reception in the Parliament had its own significance during its first editions. Through instituting this official commemoration of the Constitution, the socialists thereby established a difference with respect to the previous UCD government who had resisted doing so. Therefore it was followed with rather great attention during the first years, both in terms of the turn out of the invited guests and in terms of media attention. As it was also a ceremony with almost no content except for a short and almost identical speech year after year by the President of the lower chamber, it however very rarely provided the occasion for a serious reflection on the Constitution. Practically from the beginning, the event therefore degenerated into an occasion for manifesting the current political hierarchy, a kind of a thermometer of political gossip that served to demonstrate who was ‘in’ and who was ‘out’. With the promulgation of the new law on the national holiday in 1987, the commemorative activity on the 12th of October changed profoundly, although the mutations had actually begun a couple of years before. Since 1985 the commemorative events had taken place in Madrid, ceasing to move around Spain. Where the celebration used to consist of one single event, from 1987 the celebration was divided into two parts, a ceremonial and mostly public part and an academic part. The ceremonial part consisted in placing a floral wreath before the Monument to the Fallen for Spain in the Plaza de la Lealtad and a military parade in the adjoining paseo del Prado, followed by a reception offered by the royal couple to the institutional representatives of the State in the Palacio Real.28 The academic event was generally celebrated on the preceding or the following day, and was organized by the Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericano, which hosted the event in 1986. It was generally followed by a reception offered to the diplomatic corps of the Ibero-American countries. The King’s speech, which formerly centred a large part of the attention, was now given at the academic event, and was somewhat more peripheral with respect to the previous years. The ceremonial event itself remained purely ritual. These changes of ritual were not specified in the law or in any decree; as on other occasions, decisions of this kind were not discussed or explained publicly anywhere. Most parts of this new commemoration had antecedents among Francoist commemorative practices, which were recycled and transformed. The academic event was similar in form – although not in its content – to that celebrated by the same institution during the dictatorship on the 12th of October. Likewise, the homage to the fallen was in a certain way heir to the homonymous ceremony of the dictatorship on the 20th of November, although the fallen

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were now conceived differently. The military parade basically followed the scheme of the last Victory Parades of the Franco regime, but the military was conceived of in a new democratic fashion and, lastly, the official reception was similar to the quasi-royal reception celebrated by Franco on the 18th of July. Despite these important differences, in the fact of having chosen a ritual ‘cocktail’, which in so many details recalled various Francoist commemorations, or rather the Francoist mode of commemorating, the new national holiday was bound to evoke memories or feelings from the period of the dictatorship among Spaniards who were old enough to remember. The newly inaugurated ceremony soon became the object of criticism, both for selecting the 12th of October as the national holiday but especially for the excessively military character of the ritual. The editorial writer of El País remarked: By centring the celebration in a military act, completed by an act of homage to those who ‘gave their lives for Spain’, the most common path has been selected, but also . . . the most polemical with regards to the proposed aim. The resonance of the employed formula, even if the term fallen has been avoided, united with the Francoist rhetoric, evokes a series of particular values29 [emphasis in original]. Even if the editor was able to accept the selection of the 12th of October because the large majority of parliamentarians embraced it, the creation of a largely military ceremony was too much. It would only remind the Spaniards of former regimes and their practices of turning the army into the backbone of the Fatherland in order to justify coups and civil wars against ‘internal enemies’. Whether these criticisms were behind the decision to maintain the Day of the Armed Forces in late May and diminish the military parade of the 12th of October to something less grandiose is difficult to say. But the fact remains that after the first edition in 1987, the size of the military parade was reduced to about a third from approximately 4,500 soldiers to 1,500.30 From approximately 1985 to 1986 onwards, the discourse of King Juan Carlos on hispanidad changed. Although he had mentioned the quincentennial of the discovery before, from the mid-1980s it dominated his discourse completely. Increasingly, the discovery was no longer called a ‘discovery’, favouring instead the official denomination of the quincentennial celebration as the ‘Fifth Centenary of the discovery of America – Encounter between two worlds’. Instead of presenting colonization as a creation ex novo and Spain as ‘progenitor’ of nations, this compound denomination emphasized the pre-existence of ‘a world’ in America before the ‘discovery’. The discovery as a heroic enterprise was de-emphasized to instead insist on the centuries of common history described as ‘half a millennium of walking together’ (Juan Carlos I 1996, vol. 2: 965). Generally, the new discourse was more related to the present and the future – especially the immediate future of the quincentennial – than to past glories. This new royal discourse on hispanidad

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descended from the metaphysical heights of heroic deeds, common descent and historical destiny to instead concentrate on the more day-to-day political issues of cooperation and the building of a political community. Spain’s entry into the EEC had, for the first time, given Spain an opportunity to perform the role of ‘bridge’ with some real content, thus permitting the discourse to descend from rhetoric to issues of real life.

A conflictual holiday The principal criticisms directed towards both the Día de la Hispanidad, the National Holiday of Spain and the Day of the Constitution came from certain Catalan and Basque nationalists who, in principle, were against the idea of a ‘national holiday’. From time to time, the discussion emerged and minor incidents happened to question the legitimacy of the national holiday. The Basque and Catalan nationalist were never passive participants in the Spanish national commemorations but would always pursue their own agenda through their participation, silence or criticism. There are, however, significant differences in the Catalan and Basque reactions to both commemorations, as we shall see in the following. As mentioned above, the 12th of October was not a holiday in Catalonia in 1981 according to the working calendar for that year elaborated by the Tarradellas administration, which caused some polemic. On 12 October 1981, the Pujol government, however, promised to ‘re-establish’ the holiday as well as the official Catalan commemoration of the Día de la Hispanidad31 consisting in a floral offering in front of the statue of Columbus in central Barcelona and an academic event. In fact, the commemoration had been celebrated in more or less the same form both during the Franco regime and afterwards, and was therefore not re-established as Pujol claimed.32 The ceremony was simply appropriated by the new executive, headed by Pujol, transforming it into an ‘affirmation of Catalan [identity]’. Pujol’s Catalanist vindication of the commemoration, however, was more a defence of the role of Catalans within the Spanish conquest and colonization than a critique of it in a manner very typical of Catalan nationalist discourse. Pujol on these occasions remained largely within the metaphysical discourse of a glorious past. In 1985, for example, he declared great respect and admiration ‘for Spain’s enterprise of colonisation and especially as regards linguistic and cultural work and the construction of countries’.33 This was thus not a subtle critique of the ‘American enterprise’ but an attempt to vindicate a share of it for Catalonia. On the other hand, Barcelona has also been the almost exclusive scene of the counter-manifestations against the commemoration of the Día de la Hispanidad.34 Since 1985, an ultra-right-wing ‘act of homage to the Spanish flag’ in defence of the Spanishness of Catalonia has thus coincided with a demonstration of opposite colour against the celebration of the Día de la Hispanidad and in favour of Catalan independence. The origin of the

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counter-manifestation was thus not in the first place a reaction against the celebration of the Día de la Hispanidad, but rather against the ultra-rightwing event, which, on the other hand, not by coincidence was organized on the 12th of October. Above all, it has therefore been a confrontation between two manifestations of opposite colours. The counter-manifestation has usually been organized by a platform of left-wing, separatist and antiglobalization elements, and ritual burning of Spanish flags has often been accompanied by destruction of branch offices of banks and the like. Both types of manifestations, however, have remained relatively minor events, with usually around a thousand participants. Also the party Republican Left of Catalonia (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, or ERC) has expressed criticism of the celebration of 12th of October on various occasions, but it has never organized or participated in any public manifestations against it. In the Basque Country, the Día de la Hispanidad was silenced to a much larger degree, basically due to the character of the governing nationalist party, the PNV, and the relationship between the radical separatists and the PNV. The PNV also abstained from voting the Law on the National Holiday in 1987, probably due to the fact that the 12th of October was less bad as national holiday than the Day of the Constitution (see above). Since 1987, the head of the Basque government, the lehendakari, has consistently avoided attending the official commemorative acts in Madrid.35 The governing PNV would never have officially criticized the commemoration, just as they would never have created their own Basque commemoration of the Día de la Hispanidad, although with just the same right as the Catalans they could have vindicated the role of the Basques in the Spanish conquest and colonization. Their tactic was precisely to stay silent and make the ambivalence of their position the most constant feature of their behaviour. With regards to commemorating the Constitution the Basque authorities maintained a very reticent attitude from the very beginning whereas the Catalans were among the first to take up the celebration of the Constitution. This difference stems from the very process of writing the Constitution. In the original composition of the seven-member commission with the task of writing the draft Constitution there was no representative of the peripheral nationalists, but the PSOE ceded one of its two seats to the combined ‘Catalan-Basque minority’. Since the Catalan deputies were more numerous than the Basques, the representative chosen, Miquel Roca, came from the moderate Catalan nationalists. In the negotiations the Basques pressured for the reestablishment of regional self-government through the ‘renewal of the foral pact with the Crown’, which referred to the privileges derived from the so-called fueros that had been abolished in 1839 and 1876 (see Chapter 3 for details). In practice this would mean that no state power, not even the Parliament, would be legitimized to alter the Basque institutions, which would thus be situated above the Constitution. The negotiations between the PNV and the commission were very intense and a transitional arrangement (disposición transitoria) was included that recognized Basque ‘historic’ rights as preceding the Constitution

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and emanating thus from another source than the ‘Spanish people’. Even so the attempt failed and the PNV decided to recommend abstention in the referendum (Martínez-Herrera and Miley 2010: 10). In Catalonia, on the other hand, the Constitution was presented as a victory for the nationalist goals. Therefore, in 1981, the Catalan autonomous Parliament unanimously voted a proposition in support of the Constitution that said: The representatives of the Catalan people in the Parliament confirm that the normal economic, social, and cultural development and the strengthening of Statute can only be based on the validity of the individual and social rights and liberties and on the representative institutions established by the Constitution.36 The declaration linked the defence of the Constitution with the development of autonomy, a significance which was later passed on to the commemoration after it became less defensive. The next year, in 1982, the principal institutional commemoration of the Constitution was held, together with the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Catalan Parliament on 14 December 1932, which once again emphasized this link. From 1985, the Generalitat of Catalonia created its own official reception in commemoration of the constitutional referendum, which substituted the ceremony hitherto held in the Delegación del Gobierno. The new event was basically a copy of the reception held in Madrid, with a broad representation of Catalan society. In Barcelona, however, there were no speeches and, like in Madrid, there was little else for the media to concentrate on than the gossip of who showed up, who stayed away, who talked with whom, and similar social niceties. The emotional link between Catalonia and the Constitution demonstrated in these commemorations was determined by the perceived link between a democratic regime in Spain and autonomy in Catalonia. Pujol confirmed this in informal declarations to the press during the 1986 Catalan reception. The Constitution, he said, is a positive element ‘that serves to achieve the consolidation of democratic regime, which is something that we have not had for a long time in Spain’.37 The Catalan reception was thus not a manifestation against Spain; it rather served to vindicate a part of the merit of the Constitution for Catalonia. This largely faithful attitude towards the Constitution and towards its commemoration continued during the 1990s, even if the Catalan regional government was among the proponents of a reform or reinterpretation of the Constitution. The only Catalan group of some significance that maintained a negative attitude towards the commemoration was the republicans of the ERC. They voted against the Constitution in the Parliament and usually send no representatives to the institutional commemorations in Barcelona. But they remained a footnote in a milieu that generally defended the Constitution.

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In the Basque Country, the panorama was if not opposite then very different. Here those who commemorated the Constitution remained a minority, whereas the large majority maintained an ambivalent silence. Those who did commemorate the Constitution linked it with Basque selfgovernment, like in Catalonia, but with much less success. In 1981, the only large event in commemoration of the Constitution, a music festival in Vitoria organized by the national parties the UCD, the AP, the PCE and the Basque Socialist Party (Partido Socialista de Euskadi, usually dubbed PSE-PSOE) was thus celebrated under the motto ‘Viva la Constitución, viva el Estatuto’.38 The identification between democracy, the Constitution and self-government was not achieved in the same way as in Catalonia. On the contrary, the Constitution was seen as an imposition from outside and the dominant feeling was that of dissatisfaction. Instead of celebrating the Constitution, the Basque authorities very quickly began commemorating the anniversary of the referendum on the Statute of Autonomy, the 25th of October. The popular ratification of the Statute was thus seen as the foundational moment of the Basque regime, which was then commemorated every year. The fact that the Constitution was a precondition for the Statute was generally denied or silenced. With respect to the official commemoration in Madrid, the large majority of Basque deputies chose not to attend the official reception. On the first year, however, a few actually showed up. Significantly, this ‘treacherous’ act had to be defended in the Basque context. In an interview with the Basque press, Carmelo Renovales, spokesman of the PNV senators, thus stated: ‘My presence here is normal. I am a senator elected in Vizcaya . . . and I thought that my obligation as senator was to come, and here I am’.39 But even more important than the answers of senator Renovales were the questions put to him by the journalist, which are very telling with regards to the ambiguity that surrounds the Constitution in the Basque Country: ‘The PNV abstained regarding the Constitution, [and] You participate in an act in honour of the Constitution [?]. . . . There are sixteen or eighteen deputies of the PNV, or close to it, and here only three are present [?]’. Something similar happened in 1988 when the lehendakari José Antonio Ardanza, in an act of diplomatic tightrope walking, attended a conferment ceremony in the Palacio Real but not at the reception in the Parliament, nor at the subsequent meeting of presidents of the autonomous regions in the Senate. He defended his absence in the Parliament as due to ‘coherence’ with the feelings of the majority of the Basque people, and when asked about the reason why he attended the conferment ceremony, he answered: ‘Because to the King’s summons, as the Head of State, it would be a discourtesy that someone like me, who is an ordinary representative of the State did not respond. The fundamental reason has been courtesy towards the Head of State’.40 This special affection for the King originated precisely in the attempt to renew the old pact with the Crown on the foral privileges. The historic legitimacy on which the claims to self-government were based accepted the monarchy as the only Spanish institution with a say in Basque affairs. The final failure to achieve

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this was one of the reasons why the PNV did not vote the Constitution in 1978. In attending events where the King was the patron and not attending events convoked by the Parliament therefore lay a very subtle critique that accepted the legitimacy of the Crown but not that of the Parliament. On the extreme side of the PNV and their complex relationship with the Constitution, the radical Basque nationalists of the party Herri Batasuna41 (HB) were not plagued by ambivalence. They were against the Constitution from the beginning, pledging a no in the referendum because the Constitution did not recognize the right to self-determination. In 1988 they timed a campaign entitled ‘Against this Constitution’ (En contra de esta Constitución) to end with a final meeting in Bilbao on the 6th of December.42 In the 1990s, manifestations against the Constitution were repeated annually. These were generally rather small manifestations of up to between 2,000 and 5,000 people, but as in practice they were the only popular manifestations in all Spain on the anniversary at the time, they obtained a relatively large share of public attention.43 In these manifestations the legitimacy of the Constitution was generally denied and only radical solutions that included an explicit recognition of the ‘right to self-determination’ were accepted. The Basque government maintained its reticent and ambiguous attitude through the first half of the 1990s, but towards the end of the decade the level of conflict tended to rise. Having almost completed the transfer of competencies from the State to the Autonomous Community, the governing PNV began concentrating their claims on the symbolic level, especially on recognition of the right to self-determination. The regional government, of course, never organized any commemoration of the Constitution and only participated in the official ceremonies convoked by the King.

The democratic Spanish nation and its symbolic impasse The commemoration of the Día de la Hispanidad and the Day of the Constitution represent, in their origin more than in their actual form, the two principal nationalist projects of Spain. The celebration of the 12th of October, the Día de la Hispanidad, represented the Catholic-conservative nationalist project characterized by an essentialist and providentialist view of Spanish history. The nation, Catholicism and the monarchy were seen to constitute an interdependent triangle of which the nation was generally conceived as serving the other two. The celebration of the Day of the Constitution, on the other hand, is inheritor to the liberal-progressive nationalist project of the nineteenth century, characterized by a more democratic-plebiscitarian conception of the nation. The ability to live in a democracy, as the negation of the myth of the ungovernable character of the Spaniards, was the basis of the new historical

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master narrative of the successful transition. Apart from thus being based on the mythification of certain aspects of the transition, it also represents a democratic legitimacy based on popular satisfaction with the regime. The historical master narrative of the transition is essentially without a political stamp. The reference point is always the broad political consensus behind the most important decisions, and it is, for example, always emphasized that all the political parties from the communists of the PCE to the ex-Francoists of the AP participated in the writing of the Constitution. This narrative is a narrative of the ‘coming of age of modern Spain’ by means of which Spaniards can celebrate Spain as a modern, European and developed nation. Thereby the Spaniards are perceived to have finally defeated their history of decline with respect to earlier periods of splendour and backwardness vis-àvis European neighbours, which had dominated interpretations of Spanish history for over a century. The international staging of this ‘normal Spain’ was the year 1992, which apart from the commemoration of the quincentennial also saw the celebration of the Expo in Seville, of the Olympic Games in Barcelona and of Madrid as cultural capital of Europe. Already in the summer of 1977, the editor of El País noted that the Spaniards needed a new date that could serve as a symbol of the consensus of the whole country and celebrate the new master narrative. Possibly, the editor advanced, the date of a referendum on the future democratic Constitution would be suitable. In fact, early celebrations of the 6th of December, the anniversary of the constitutional referendum in 1978 saw the only commemorative ceremonies of the transition period that could be described as ‘participatory drama’ with widespread popular participation (see Chapter  6). The participation was to a large extent determined by a defensive climate against the threat of military coup. The perception, on the one hand, that the constitutional order was no longer threatened and the politics of commemoration of the PSOE government, on the other, determined the decay of popular and participatory commemorations of the Constitution. The executive thus never exploited the initial popular initiatives to create a commemoration with a popular and participatory character, even if surveys showed a clear majority of Spaniards in favour of the 6th of December as the national holiday. The official commemoration in the form of a reception for invited dignitaries instituted by the PSOE in 1982 is by contrast highly elitist. The development of the new historical master narrative has thus been combined with a politics of commemoration that only slowly and halfheartedly has given Spaniards the possibility to celebrate the transition. Present-day Spain thus lacks a powerful commemorative date linked to its principal foundational myth. The recuperation of the Día de la Hispanidad by the democratic regime demonstrates, on the other hand, the anxiety to connect the new democracy with something which was perceived as ‘history’, as was exemplified in the parliamentary debates on the laws and proposals that dealt with the issue of the national holiday. By 1987, the year of the law on the national holiday, the

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transition was actually understood largely as rupture in terms of political system and political history, but not in terms of national community and historical origins. The veneration of hispanidad supplied precisely one of those necessary elements of perceived continuity with the essence of Spain’s grandiose past. It was considered less important that the commemoration of such an event as the discovery necessarily would have to silence many aspects of the actual history that was being commemorated, and that many people would find it politically incorrect. The legislators, nevertheless, were aware of these problems and in the text of the law they therefore suppressed references to criticizable events and personalities as a preventive measure. The various requests for a different commemoration that would actively discuss the problematic past behind it, which would have been the only way to avoid problematic silences, basically failed. These silences made the new national holiday vulnerable to criticism, and as a consequence the successive attempts to update and ‘cleanse’ the celebration of the national holiday of unfortunate connotations, have caused all references to America, to Columbus, to 1492, to the discovery and the colonization to be removed from the commemorative panorama. The problem with the resulting holiday is, of course, that Spain, for unavoidable reasons of political correctness, is unable to commemorate the event that is the origin of the holiday. The aim of choosing the 12th of October instead of the 6th of December was that the Día de la Hispanidad represented this idea of Spain as a country with a great history. But, paradoxically, Spanish history is completely absent from the commemoration today.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The second turnover: Consolidating democracy The Spaniards supported their democracy from the very beginning and this favourable impression has not changed significantly over the years. If in 1978 some 27 per cent of the Spaniards confirmed democracy to be the best political system, in 2006 this figure had risen to 83 per cent with only minor variations over time. The backing of the Spanish democracy is even more significant if compared to that of other countries, because it exceeds that of older democracies in Europe as, for example, Britain with 73 per cent and Italy with 73 per cent, as well as other recent democracies as Argentina with 73 per cent and Chile with 59 per cent.1 This impressive defence of democracy was almost certainly linked to the experience of Civil War and dictatorship and the frightful hope for something better, but it does not in itself say much about the quality of the Spanish democracy. The young democracy certainly had its share of problems, some of them related to the political culture of Spanish society and the political elite and some of them related to the demobilized civil society as we shall see below.

The crisis of the socialist ‘system’ In the eyes of broad sectors of Spanish society, the PSOE represented democracy in itself more than just a simple political party. Felipe González was able to take advantage of the fear of a return to authoritarian times if the PSOE did not win the elections by insinuating a relationship between the right-wing opposition and the dictatorship. Thereby he could maintain the privileged relationship of his own party with democracy which translated into the large electoral victories of the 1980s. The support for democracy and for the PSOE was thus in a way founded in an element with authoritarian 137

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roots: fear of a return to dictatorship, backwardness, anti-Europe, etc. At the same time, the support for the PSOE in the 1980s became so massive that the party in its absolutism inherited certain unwanted traits from the long Spanish authoritarian tradition. In this sense, we might say that the political culture of the ruling class had thus not been renewed sufficiently as a consequence of the transition to democracy. The lack of effective parliamentary opposition or, in other words, the absolute powers of the PSOE for almost the entire decade of the 1980s had its disadvantages. The power conferred to the Socialist Party by the democratic system was in reality comparable to that of earlier dictatorial regimes and, at the same time, many of the members of government were very inexperienced. The new democratic system lacked institutions of control that could check abuses by the parliamentarians or ministers, nor was there any tradition of controlling Parliament and government. One of the longterm results of these weak checks-and-balances was a series of scandals in the late 1980s and early 1990s many of which had their origin in the perception of absolute powers of the socialist executive at the beginning of their government. By 1995 more than twenty major cases of corruption had either been proven or were under investigation, the most important of which were: ●

The potentially most dangerous scandal was the so-called GAL affair, which began in 1988. It was discovered that the State had been involved in the creation of a number of illegal murder squads. The aim of these Antiterrorist Groups of Liberation (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación, or GAL) had been to pay ETA back in its own coin, that is shots in the back of the head and abductions and in the mid-1980s they had killed around twenty-five presumed terrorists particularly in the south of France. The affair ended up involving several high-ranking government officials and ministers and also affected Prime Minister González although he avoided being questioned directly.

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The Filesa affair, which began in 1991, concerned illegal funding of the PSOE through a cover company, Filesa, where large firms ordered and paid non-existing reports and services in return for favours and large public orders. The case only just stopped short of the very top of the party.

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The Ibercorp case, which began in 1992, was a case about illegal enrichment and speculative trade with companies to obtain fiscal benefits involving the ex-governor of the Spanish National Bank, Mariano Rubio, and former Finance Minister Miguel Boyer. In the beginning, the PSOE elite covered Rubio and therefore, when the case in 1994 could not be kept under control any longer, had to sacrifice a few high-ranking members, among others, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Carlos Solchaga.

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With the spectacular Roldán case, the situation reached the likings of a farce. It began as the former director of the Civil Guard, Luís Roldán, fled the country because he was afraid of being sacrificed in a case about illegal use of reserved funds to give payments to practically all the highest-ranking officials in the Ministry of the Interior. Among other things, Roldán stated that the Minister of the Interior, José Luís Corcuera, had paid out money to himself. Corcuera had to resign due to the scandal (Laviana 1994, Heywood 1995: 726).

The cases of corruption thus ranged from comparatively mild, low-level action to top-level corruption of leading ministers. The cases of funding the parties were on the border of legality (the Filesa affair), but then there were the cases of improper or illegal action of members of government of which the GAL affair is actually an example. In another scandal of the same type deputy-Prime Minister Narcís Serra had to resign in 1993 when it was discovered that the intelligence services had been tapping the phone of King Juan Carlos. More damaging to the Socialist Party were the long series of cases that involved high-ranking party members in alleged activities of personal enrichment (Ibercorp affair as well as the Roldán case). The rightwing Popular Party (Partido Popular, or PP) actually also had its share of scandals concerning particularly illegal funding of the party, but it was able to avoid excessive media attention as everybody’s eyes were looking in the direction of the PSOE. The scandals of the early 1990s took a high toll among the high-ranking party officials of the socialists, since more than half a dozen ministers had to resign. When analysed together there are a number of reasons behind the explosion of cases of corruption in Spain in the late 1980s and 1990s. First, as mentioned above, on a general level the cases were a result of problems derived from deficient political accountability at various levels of Spanish society. Secondly, the blurring of party and private interests was another important reason, and here probably the PSOE elite of the 1980s played a particularly important and unfortunate role. Thirdly, as mentioned above, the lack of mechanisms and tradition of parliamentary control with government was important too. In terms of effects, in absence of sufficient built-in checks-and-balances the scandals caused the judiciary to appear as the principal institution to hold politicians accountable for the actions. Fourthly, it might be argued that the media took the place of the political opposition which had been vacant during the 1980s. Particularly, the creation of the newspaper El Mundo in 1989 with the declared purpose to uncover every scandal to the very last detail illustrates this tendency. In time, the scandals combined with the generalized perception in the Spanish population that the Socialist Party did not do enough to effectively hinder the corruption were among the most important reasons for the downturn in the popularity of the socialists in the mid-1990s (Gibbons 1999: 81–5). Lastly, it is worth noting that precisely the appearance of the cases and the

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uproar caused by them were a sign of health; the Spaniards did actually care about whether their politicians were corrupt or not, which would constitute an important lesson for the entire political class in Spain. The press thus played an important role in establishing the system that in the early years of the transition made it difficult or impossible to criticize the PSOE governments without at the same time criticizing the democracy. Under Franco, the progressive part of the press had collaborated closely with the democratic opposition in order to establish democracy and therefore generally took a favourable or even loyal attitude towards the party when it arrived in the government offices in 1982. Thereby it mirrored the population’s frightful backing of democracy. Particularly El País that began to be published in May 1976 and today is the biggest daily newspaper in Spain was identified with the Socialist government. Prompted by the revelations of the aforementioned scandals at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, the journalists collectively discovered that the lack of a critical attitude towards the Socialist governments might cost them dearly, and the media began adopting a more critical stance towards the government. El Mundo’s appearance in 1989 remains the best example of this change in the Spanish media landscape. The immediate success of the daily – it very quickly became the third-largest in Spain – was in itself a symptom of the problems with corruption and the low interest in politics. At the same time, however, El Mundo was also a sign that the political culture was changing and that the democracy was becoming more mature insofar as it represented a criticism of the governing politicians and a challenge for them to improve their management. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the press has developed in a clearly positive direction conquering a more independent and critical attitude towards the shifting governments and the state administration.2 Although negotiated transitions as the Spanish one generally show high success rates by minimizing conflicts among the political actors involved, this achievement usually comes at a high price as it entails compromising the quality of the resulting democracy. It has thus often been argued that negotiated transitions create ‘frozen’ democracies that cannot develop further. The ‘freezing’ is a negative side effect of the naturally elitist bargains that underlie such new democracies and the results are suffocation of political competition by giving power to very few elite actors, blocking off further democratization by delaying the development of civil rights and undermining popular support of the democracy. But the Spanish case generally shames this theory as very little supports it. Not only do the Spaniards exhibit a consistently very high support for their democracy as shown at the beginning of this chapter; government has actually changed several times. Of the nine ordinary general elections since 1977, four of them have resulted in a change of governing party. Spain thus already passed Samuel Huntington’s so-called ‘two-turnover-test’ as early as 1996 and since then government has changed twice.3 Even if a broader set of

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criteria – including civilian control over the military and observance of civil rights and liberties – is applied, the Spanish case outrivals most other cases: Spain is often characterized as the exemplary case of civilian control over the military and the Spanish record of protecting civil rights and political liberties has remained very high since 1978 and is in practice identical with that of older and more mature democracies (Encarnación 2008: 43–5). On one account, however, the theory of ‘frozen’ democracies seems to apply to Spain, namely the widespread lack of interest in politics as one of the costs of a negotiated transition to democracy. In fact, the political culture of Spain has been characterized by a very low interest in politics which has been more or less constant over time since the beginning of democracy. One example of how the lack of interest in politics manifested itself is related to the above-mentioned political scandals of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Just as worrisome as the scandals themselves was the fact that the population did not worry much about them. Even if the tempest of scandals was unleashed in the late 1980s, the fact that also the democratic regime had serious problems with scandals only became an issue in the electoral campaigns of the 1993 elections. One of the reasons for this was the generalized indifference to politics and probably the scandals themselves contributed to further disengaging the Spanish population in politics. The average percentage of Spaniards declaring an interest in politics between 1985 and 2004 was 25 per cent against an EU average for the same period of 45 per cent.4 This remains a comparatively low figure if compared with other countries that have recently gone through democratization processes such as Greece, where 41 per cent declared (in 1996) to have an interest in politics. The low interest in politics in Spain fits the theory of ‘freezing’, although other similar cases of negotiated transitions like Uruguay exhibited a higher level of interest in politics (36 per cent in 1996). It thus remains disputable whether the lack of interest in politics is attributable to the negotiated transition or whether it is an outcome of more complex and interrelated factors. It might thus simply be a result of ‘the long experience of politics as abuse of power’ common to Southern Europe, as Morlino and Montero put it. If seen in this perspective low interest in politics actually can be interpreted as a rational choice (Gillespie 1993: 546–7, Morlino and Montero 1995: 252, Encarnación 2008: 47–8). A related fact that poses equal challenges to the political scientists is the fact that Spain – which we have just described as a successful democracy by all measures – lacks a lively and well-organized civil society. In fact, Spain shows a level of inhabitants belonging to some kind of voluntary association which is by far the lowest in Western Europe and comparable only to some Eastern European countries where communism is presumed to have brought civil society close to extinction. Only about one in three Spaniards claim membership of a union, a religious group or a political party. The network of interest organizations was underdeveloped in Spain and, paradoxically, the degree of unionization was even decreasing

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during the Socialist governments. For industrial workers the degree of unionization fell from 56 per cent in 1978 to 34 per cent in the 1980s. For other employees it dropped from a maximum of approximately 40 per cent to between 10 and 15 per cent at the end of the 1980s or early 1990s (Gillespie 1993: 541). On the one hand, it is probably in part an inheritance of the general demobilization that took place during the transition years as a result of the way it was negotiated between elites. There is a paradox inherent in this as the early transition years were in fact characterized by a relatively high degree of mobilization via neighbourhood associations, political parties, etc., but the consensus-driven transition to democracy demanded a demobilization of the civil society organizations. According to Encarnación, particularly the PCE came to play an active role in this due to the party’s tactical change of strategy from confrontation to collaboration with the right wing which caused a deep disappointment among many of the associations that had worked together with the party in the struggle against the dictatorship. On the other hand, evidence seems to suggest that the particular character of the Francoist dictatorship also played an important role due to its power over society through a series of controlled civil societylike organizations like the vertical unions. Through obligatory affiliation to this type of organization and through the Catholic Church’s close collaboration with the Francoist State the legitimacy of civil society was severely affected and its ability to act independently in the future was limited. But the paradox remains: at the same time as democracy was being consolidated, the development of civil society in the classical sense of the term at the best stagnated or even declined in some cases, which indicates a serious problem for the contemporary Spanish democracy. Precisely therefore, the particularity of Spain in this respect also points to possible flaws in the way these things are measured: looking for classical manifestations of civil society in Spain will to some extent mean to look for ways of organizing that were stigmatized from collaboration with Francoism. Other forms of organizing were and are very popular and widespread in Spain such as its spontaneous and more loosely organized protest culture, but these aspects do not appear in the polling materials and are thus not taken into account (Encarnación 2008: 69–90).

In Europe and in the world The entry into the EEC carried with it high expectations caused principally by being such a long-term goal, and to some extent they were met by reality. After ten years of stagnation the Spanish economy began growing again from 1985, which led to almost Asiatic growth rates. In 1987 the GDP growth of Spain topped with an impressive 5.6 per cent against an EEC average of 3.5 per cent. The sudden growth originated principally from

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three sources. First, the accession to the EEC was followed by a large injection of foreign capital as access to the Spanish market was opened, but it included strategic investments with a view to obtaining access to the Latin American markets too. Secondly, private investments that sought benefits from the Spanish politics of high interest rates. Thirdly, EEC subsidies of which Spain would be the largest recipient for many years to come. The subsidies were given principally to modernize the productive sectors, the country’s infrastructure and to achieve a more balanced economic development. In spite of a minor improvement in the unemployment figures in the second half of the 1980s, the economic policy of the government, nevertheless, had a heavy social cost. The economic growth was used to import consumer goods to a dangerously high extent and, on top of this, the Spanish peseta was integrated into the European Monetary System at an overvalued rate, which all contributed to worsening the balance of payments. This development coincided with the introduction of the single market which was to have catastrophic consequences for many sectors of the Spanish economy. The result was reductions and closures of businesses leading to a steep increase in unemployment in the first half of the 1990s. In 1993 it reached 22.9 per cent of the economically active population (Sánchez 1994). It is worth remembering that the economically active population was relatively smaller in Spain than in many other European countries, because only about one-third of the female population is in employment. Besides, the Spanish labour market has traditionally suffered from a notoriously high inflexibility due to a high level of protection of those who have permanent positions. The indemnification in case of dismissal was thus very high, and this obligation makes the employers hesitant to create new permanent jobs and instead opt for temporary jobs when their business is growing, which are not subject to the same regulation. The economic progress in the late 1980s was also pointing to a few megaevents, which were planned for 1992 and which were to mark that Spain had now definitively left behind the image of an old backward and isolated country to become a modern, highly developed country capable of arranging and managing even the biggest international events. 1992 marked the quincentennial for Columbus’s discovery of America as well as of the unification of Spain. Besides Spain hosted the Olympic Games in Barcelona and the Universal Expo in Seville that year and, finally, Madrid was the European Capital of Culture. The events were realized without major difficulties and proved as such Spain’s capacity, but in the wake of the enormous investments that particularly the Olympic Games and the Expo had demanded there followed a series of scandals on abuse of public funds, favouritism and nepotism. Spaniards towards the end of 1992 thus woke up to a serious ‘hangover’. Reality, that is high unemployment, political scandals and the economic crisis reappeared and to most Spaniards, Spain seemed to be the same country as before it all started.

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Opposition grows Towards the end of the 1980s an opposition to the Socialist government began forming both to the right and to the left. On the left wing it was probably more socially founded than in any political party and it was especially concerned with the policies aimed at the problems of Spanish youth and the education system as well as towards reminding the government of the social ‘debt’ that its economic policy had caused. The discontent, among others, came from the students and the unions, who in December 1988 organized the first general strike after dismissing the government’s Plan for Youth Employment. The general strike meant a rupture of the traditionally close ties between the socialist union, UGT, and the government (Rubio 1994: 142). The right-wing party AP that in the 1980s under the leadership of Franco’s former Minister of Tourism and Information, Manuel Fraga, had constituted the only political opposition to the socialists, was transformed into the PP in 1989 by creating one single party out of the original alliance. This was also an attempt at liberating the party of the relationships to the Franco era. The following year, the then only 37-year-old José María Aznar took over the leadership of the party and this generational change and the increased distance from its Francoist inheritance meant that the PP by the early 1990s could begin to publicize itself as a trustworthy alternative to the PSOE. In the general elections in 1993 the decline of the socialists was clearly reflected in the results, but González was able to form a government for the fourth time. This time, however, without an absolute majority in Parliament and the government therefore depended on the support from the two large, moderate nationalist parties of Catalonia, CiU, and the Basque Country, PNV.5 This support was repaid in terms of concessions towards furthering self-government in the two regions (see Chapter 15 for details). In September 1995 CiU withdrew their support thereby forcing González into calling new elections. With the excuse of holding the presidency of the EU that autumn semester, González, however, succeeded in postponing the actual celebration of elections until March 1996. In the elections the PP won a narrow victory with 157 seats against PSOEs 140 and Aznar could form a government. Having failed to obtain an absolute majority of 176 seats, Aznar too had to depend on the same two nationalist parties, which again were paid back in autonomy concessions. After losing power, Felipe González resigned in 1997 as Secretary General of the PSOE, which opened a leadership crisis in the party that was going to last several years. The party elite opted for Joaquín Almunia as new head but it was decided to hold primary elections among the militants for the first time and in these elections José Borrell won against the choice of the party apparatus. In the end Borrell saw himself forced to drop his candidacy evidencing thus the complete failure of the primary elections. Almunia thus

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competed against Aznar in the general elections of 2000 and this time the PP won convincingly and obtained an absolute majority in Parliament after which Almunia also resigned as Secretary General. The party’s problems in this period were also related to the effects of the above-mentioned scandals, some of which were still being investigated at the time. Felipe González managed only just to avoid being directly involved in the various investigations and court cases resulting from the scandals, but in a different way he constituted a problem for the party, particularly during the difficult period it was going through between 1997 and 2004. Despite having been replaced in all posts, he continued in the background as a kind of ‘grey eminence’ of the party. As one of the greatest political personalities of Spain in the twentieth century, party officials, ordinary Spaniards as well as the media continued to think of him as one of the figures that was designing the politics of the PSOE, a situation which of course was difficult to handle for his successors. It took a while, at least until the electoral victory of Zapatero in 2004, for everybody including himself to figure out the new role of Felipe González in Spanish politics.

Updating the Constitution? From around 1990, the discussion of a possible reform of the Constitution began to appear in different fora and under different forms. By then the networks of institutions and regional governments created by the Constitution had been established, and certain inconsistencies and ambiguities of the text were causing problems that were leading, for example, to an increased number of conflicts at the Constitutional Court. From the early 1990s, the newspaper editorials on the anniversary of the Constitution thus almost every year discussed the possibility of reforming the Constitution. Generally, the editors were in favour of changing a certain number of articles, however, reminding politicians that an eventual change would have to be backed by the same consensus as the original Constitution. Requests for reform thus always stuck on the impossibility of repeating the broad constitutional consensus, which had only been achieved due to the special circumstances of the transition, in particular due to the perceived risk of involution. Furthermore, the broad consensus was closely linked to a certain measure of ambiguity as explained above in Chapter 9, and at the time it was precisely the innate ambiguity which was beginning to cause problems. Whenever giving an interview, the Constitutional Fathers were always asked about the convenience of a reform, which they usually denied, referring precisely to this type of argument, as when they were invested doctors honoris causa in 1991.6 The fundamental problem, however, was disagreement over the exact content of a possible reform. The best proof of this fact is that in 1992 a minor change of the constitutional text in order to adapt it to the Maastricht Treaty was actually carried out with a broad

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consensus but without taking up any of the proposed changes that were actually being discussed at the time. Most parties thus simply agreed on a number of issues that ought to be the object of a reform, without necessarily agreeing on the exact changes to effectuate. The principal themes were a reform of the function of the Senate aiming to turn it into a real chamber of regional representation, as in fact previewed by the Constitution, and a reform of the electoral system. Agreeing in principle on the need to take up these issues, the peripheral nationalists, however, were also seeking a more explicit acknowledgement of their status as nations that would differentiate them from the other regions attempting, as always, to push the balance between asymmetry and symmetry in the asymmetrical direction to favour their own cause. José María Aznar himself had been one of the first proponents of a constitutional reform. Already in 1990, he had thus stated that ‘the moment [for constitutional reform] is not far away’.7 He further elaborated his ideas in the programmatical book La segunda transición published in late 1994, after having unexpectedly lost the general elections in 1993. The basic idea of the book was that the period based on consensus, the first transition, was ending in order to give way to a period of more ordinary political confrontation (Aznar 1994). What was strictly a question of a change of government was thus conceived of as another step in the ‘normalization’ of Spain in the European context. Once the PP arrived in power, however, ideas of constitutional reform were quickly forgotten, which is a perfect example of the general resistance of any governing party towards constitutional reform due to the effects it might have on the distribution of power. Not only did Aznar forget his own ideas of reform; he also rejected the very idea of a constitutional reform with increasing vehemence after becoming Prime Minister in 1996. At the commemoration of the Constitution in 1998, he thus affirmed that only ‘very marginal groups’ (sectores muy minoritarios) wanted a reform of the Constitution, whereas the majority was against ‘changes and adventures’.8 These assertions were manifestly contrary to the opinions of Spaniards as they were expressed in a sociological survey published for the occasion: 48.8 per cent were in favour of some kind of change of the Constitution, whereas 32.7 per cent were against, and these percentages had been surprisingly stable since the late 1980s.9 This discourse was to a large extent meant as a nationalist ‘rearmament’ of Spain against the peripheral nationalists, as it was considered in conservative circles that the PSOE executive had been too permissive in relation to their demands. This naturally led to an increase in the number of conflicts with the peripheral nationalists, and 1998 was especially conflictual. During summer of that year the three major nationalist parties, the Catalan CiU, the Basque PNV and the Galician Nationalist Block (Bloque Nacionalista Galego), elaborated the so-called Barcelona Declaration, in which they asked for recognition of their status as ‘national realities within Spain’ and the opening of a process of constitutional

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reform.10 Later, the terrorists of ETA declared an indefinite armistice, which was interpreted as a support for the nationalist parties’ claims. On the other hand, the Senate had been blocking the functioning of the Constitutional Court for almost the entire year by stalling the nomination of the four judges that correspond to the Senate,11 which further nourished a feeling that the constitutional machinery was not working properly. These conflicts basically testified to an increasing use of the argument of constitutional reform as an item of political rhetoric. The conflicts thus often had less to do with the content of an eventual reform than with the current political struggle. The fact that the consensual mini-reform of 1992 was almost never mentioned in these discussions proves that the contestants were more interested in the political dialectic than in engaging in real negotiations let alone reaching an accord.

Post festum: the national symbols after the quincentennial When the date of the 12th of October 1992, The Day of the National Holiday, arrived, the Universal Expo in Seville was closed, thereby putting an end to the ‘year of Spain’. The occasion, therefore, was also used to make a balance of the commemorative activities, which in general was rather positive. The editor’s remark in the Basque newspaper El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco on the anniversary was symptomatic: ‘Everything could have gone better in the commemorative acts of the Fifth Centenary. But also worse. In the end, it came together as an equilibrated, correct, historically sensible anniversary’.12 Afterwards, the celebrations and a series of related corruption scandals would be the centre of the attention but just after the closure, the general agreement was that Spain had done quite well considering the circumstances, and that the Spaniards should feel a legitimate pride about the celebration of the quincentennial. After the final settlement of the question of the national holiday in 1987, the discussion about turning the Day of the Constitution, the 6th of December, into the national holiday disappeared almost completely. The popular support of this idea, however, increased during the same period. While, in 1984, more than 60 per cent of Spaniards had agreed with this idea, in 2000 this figure surpassed 80 per cent.13 The first half of the 1990s did not see significant changes to the commemoration of the Constitution on the 6th of December in se or to its reflection in the newspapers. The official commemoration continued in the same way as in previous years and it was also celebrated in most Autonomous Communities either by the regional government or by the Delegación de Gobierno. Interest in the official commemoration was also very low. Politicians’ disregard towards the reception was criticized, especially when

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not even Prime Minister Felipe González showed up on various occasions.14 In general, however, the popular and participatory element had by then disappeared completely. As predicted, for most Spaniards the Day of the Constitution had simply become part of a mini-vacation comfortably placed at the beginning of December. If the development of the preceding epoch in what regards the national holiday had been leading up to 1992, the end of the festivities in very real terms meant a sharp decline in the attention dedicated to the symbols and the discourse surrounding them and therefore an epochal change. After the extraordinary edition of 1992, the official commemoration continued precisely as it had been celebrated during the previous years with military parades, academic events, receptions and so on, but it lost much of its popular and media echo. The King continued to give speeches at the academic events, but these were comparatively shorter than before. More important, however, than the relative brevity of the speeches is the fact that the academic event at which he spoke was no longer considered to be news. After 1992, neither the act in itself nor the contents of the speeches, which used to be one of the focal points of the media attention, were reported in any newspaper. On the whole, the event was only reported scarcely in the media and only in the news section on the following day, and as a consequence the reflection on the symbolic and historical meaning of the commemoration disappeared almost completely. The celebration of the national holiday, the 12th of October had become institutionalized with a fixed content and, as the concrete and symbolic references of the date were silenced from the official commemoration, little remained to be discussed. With respect to both the main commemorative symbols of the new democratic Spain, the Day of the National Holiday and the Day of the Constitution, the last decades have thus witnessed parallel processes of growing popular and media disaffection as well as increasing political disregard. This generalized drop in popular and media attention supports the hypothesis that the PSOE executive was influenced by the upcoming celebration of the fifth centenary when they decided to reconfirm the 12th of October as national holiday of Spain instead of their original proposal of promoting the Day of the Constitution.

Symbolic ‘rearmament’ under the PP Seemingly, the PP was not satisfied with this situation of decay surrounding important national symbols. After coming to power in spring 1996, the PP executive carried out a series of important changes in the ceremony of the national holiday. Through a royal decree from the summer of 1997, the ‘most significant events’ of the Day of the Armed Forces were transferred to the Day of the National Holiday in order to integrate ‘all the historical and cultural elements that constitute the Spanish nation’ into the national

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holiday.15 The decree referred, of course, to the army as one of the constitutive factors of the nation, and a secondary goal of the decree was the ‘identification of the Armed Forces with the society that they serve’, which by then had been the goal of the Day of the Armed Forces for two decades. The Armed Forces thus once again gained a place among the ‘historical and cultural elements that constitute the Spanish nation’, as they had had under Francoism. With the promulgation of the decree, the central ceremony was moved from the Plaza de la Lealtad to the Plaza de Colón (Columbus), situated along the same main artery of Madrid, Paseo de la Castellana, but without changing the contents of the celebration. The reason was never explained or debated anywhere, but probably the move was linked to the fact that the Plaza de Colón is home to the iconography of the discovery in the form of a large sculptural complex in the ‘Gardens of the Discovery’ in the centre of the square. Furthermore, the square is named after Columbus and is characterized by a more grandiose architecture and better visibility than Plaza de la Lealtad. All in all, the move meant a renewed symbolic emphasis on the heroic aspects of the conquest and on the discovery and conquest, instead of the shared history. Likewise, once in power, the PP government also attempted to revive the official commemoration of the Constitution in line with the other celebrations related to the transition. In 1996 the participants at the official reception were thus very numerous.16 The celebration of the twentieth anniversary in 1998 was of course planned as a culmination, although the central event, the visit of the royal family to the Parliament and the commemorative lunch, did not achieve the intended echo for various reasons. Due to a polemic on the Constitution in September the same year, which had been triggered by a statement of Juan Carlos during an official visit in Italy, it was decided to suspend the foreseen commemorative speeches in order to avoid the King again being mixed up in a controversy. What remained was just another rather insipid event with very limited public appeal. After that, the PP government maintained the annual commemoration without any changes.

The Spanish flag in the battlefield The Aznar government developed its own way of proceeding in terms of nationalist ‘rearmament’ through increased exposure to the national symbols and more splendour when celebrating: National symbols were simply introduced or placed were there had been none before, without previous debate or inquiry. If no debate happened, it was most likely presumed to have a positive effect on the feelings of national pride and belonging although this assumption was never made explicitly. If the initiatives were criticized or discussed, the government representatives would normally defend them against ‘attacks’. The Spanish flag was involved in this symbolic

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‘rearmament’ of the national holiday too. On the 12th of October 1996, a flag of approximately thirty square metres, by then the largest Spanish flag, had been donated to the city of Madrid by the Marines to be flown in Plaza de Colón.17 At the annual commemoration of the ‘Day of the National Holiday’ on the 12th of October 2001, the flag and its pole was substituted with a flag ten times bigger at the top of a fifty-metre flagpole, and it was decided to fly it permanently. Nobody explained or defended it, but according to indiscretions the initiative came directly from the inner circle around Prime Minister José María Aznar and as such it was an example of the politics on the national symbols outlined above. To simply leave an oversized national symbol as a non-verbal statement in the public space without declaration or political decision was rather typical of the PP’s way of acting in these matters. And nothing happened: neither the size of the flag nor the decision to fly it permanently was discussed or criticized. A year later, on 2 October 2002, the Spanish Minister of Defence, Federico Trillo, and the mayor of Madrid, José María Álvarez de Manzano, both from the conservative PP, presided over a ceremony in honour of the Spanish flag in Madrid. The ceremony consisted of a military parade and a speech by each of the hosts, and according to the plans of Trillo and Álvarez de Manzano, it was to be repeated every month. Trillo justified the initiative in his speech with ‘the pride of sharing the same language, the same territory, the same blood, the same dreams and the same historical memories’. This ceremony, dedicated solely to the flag, was the first of its kind in democratic Spain, where the use of the flag since the death of Franco had had unmistakable Francoist connotations. By then, however, the gigantic 294 square metre flag had been flying undisturbed for almost a year at the top of its flagpole in central Madrid and most passers-by probably thought that its presence was a temporary thing, and that it soon would be taken down. While nobody had reacted critically to the presence of the enormous flag, it did cause astonishment in many people, but when it was decided to change the annual homage to the flag to a monthly homage a heated polemic began in the Spanish media. The ceremony – perhaps unwillingly or at least without being planned – became part of an escalating rhetorical confrontation between the central government and the peripheral nationalists, principally the Basques. A few days earlier, the leader of the Basque government, the lehendakari Juan José Ibarretxe from PNV, had publicized a detailed proposal for the semi-independence of the Basque Country, advocating a status like a free associated state, which was perceived as a provocation by the central government. The ceremony, although it had been planned before knowing anything about the lehendakari’s proposal, was taken as a Spanish nationalist response to the proposal, and both speakers at the ceremony made implicit references to the climate of nationalist tension. It is probable that the speech of the Minister of Defence was retouched immediately before the ceremony in order to sharpen the nationalist rhetoric.

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Although nobody had reacted critically to the simple presence of the enormous flag with the monthly ceremony, it suddenly became offensive to those with a less bombastic vision of the Spanish nation than the government. Many critics insinuated that the ceremony – the military honours and the speeches – reminded them of the outdated Spanish nationalism of Franco. The coordinator of the left-wing party IU, Gaspar Llamazares, thus called the act a ‘political irresponsibility’. The spokesman of the PSOE in Parliament, Jesús Caldera, reminded the government that ‘it is necessary to be very careful’, insinuating that the executive should probe the terrain and at least consult with the PSOE before instituting such a ceremony. As could have been expected, the Catalans and Basques were even harsher in their criticism. Joan Puigcercós, a deputy of the Catalan left-wing party ERC, thus qualified it as an ‘unnecessary provocation’, whereas the spokesman of the PNV in Parliament, Iñaki Anasagasti, judged it ‘stupid and patriotero’.18 The government, for its part, could not conceal its irritation when responding to the criticism. The spokesman of the PP in Parliament, Luis de Grandes, thus said: ‘I am unable to understand how hoisting the Spanish flag and honour[ing] it with a simple ceremony can cause a scandal. It is not an act of provocation; there is nothing more natural [than to honour the flag].’ Prime Minister José María Aznar, in his habitually undiplomatic style, opined that ‘to pay homage to the national flag is something normal in all countries . . . I think it is ridiculous, grotesque and absurd that it should be a problem’.19 Aznar clearly became irritated when it proved impossible to reproduce the same patriotic rituals and, above all, to generate the same effects of belonging through the same kind of rituals as elsewhere. The polemic continued in most of the Spanish media during the rest of October, and only died out in late November when the PP and the PSOE agreed to repeat the ceremony four times a year instead of the initially foreseen twelve. At the first ceremony after the pact, however, the representatives of the Basque and Catalan nationalists as well as of the IU stayed away in silent protest.20

Updating the discourse on the Spanish nation The ‘upgrading’ of the constitutional commemoration, paradoxically, was part of the PPs discourse on the Spanish nation, which basically revived a traditionalist and essentialist Spanish nationalism. The extent to which this discourse was essentialist was clearly visible in the commemorative speech by the then President of the lower chamber, Federico Trillo, on the twentieth anniversary in 1998: ‘[Spain] is an old and great nation, the most antique of Modern Europe, [in which] there is room for everybody: people, regions, nationalities’.21 According to Trillo, Spain was the oldest nation in Europe. This national unit was seen as characterized by a certain limited plurality, although this did not mean that it was pluri-national. There were thus clear

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limits to its plural nature. Only one thing was more important to this discourse than the ancient origins of Spain, namely the unity of the Fatherland. There is room for an infinite number of sub-national identities as long as they do not call themselves nations and question the sacred unity of Spain. This essentialist attitude was extended to the transition and the Constitution. Both the Constitution and the transition were thus consecrated and worshipped not only for the democratic values of tolerance and consensus, but also as a kind of expression of the essential health of the Spanish nation, which links them directly with the Catholic Monarchs, the Visigoths and the Celtiberian resistance against the Roman Empire. The next step in mythification of the Constitution as the incarnation of the transition was the appropriation of the originally Habermasian concept of constitutional patriotism as a synonym of political–civic nationalism. The conference paper ‘Constitutional patriotism in the twenty-first century’ written by the then Foreign Minister Josep Piqué and María San Gil was approved by the XIV party conference of the PP in January 2002. In it the concept was interpreted in a way that accentuated patriotism regarding the Constitution: ‘Spain is a great country, a nation shaped over the centuries. . . . A plural nation with a non-ethnically-based identity, but politically, historically and culturally-based’ (Piqué and San Gil 2002: 5). The emphasis is not only on the Constitution, but also on the Fatherland which that Constitution belongs to, as well as on Spanish symbols, history and culture. The reasoning departed from the fact that the transition to democracy was a source of pride in present-day Spain, and since the Constitution was generally understood as the expression of the transition, it could be turned into a legitimate object of pride and identification. Furthermore, the concept of constitutional patriotism provided a convenient way for the PP to express a national pride that was something other than nationalism, which was identified with the dangerous exclusionist practice of certain peripheral nationalists. ‘We are not nationalists,’ the authors thus underlined, although they contradictorily continued ‘we assume the idea of Spain with naturalness and without historical complexes’ (Piqué and San Gil 2002: 4–5). Elevating the Constitution to this kind of symbolic status was not seen as compatible with any kind of constitutional reform, which was rejected as an expression of nineteenth-century political instability. Although it is true that constitutional patriotism does not work without a patria, the PP clearly seems to use the concept as a politically correct label for their updated Spanish nationalism (Uriarte 2003: 18–19, 58–9, 117–20, quoted in Núñez Seixas 2005: 57). The Constitution in this version is precisely not first and foremost an expression of a series of civic and democratic values, but rather is seen as the essence of Spanish history and culture and a tangible proof of how successfully Spain has adapted itself to the political demands of present times: ‘We are living in a country, we are a country, that has been capable of doing these things [the transition]. And a nation which is capable of doing these things should confide in itself’ (Piqué and San Gil 2002: 4). The modal verb ‘should’ exposed

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the rationale behind this and other initiatives: according to the PP, the Spaniards ‘should’ confide in themselves and feel pride about Spain, but they do not, which irritated the conservative party elite. In much the same way as the case of the giant Spanish flag above, the point of departure for these reflections was thus a frustration about all the repressions that surround any expression of national pride in Spain. If we look into the dominant social discourse at the time as it was expressed in the newspaper editorials, the Constitution was clearly seen as a foundational moment of the democratic regime and a symbol of consensus, as here in El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco in 1998: ‘That act [the constitutional referendum] culminated the transition from dictatorship to democracy and marked the beginning of a period in which liberty has become a reality as never experienced before in the history of Spain’.22 If, in the 1980s, there had been different opinions as to the convenience of commemorating the Constitution, in the 1990s all the newspapers shared practically the same view of the Constitution as the foundational moment of the democracy. The doubts that had surrounded the idea of commemorating the Constitution in the 1980s had vanished. Its commemoration thus was no longer perceived as a possible threat to its implementation, and the constitutional referendum was now far enough away to evoke recent Spanish history; now the 6th of December also ‘had history’. The legitimacy of the Constitution was tied, on the one hand, to this symbolic value, and on the other, to its utility, that is to say to the fact that it had been useful for Spanish society as a basis for the development of democracy. The editor of La Vanguardia in 1991 thus complimented the fundamental law stating ‘The Constitution is not perfect, but it is useful’. Among the merits of the Constitution were usually mentioned that it helped Spaniards to find a civil way of solving their problems, leading thus to the emergence of a new political culture. This process resulted in a ‘normalization’ of Spain in the European context, as well as deflation of most of the conflicts that earlier in the century had plagued Spain, such as the form of State or the relationship of the State with the Church and the military. Most of what, in the 1930s, had led to the Civil War, in the 1990s no longer constituted a motive for conflict. In this sense, the Constitution was perceived very strongly to mark a dividing line in the history of Spanish cohabitation. This second legitimacy was profoundly democratic as it was based on popular satisfaction with the functioning of the democratic institutions and the State in general.

From post festum decline to the nationalist ‘rearmament’ of the PP The silences implicit in the new national holiday made it vulnerable to criticism and emptied it of any concrete content. As a consequence, the

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commemoration afterwards fell into decline, losing most of its popular and media echo. Paradoxically, the decline of the commemoration coincided with a boom in contacts and network building between the Iberian Peninsula and Ibero-America, but this found no reflection in the activities on the 12th of October. The holiday thus never developed into the ‘encounter’ between two worlds envisioned by the commemorative rhetoric. The celebration of the national holiday of Spain, as far as the wider public is concerned, consists of a floral offering to all the fallen, a homage to the flag and a military parade followed by a high society reception. There are no speeches, no reflections, no criticism; it has become a completely non-verbal ritual. The problems related to re-instituting a holiday with uncomfortable connotations of paternalistic neo-colonialism have found their solution in a complete de-contextualization of the ritual, ridding it of all historic references and thereby also of all its original symbolic content. By an irony of fate, the 12th of October has become, simply, ‘The Day of the National Holiday’. Even the PP government was not able to change this. They did what they could in terms of adding grandiosity to the ritual. But for every change the commemorative ritual underwent, it came to resemble an amalgam Francoist celebration more and more, with its grandiose military parade, homage to the Fallen and homage to the biggest flag in the world. Of course, the Spanish nation as well as the army and even the fallen are conceived of in a completely different way with respect to the Francoist era and therefore the ceremonies also represent a completely different thing today. But the mode of representation is in itself a reminder of past modes and this is at odds with how most Spaniards feel about and want to celebrate their nation. Pride in Spain and identification with Spain are expressed differently and on other occasions than the 12th of October for most Spaniards. Therefore, the paradoxical and strangely vacuous ‘Day of the National Holiday of Spain’ is bound to never become a nationwide popular event. Invariably, however, all the different twentieth, twenty-fifth and thirtieth anniversaries related to the transition to democracy experienced a commemorative resurgence since the mid-1990s, including those which had never been celebrated before, like the anniversary of the first elections or that of the proclamation of the King. In accordance with the new historical master narrative, pride in the Spanish nation and in being Spanish was increasingly identified with the successful transition to democracy. This development responded to a wider process in Spanish society, which was shown by the fact that these celebrations generally represent relatively cohesive moments in which the left and right wings, as well as Spaniards and peripheral nationalists, could celebrate together. These commemorations were also a reaction to the relative commemorational vacuum around the historical master narrative of the transition. The commemoration related to the Day of the Constitution did not satisfy the perceived need to celebrate

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the transition. The development of the new historical master narrative has thus been combined with a politics of commemoration that only slowly and half-heartedly has given Spaniards the possibility to celebrate the transition in the form of elitist commemoration of the Day of the Constitution. In this sense, present-day Spain thus lacks a powerful commemorative date linked to its principal foundational myth, the transition, because the National Holiday is completely detached from this narrative.

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Accommodating the past: Revisiting the historical master narrative Towards the late 1990s, it was beyond doubt that Spain had developed a stable democracy, which was no longer threatened by any internal enemy, or external for that matter. Government had changed completely peacefully to the conservative PP after four consecutive socialist executives fulfilling thus the requirements of Huntington’s ‘two-turnover-test’ referred to above (Chapter 13). A new historical master narrative had developed on democratic Spain with the peaceful transition to democracy as the centrepiece with a few, vague links to Spain’s grandiose history such as those represented by the ‘special relationship’ of Spain with Latin America or the persistent dreams of Spanish politicians to enter into the selected club of the four or five most important countries of the EU. As explained above, this is a narrative of the ‘coming of age of modern Spain’ by means of which Spaniards can celebrate Spain as a modern, European and developed nation, and one of the absolutely central foundational myths of this narrative is the peaceful transition itself. The last five chapters have been dedicated to describing and discussing how the Spaniards after more than half a century characterized by internal divisions, civil war and polarization succeeded in creating a new, democratic, European Spain. Part of that achievement was the successful backing of it with a commonly accepted narrative and a set of symbols, which although not uncontested or unproblematic have – at least in part – fulfilled a reuniting mission. The last two chapters of the book will be dedicated to the most problematic issues of contemporary Spain that continue to divide the Spaniards on two different fronts: first the issue of memory politics and secondly the complicated puzzle of accommodating the various nationalist pretensions within Spain. 157

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Memory politics in Spain: the so-called Pact of Forgetting The Spanish transition became characterized by an almost complete lack of judicial reckoning with the dictatorship. According to Omar Encarnación, Spain constitutes ‘the most famous case in recent history of a new democracy dealing with a difficult and painful past by choosing not to deal with it at all’ (Encarnación 2008: 436). Only from around 2000 was the demand raised by the opposition to the then conservative government and only from 2004 was a process of reckoning with the authoritarian past really begun both in terms of legislative measures as well as in terms of public debate. The rights of the victims of Francoism – the left-wing front in the Civil War – were thus not taken into account until the Zapatero government’s arrival in power. But why did the Spaniards have to wait for so long – almost thirty years – to reckon with the non-democratic past? And more specifically, why did the left-wing parties, who were to gain from any reckoning with the dictatorship, not demand the opening of such a process sooner? To find the answers to these questions, we have to study the politics of memory and transitional justice, which were central to the success of the transition to democracy in Spain. In fact, the judicial reckoning with the Francoist regime was almost completely lacking. No retroactive judicial measures at all were applied to the Franco regime, nor was the state apparatus purged in any systematic way, nor has any truth commission or the like ever been set up to investigate cases of human rights abuses.1 This, however, does not mean that the issue of transitional justice was absent from the entire process of change of regime. On the contrary, it is actually an indication of just how important it was to find the right solutions to this problem. The question of retroactive justice and the implied notions of revenge and collective guilt were so sensitive to very large groups of Spanish society that it was endangering the social and political stability of the early transition period, which was one of the reasons behind the extreme solution chosen. After almost four decades of dictatorship that had proven unwilling to reconcile the former conflicting parties because the regime felt too dependent on the legitimacy of origin derived from the victory in the Civil War at the death of the dictator in late 1975, Spain was penetrated by a particularly strong popular wish to finally reconcile the nation. At the same time the fear that the restoration of democracy would lead to a return to the pre-Civil War scenario of violence and polarization was widespread. According to Paloma Aguilar Fernández ‘it is fear of conflict that allows one to understand the attitude of the main actors involved in the transition process and the institutional framework established during the period’ (Aguilar Fernández 2001: 94).2 These fears of conflict were the result of a particular

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memory of the past fostered during the dictatorship, as shown above, and the combination of the need to reconcile the nation and the fear of conflict translated into an obsessive search for consensus. In this understanding, broad consensus would demonstrate both a capability of democracy as well as effective reconciliation of the two formerly opposed sides. At the same time consensus was experienced as something truly new in Spanish political history, and therefore it could be presented as a good omen for the future. It could then be argued that the problem of memory in the transition was not derived in the first place from the traumatic character or the contents of the memory itself, but from the imperative of reaching consensus on establishing the new regime. This is not to say that conflictive memories did not exist, but precisely that their importance were secondary to the superior goal of reconciling the nation and establishing democracy. Since this necessarily implied bridging the existing gap between the ousted ruling elites and the former opponents, who for obvious reasons did not share a common interpretation of the immediate past, memory became a delicate issue. From the outset, the new democratic regime suffered from an acute lack of an independent foundational myth. It could not base itself on the rehabilitation of a former democratic tradition, or construct continuity with any previous period or regime, and it could, of course, not present itself as a complete continuation of the Francoist dictatorship either. Other types of legitimacy helped bridge the gap between foundational myths such as legitimacy by delivery and efficacy measured, for example, in the high electoral participation rates, as well as the charismatic legitimacy of central figures like Adolfo Suárez, King Juan Carlos and Felipe González. But in terms of narrative, the new democracy had to acquire its own legitimacy by tackling successfully all the fears of the people and at the same time building up a new master narrative with its proper foundational myths. In this effort, the Francoist myth of the ungovernable character of the Spaniards proved functional as a counter-narrative to the new democratic regime. As a commonly known narrative that denied the possibility of a peaceful transition to democracy, the fact that such a transition actually was taking place in itself enhanced its perceived value. The achievements of the transition to democracy increased their significance if it could be rendered probable that their genesis was threatened. An example of how this mechanism worked is that after the first democratic elections it was underlined in practically all the media that the voting took place peacefully, as if that could not be taken for granted. The editorial in the leading conservative newspaper at the time, ABC, on the day after the election was thus entitled ‘A people votes in peace’, which contained a subtle allusion to precedent democratic experiences of the 1930s, which did not connote peace.3 The editorial on the same day of the leading Catholic daily, Ya, explained the same argument in detail: ‘The country has voted massively, and it has done so pacifically without any improper gestures. Those of us who recall the tumultuous elections of

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preceding epochs had to rub our eyes in disbelief to make sure that this is the same nation’.4 The comparison with the elections of the 1930s is evident in the citation as is the fact that legitimacy in the present situation was derived from proving the Francoist myth wrong. The new historical master narrative that emerged during the early transition was thus quite influenced by the master narratives of the Franco regime as it was constructed ex negativo from the Francoist legitimization discourse.5 Precisely the fact that the new political elite consisted of both members of the former opposition as well as former followers of the dictatorship combined with the urgent need of reaching a broad agreement regarding the change of regime determined a particular way of relating to the immediate past. Despite agreeing in principle on interpreting the Civil War as a national tragedy that never was to be repeated, the two sides did not share a common memory of the dictatorship for obvious reasons, nor did they agree on any shared interpretation of that period. To achieve broad consensus regarding the new democratic regime it was therefore believed to be necessary to eliminate any direct dealing with the dictatorial past from the political sphere in an attempt to avoid the destabilizing ideas of revenge and collective guilt. The transition to democracy therefore was based on a more or less explicit will to forget or silence the problematic parts of the past – particularly within the political realm. This was confirmed in 2002 by the second-incommand of the PSOE at the time of the transition, Alfonso Guerra, when he admitted that ‘in the transition, we forgot about what the right-wing had done on the condition that it did not repeat the same behaviour’.6 Aguilar Fernández has termed this common understanding among the political elites a ‘tacit agreement not to instrumentalise the past politically’ (Aguilar Fernández 2006: 260–70).7 This informal agreement was translated into politics as, for example, a series of three legal initiatives concerning amnesty for political crimes, the most important of which was the Amnesty Law of October 1977.8 The amnesty included the political prisoner as well as a series of crimes committed previous to 15 December 1976, comprising political acts, rebellion and subversion but also all the crimes committed by state functionaries and the police against the exercise of the rights of the citizens. The amnesty thus meant that the State relinquished its right to take penal action against those who had violated basic juridical rights. Amnesty to their political prisoners was one of the most important demands of the opposition to the dictatorship, but just as importantly, the amnesty also insured the perpetrators of the dictatorship against prosecution (Aguilar Fernández 1996b, 2001: 102–5). The law was voted by all the major political parties, except the right-wing AP of ex-Francoists which abstained alleging that the amnesty was not the best way to fight the threats against democracy. From this perspective of the immediate needs of the moment, the question of transitional justice in post-Franco Spain ended with the Amnesty Law of 1977 since it reset the ‘clock’ of justice. Despite being considered an amnesty

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made by everybody for everybody, it left important issues without proper solutions.9 From a more long-term perspective, however, the question of transitional justice was not wrapped up once and for all with the Amnesty Law. In a consolidated democracy the informal agreement which pillared the amnesty would ultimately be an unstable deal given the uneven weight of concessions made by one side and the other. From this perspective the Amnesty Law was a way to postpone the problem of transitional justice but not an indefinite solution to the problem. In this case the issue of justice, recognition and reparation would have to be taken up again at a later point in time as indeed it would be in the Spanish case, particularly after José Luis Zapatero’s arrival in power in 2004 and the 2007 reparation law sponsored by his government, which is dealt with below. This kind of readjusting the balances of justice is what Paloma Aguilar Fernández has termed ‘posttransitional justice’ arguing that significant advances in transitional justice can be made long after the transition (Aguilar Fernández 2008b).

Legitimacy of the new democracy and the politics of the past For several reasons, as can be gathered from the above, legitimacy of the political power was a delicate question in the early phases of the Spanish transition. The main reasons were the negotiated character of the democratization and the fact that the change of regime necessarily had to appear as a reform of the existing regime thus upholding its legitimacy at least partially. The immediate post-Franco period thus was a liminal phase without any clear source of legitimacy, and it was only slowly and gradually being replaced by a new democratic legitimacy. The first time the Spanish population was asked to participate in the process of changing the regime was on occasion of the referendum on the Law on Political Reform on 15 December 1976. The law, which was passed by the still Francoist ‘Parliament’, established the supremacy of the law as political principle and the sovereignty of the people through general suffrage and as such it was one of the most important elements of a constructive and peaceful democratization. The democratic opposition had in fact asked for abstention in the referendum considering the proposed reform insufficient. To them the only possible way to overcome the dictatorship was through rupture. Nevertheless, and in open defiance of the recommendation of the democratic opposition, the turnout was high (77.7 per cent) and the project was overwhelmingly approved (94.2 per cent in favour and only 2.6 per cent against). There were important lessons for the Spanish politicians in this experience. The population had voted massively in favour of moderation and reform instead of rupture, and as long as the politicians would keep to this path the legitimacy of the process would be high. On all occasions since then,

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both general elections and referenda, the population consistently voted in favour of moderation. As various developments were pushing Spain in the direction of democratization, the Franco regime fell into a progressively profound silence, a tendency which began timidly even under the still Francoist first government of the monarchy. The Francoist holidays, for example, would all be met with an official silence as explained above in Chapter  10, particularly after the coming of democracy. This was never a declared policy, however, which is consonant with the will to move on and simply leave the former regime in silence. The way of handling the Francoist holidays is just one example of how the transition politics of the past developed gradually and was practically never spoken out loud or debated anywhere. The above-mentioned tacit agreement not to instrumentalize the past politically was precisely tacit, which meant never really spelled out formally nor signed by anyone. It nevertheless was one of the most central elements of the transition politics of the past. Its coming into being can be placed somewhere in the late summer and early autumn of 1977 just after the first elections and the subsequent convening of the democratically elected Parliament. Having successfully celebrated democratic elections without major violent incidents gave legitimacy to the political project of democratization by proving the Francoist myth of the Spaniards’ inability to live in democracy wrong. According to Aguilar Fernández the inaugural debate of the new Parliament in July 1977 and the debates on the Amnesty were probably the closest the politicians got to discussing the informal pact on the past openly. The debate reveals that, at the time, terms like silence and oblivion held positive connotations for many politicians (Aguilar Fernández 2008a: 291–303). With democracy in working order by the summer of 1977 and the informal agreement under way, the foundations for the new regime had been laid out and the political parties could begin preparing a new constitution, the very cornerstone of democratization. It would rest on these agreements that turned the past and the present into two perfectly isolated compartments. The fact that the new Constitution was backed by an almost total consensus among the political forces as well as among the Spanish voters in the 6th of December referendum was only possible because the political forces had reached this common understanding regarding the past and the ways it could be used in the present. The fact that the transition to democracy was characterized by transformation through reform does not mean that there was no struggle between rupture and reform as guiding principles for the political change. The main options, however, were to either see the new democracy as something radically new in Spanish history (rupture) or to see Spain as one of the oldest nations in Europe and the successful democratization as only one small step in the long history of Spain (reform). It was thus not based on rehabilitating the Franco regime, but rather on constructing continuity with the distant past of Spain’s grandeur.

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The Spanish parties and the authoritarian past After the death of Franco the attitudes towards the authoritarian past were principally dictated by the former division into winners and losers of the Civil War. During the transition this division was translated into the new democratic party structures. The former opposition was generally able to rely on existing party structures that had survived in clandestine during the dictatorship, the most important of which were the PSOE and the PCE both on the left wing, and the moderate conservative Basque and Catalan nationalist parties, the PNV and the recently formed coalition CiU.10 The right wing, on the other hand, had to reinvent itself in the transition, since it had not been in opposition to the dictatorship and therefore had no clandestine party structures. The dominant parties created during the transition were the centre-right UCD grown around the central figure of Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez and the right-wing AP created by a group of ex-Francoist ministers particularly Manuel Fraga. Since the first elections in 1977, the PSOE have been the main left-wing party whereas the right wing in the beginning was dominated by Adolfo Suárez’ UCD, which won the elections in 1977 and 1979. But in the 1982 elections the UCD imploded and its role as leading right-wing party was taken over by the AP, changing its name in 1989 to the Popular Party (PP). These three parties, the PSOE on the left and the UCD and the AP/PP on the right, have been the governing party and the main party of the opposition, respectively, alternating their roles in 1982, 1996, 2004 and 2011 (Gunther, Montero and Botella 2004). The right and left wings stand for radically different attitudes towards the past due to the fact that they represent the winners and losers of the Civil War and therefore have different legacies to take care of vis-à-vis the past. Both sides, however, agreed tacitly not to instrumentalize the past. One of the reasons for this was that in the early transition period both the Francoists and the opposition felt weak and therefore compelled to find an agreement. The right wing controlled the still Francoist repressive apparatus but the left wing was able to mobilize the masses in the streets in favour of their position. The right wing achieved legal amnesty in exchange for losing the monopoly on power; the left wing gained the longed for democratic rights and amnesty in exchange for extending the amnesty to include infringements committed by the Francoists during the dictatorship. However, this does not mean that it was an equal pact. In a democratic setting the right wing clearly had most to gain from keeping it because it was ‘liberated’ of its undemocratic past, whereas the left wing had more to lose since it would not be able to take advantage of its history as defender of democracy. This different relationship with the authoritarian past is clearly visible in the degree to which each side has been willing to uphold the informal transition pact. The right-wing parties have always insisted on keeping to the transition

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agreements and warned against ‘opening old wounds’ when the authoritarian past has menaced to enter the political debate.

The left-wing parties and the tacit transition pact The degree to which the PSOE and the other left-wing parties have respected the informal agreement has gone through various phases. These variations can best be explained by the political interest of the left wing in keeping to or breaking the agreement. During the constituent legislature 1977 to 1979 there were very few parliamentary initiatives concerning the dictatorial past. It was completely dominated by the elaboration of the new Constitution, which was the precise embodiment of the consensus politics that rested on the informal agreement not to instrumentalize the past. In this early phase, the left-wing parties’ reasons for respecting the pact were the same as the reasons behind the agreement itself. The fact that they could not use their history as defenders of democracy was a price to pay in exchange for the construction and consolidation of democracy. Behind this way of thinking lay the assumption that democracy was in danger and as long as this was experienced to be true the left wing would have no interest in breaking the pact. With the beginning of the first ordinary legislature from 1979 things changed. This period saw an explosion in the legislative initiatives relating to the authoritarian past such as pensions to widows of republican soldiers, which had been postponed due to the urgent task of constitution-writing in the former legislature. These early reparation laws did not mention the suffering of those who had fought in defence of a legitimate regime, nor was the dictatorship or any individuals named as responsible for the injustices committed (Aguilar Fernández 2006: 271–81, 2008b: 420–1). Therefore, rather as a breach to the informal pact not to instrumentalize the past, these legal initiatives may be regarded as an expression of the minimum reparation necessary in order to make the agreement work. At the local level of the political realm, a different kind of initiative was taken that was also concerned directly with the authoritarian past. The beginning of the first democratic legislature coincided with the first municipal elections in April 1979. In a number of places where left-wing parties had won the elections initiatives were taken to start digging up the common graves from the Civil War. These left-wing councils were very diverse, from PSOE or PCE dominated councils, to councils run by coalitions between left-wing parties, both local branches of national parties, as well as regional or municipal parties. The plans to dig up a grave originated from some kind of popular initiative, either from outside the municipal council or channelled by some of the newly elected council members. One example of these cases of early reopening of mass graves happened in the village of Torremejía in

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Extremadura, which at the time had less than 2,000 inhabitants. Shortly after the elections the left-wing mayor, Benito Benítez, was asked by a group of citizens to unearth their relatives from a common grave into which they had been thrown after being executed on 14 September 1939. After having been approved by the council, the unearthing was performed on 17 and 18 August 1979 and the bones of thirty-three republicans were given a ceremonial reburial in which approximately 1,000 people participated. The number of participants compared with the number of inhabitants gives an idea of the resonance caused by this type of initiative.11 The case shows that this early stage of ‘recuperation of historical memory’ – to use the phrase which has become common since – did not happen without conflict. Many of the actions undertaken, both unearthing bodies that brought unpunished crimes into the public sphere as well as demanding justice or commemorating victims of repression, went against the informal pact between the political parties. The cases of opening mass graves were probably not very numerous, but they did not just happen in one isolated part of the country.12 There is no evidence, however, that these breaches to the informal agreement reached the Parliament in Madrid or caused any large-scale debate at national level. The state-wide left-wing parties did not come out in support of their local partisans and allies, and the issue was, it seems, largely silenced. Likewise, the issue did not receive much media attention, which indicates that the media generally corroborated in the effort to silence this problematic legacy of the authoritarian past. This phase in which local level left-wing politics in some places showed an independent development lasted for approximately two years, until the ‘23-F’. Tejero’s attempted coup revived in many people the fear that maybe the Spaniards after all were incapable of democracy. The failed putsch and the collective sentiment aroused by it reactivated the repression of memory, to which people had been forced during the dictatorship and this social movement towards recuperating memory was interrupted. Not because issues related to memory had been among the principal motives behind the attempted coup, but because issues that might offend the right-wing elements within military and political circles were avoided for the sake of the revival of consensus. Digging up graves, thus questioning not just the tacit agreement among the political elites, but also the Amnesty Law – the very basis of the transition – certainly did upset the right-wing parties. The result of the ‘23-F’ was a ‘total closure’ of the openings towards letting the troublesome past enter the public sphere, and the remainder of the 1980s would be the period with the lowest number of legislative initiatives concerned with the Francoist past (Aguilar Fernández 2006: 273–6). Most probably for the same reasons no common grave was reopened between 1981 and 2000.13 The established democracy was experienced as being under threat from the remnants of the Franco regime, and thus still in urgent need of consolidation. This gave renewed impetus to the politics of consensus, and made people and politicians rally around the central idea of the informal pact not to instrumentalize the past politically.

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The ‘23-F’ putsch in February 1981, thus marked a change in the attitude towards the authoritarian past. Both left- and right-wing parties defended the informal agreements. Eighteen months later, in October 1982, the PSOE won the general elections and took over government. One might have hypothesized that the electoral success of the socialists would have created a new situation vis-à-vis the informal agreement. Now in power with a comfortable majority in Parliament the PSOE could have renounced the agreement and demanded thorough investigations of past crimes. But on the contrary, the socialists generally stood by the principles of the tacit agreement to not instrumentalize the past, and particularly so during the 1980s. It is also true, however, as Omar Encarnación has noted, that the PSOE under the leadership of Felipe González had been going through a process of internal political modernization, which involved marketing itself as a ‘catch-all’ party. As the repeated electoral success of the PSOE demonstrated, the party carried through this endeavour with great success and it involved distancing itself from its own republican past, which made the party reluctant to demand a more thorough investigation of crimes committed during the Civil War (Encarnación 2008: 441–2). In any case, for the left wing to break the tacit agreement they would have to have obtained a political gain of some kind. In the 1980s the PSOE was so firmly placed in power with absolute parliamentary majorities that they had no good reason to break the pact. An example of the PSOE government’s respect for the pact was the official declaration on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War in 1986, in which the government declared that ‘a civil war is not a commemorable event . . . the Spanish Civil War is definitively history’.14 Spanish society, according to the government, had shown its will to forget the wounds of the Civil War and to use the memory of it only to avoid that ‘the ghost of war and hate’ should dominate Spain again. The will to forget the negative or problematic parts of the past was clearly interpreted as something positive; an achievement parallel to and a constituent part of the establishment of a democratic system. The declaration was characterized by the effort at turning the difficult past inoffensive by putting distance between the present and the Civil War; it contained no recognition of victims. The first real change in the left wing’s attitude towards the Francoist past came with the election campaign in 1993, when the pact was actually broken by the PSOE. For the first time the PSOE feared losing to the PP. The Socialist Party elites therefore decided to focus their campaign around an instrumentalization of the Francoist past of the PP, insinuating that democracy would be endangered if the latter won the elections (Aguilar Fernández 2006: 283–5). This underlines the fact that the pact was only broken when the left-wing parties had a political interest in doing so. Finding that by 1993 their power base had been undermined, the PSOE elites did not hesitate to break the agreement. The unequal distribution of the concessions

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made to enter the informal pact and of the benefits obtained from respecting it made it fragile in the long run. The left-wing parties had limited their own possibilities of obtaining political gains from their past, which was only acceptable as long as democracy was under threat or they themselves were in power. In effect, the PSOE won the elections, and afterwards they returned to their previous practice of respecting the pact and did not demand any investigations of past crimes or present any official declarations regarding the authoritarian past. The legislature in itself was characterized by the lowest number of parliamentary initiatives related to the past together with the two first PSOE legislatures, 1982–6 and 1986–9. In 1996, the PP won the elections even though socialists attempted to repeat the trick from the last election campaign by insisting on the Francoist past of the conservative party. The informal pact was thus broken again and the legislature, overall, witnessed a rise in the number of parliamentary initiatives relating to the past, but no significant change in the attitude towards the Francoist past.

The ‘explosion’ of historical memory The authoritarian past and its memory appeared from time to time in public debates from the mid-1990s, but the real ‘eruption’ of memory did not happen until around the turn of the century. One of the reasons for this rather belated reckoning with the Franco regime might be the ambivalent attitudes towards that past that most Spaniards, above all the older generations, have nourished for a long period. Aguilar Fernández analysed opinion poll data from the democratic period, which demonstrated that the majority of Spaniards, on the one hand, recognized and were justly proud of the great advances in Spanish society since 1975. On the other hand, the Spaniards also displayed many continuities with respect to evaluations regarding the Civil War and the legacies of Francoism. In 2000, for example, 51 per cent did not agree that ‘now the divisions and hatreds of the Civil War have been forgotten’. But at the same time 72 per cent agreed that ‘the way of thinking of the people has practically nothing to do with the past’. The same ambivalence was apparent in the answers to the question ‘How do you think Francoism will be seen in Spanish history?’ which was posed repeatedly for a period (see Table 14.1). The category ‘as a positive period’ declined steadily over time from 17.7 per cent in 1985 to 10.4 per cent in 2000, whereas the category ‘as a negative period’ received a steadily increasing number of answers, from 27.3 per cent to 37.4 per cent. The category, however, that consistently scored highest was the answer ‘as a period with positive and negative elements’ and it remained remarkably stable over time scoring between 42.5 and 48.9 per cent in the fifteen-year period from 1985 to 2000. This ambivalence, which might be

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TABLE 14.1 How will Francoism be seen in Spanish history? (%) 1985

1986

1987

1988

1995

2000

As a positive period

17.7

19.4

16.7

16.2

11.2

10.4

As a negative period

27.3

30.8

31.6

30.6

34.0

37.4

As a period with positive and negative elements

46.2

43.8

44.6

42.5

48.9

46.4

Don’t know / No answer

8.5

6.1

7.1

10.7

5.9

5.8

Source: Aguilar Fernández and Humlebæk 2002: 131.

taken as a sign that the spirit of the transition was still alive among very large groups of Spaniards, has been matched by steadily increasing positive evaluations of the Spanish democracy (Aguilar Fernández 2006: 263–71).15 In the public sphere it was only towards 2000–1 that the explosion of memory took place. The principal trends in this eruption were social demands originated in generational change. The Spaniards talk of the ‘generation of the grandchildren’ who lived neither during the Civil War nor the dictatorship and who therefore were never socialized by the dictatorship. At a certain point in time they began challenging the silence surrounding the Civil War and the dictatorship demanding to know what really happened. A splendid example of this social demand is the foundation in 2000 of the Association to the Recuperation of Historical Memory (ARMH) with the specific aim to open as many mass graves as possible and identify the maximum number of victims. The founder of the ARMH, Emilio Silva Barrera, himself belongs to the ‘generation of the grandchildren’ and the organization was founded when he started the process of digging up a mass grave in 2000 containing – among others – his grandfather’s corpse. On opening its website the association was literally overwhelmed by people who reported what they knew about mass graves and ‘desaparecidos’. Despite the intense efforts of the association to get the media to show an interest in the work of the organization in various locations all over Spain, this did not happen until at some time in 2001 or 2002 when suddenly the opening of mass graves became good news and started appearing regularly in the media.16 If we take the media to be representative of a dominant social discourse, the interest in the authoritarian past and the recuperation of repressed memories only somewhat reluctantly became a primary preoccupation around 2001 and 2002. In the Parliament, nevertheless, the eruption of memory began in late 1999, as mentioned above. In this case the appearance of the authoritarian past was probably less related to questions of generational change and more

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to the fact that the right wing was governing in Spain again. The left wing therefore saw an interest in breaking the informal agreement not to instrumentalize the past. But this change in attitude did not coincide with the change of government, since the PP had been governing since 1996. In practical terms, the eruption took the form of a series of parliamentary initiatives aimed at condemning the dictatorship and the uprising which led to the Civil War and/or declarations of reparation towards various specified groups. The first of the parliamentary initiatives to achieve an official condemnation of the Civil War and the Franco regime was actually inspired by an institutional visit of the commission of foreign affairs to Mexico in 1999. Much to their surprise the members of the commission discovered that the sixtieth anniversary of the Spanish exile was being publicly and officially celebrated, and on coming back, in September, the opposition filed a proposition to do the same in Spain. The motives behind this initiative corresponded to a will to distinguish between the parties involved in the Civil War and positively commemorate a particular part of the losing side. The PP filed a counterproposition in which it, on the one hand, resisted distinguishing so clearly between the sides and, on the other, attributing all the merit to the opposition.17 The proposition of the opposition parties was actually voted by a majority, given that the PP during the legislature of 1996–2000 did not have an absolute majority, and the parliamentary opposition took several similar initiatives during the following four years of PP government. One of the reasons for these repeated initiatives has to be found in the kind of retroactive justice that was used in the Spanish transition. At no point in time was a truth commission along the lines of, for example, the South African model an option. Such an idea was contrary to the core agreements behind the transition, and any legal prosecution was made impossible by the 1977 Law of Amnesty that erased all political and penal responsibilities prior to 1977. Instead, a series of limited legal measures towards amnesty and moral and economic reparation was taken as the political climate ‘cooled’ down, which amplified the scope of the basic measures taken during the early transition years. This system of bit-by-bit rectification has, however, obliged the parliamentary representation to repeat this debate on silencing and forgetting every time a new victim group has entered the public sphere to whom the existing measures had not done ‘historical justice’. Generally, the initiatives were rhetorically opposed to what was described as a process of forgetting and historical amnesia. The awarding by the government of the Great Royal Cross of Civil Recognition (Gran Cruz Real de Reconocimiento Civil) to Melitón Manzanas, Chief of the Politico-Social Brigade (Brigada Político-social) of San Sebastián, as a victim of terrorism, for example, provoked the Basque nationalists to begin another parliamentary debate in February 2001 aimed at condemning the military uprising of July 1936. ETA, in fact, had killed Manzanas, but the problem with awarding

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him the Cross was that he was a torturer and executioner of the Franco regime and had tortured many Basques during his time in office, which the opposition was accusing the government of obscuring: [T]he forgetting, the oblivion, the attempt to reinvent, the attempt to rewrite, at the margin of this philosophy of reconciliation in the construction of which we all participated during the decade of the 1970s . . . [constitute] a reinvention of history that we do not intend to accept silently; the forgetting as policy, the amnesia as strategy.18 This amnesia was interpreted as a corruption of the spirit of reconciliation that had dominated the transition without recognizing that the pact not to instrumentalize the past politically was a fundamental part of the transition agreement. According to the IU, amnesty had been turned into amnesia by the PP, as if the ‘historical amnesia’ was something invented by the PP alone. In another plenary debate of May 2001, on the rehabilitation of the antiFrancoist guerrilla, the so-called ‘Maquis’, the proponent IU thus stated that a moral obligation to break the circle of amnesia was incumbent on the members of Parliament: ‘we would take an important step forward towards breaking the forgetfulness, the oblivion. . . . The transition is searching the last entrenchments of forgetfulness’.19 Implicitly or explicitly, what was presented as a corruption of the original ‘spirit’ of the transition was often called an act of calculated rewriting of history to promote a political project, which was incompatible with the transition. On these occasions, it was not acknowledged that there was a continuity between the political use of the past practiced by the PP and the attitude maintained by the PSOE during its prolonged government. The criticism of the PP was also related to its absolute majority in Parliament, as the deputy already quoted continued: ‘an absolute majority cannot rewrite history, it ought not to be tempted [to do so].’ At other times, a certain understanding was expressed that the transition process made it impossible to avoid a certain silencing, that is that the pact not to instrumentalize the past politically had been a fundamental part of the transition. But after a quarter of a century, it was believed, Spanish society should be mature enough to complete the process. The distance in time with respect to the transition and the changed political culture ought to make it possible to rectify these ‘pockets’ of unjust forgetting. A change in the political use of the recent past was thus perceived as possible and necessary. This manner of viewing things was manifested, for example, in a debate in June 2001 on the revision of sentences and moral restitution of Spaniards who were executed for political or moral motives. This was promoted by the IU: ‘the peace of mind, the serenity, the tranquillity that these 24 years give us should permit us to attempt to accomplish the conclusion, which by no means implies forgetting, of this grey and sad page in the book of Spanish history’.20

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It is equally clear, however, that these initiatives also were motivated by political tactics. The opposition parties were attempting to put the conservatives in a difficult position. It was well known that some of the former supporters of Francoism, the so-called ‘sociological Francoism,’ had voted for the PP. The strategy of the opposition was to either force the PP to publicly condemn the dictatorship and thereby disappoint their rightist voters, or to stigmatize the party as ‘Francoist’ if it eventually decided not to condemn the dictatorial past. The PP invariably refused to support the various initiatives, sometimes creating their own counterproposals, as shown above. Generally, the denial was determined by an unwillingness to analyse the Civil War and distinguish between the parties involved. Instead, the PP preferred to follow the credo of the late Franco regime of an equally distributed guilt, alleging that ‘it was better to avoid talking about “good ones” and “bad ones” ’. Their counterproposals often contained a generic condemnation of dictatorship, without explicitly mentioning the Franco regime. The counterproposal of the PP from 1999 to commemorate the exile, for example, jumped directly from the Civil War to the transition in its narration of recent Spanish history: It is now 60 years since the end of the Civil War. . . . Our country that had given a sad example of intolerance, resentment and drive towards selfdestruction, was able, 40 years after this sinister and bloody war, to show the world an example of tolerance, fraternity and will to overcome in an exemplary democratic transition.21 The other typical feature of the PP’s interventions was to underline the success of the transition, as if the traumatic memories would more easily be accepted if set against other more positive recollections. The counterdeclaration of the PP from 2001 follows this pattern: The Congress of Deputies condemns all dictatorships and authoritarian and totalitarian regimes of the past and the present, which are contrary to the fundamental rights and liberties of the individual . . . It [the Congress] recalls the historic success of our transition to democracy, explicitly founded on the will to reconciliation and on the overcoming of century-old conflicts that provoked the rupture of our cohabitation (convivencia) in 1936.22 This emphasis on the achievements of the transition, in fact, was the basis of the new historical master narrative of the successful transition, which was becoming increasingly dominant in those years. The official commemoration related to the Day of the Constitution clearly did not satisfy the perceived need to celebrate the transition, and as a reaction to this relative commemorational vacuum around the historical master narrative of the transition, all the different twentieth and twenty-fifth anniversaries related

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to the transition to democracy invariably experienced a commemorative resurgence since the mid-1990s, as explained above. In accordance with this new master narrative, the successful transition to democracy was becoming one of the principal sources of pride in the Spanish nation and in being Spanish. The fact that both the left and right wing, as well as Spaniards and peripheral nationalists, celebrated these anniversaries together shows the broad impact of this development. When the PP came to power in 1996, this pride in the transition began to be turned into a useful token of Spanish national pride in the conservative party’s search for ways of legitimizing Spanish nationalism. Mythifying the transition and its principal ingredients such as the Constitution, paradoxically, also meant that it became increasingly untouchable and inimitable. Elevating the Constitution to this kind of symbolic status was therefore not seen as compatible with any kind of constitutional reform, which was rejected as an expression of nineteenthcentury political instability. This new focus on the transition as a historical point of reference ran parallel to a re-evaluation of the relationship between the present and the recent past. In February 2002, the PP thus finally accepted to explicitly condemn the Francoist dictatorship in their amendment to the original proposal on the adoption of measures of moral and economic reparation for those who suffered imprisonment and repression for political motives during the Franco regime. This was the first time that the PP explicitly mentioned the Francoist dictatorship. The amendment was, however, rejected by the original proponents. A common position vis-à-vis the recent traumatic past, however, was reached in November 2002. The parliamentary opposition had presented five different proposals, all aimed at making the government morally recognize the losers of the Civil War, economically help the exiles and other victims and officially support the reopening of mass graves that was beginning to take place all over Spain in those days. This time, the PP changed strategy and negotiated a common declaration with the opposition. From the position of the early period of government tending towards passive silencing of the recent past, via the various parliamentary initiatives of the opposition through which the PP matured a more active position, the conservative party arrived at a directly propositional position. The most remarkable aspect of the accord, a compromise amendment to the five original proposals, was the explicit condemnation of the Francoist dictatorship and the Civil War, and the expression of moral recognition to the victims of both. The agreement was preceded by a long introductory text that lauded the transition and explained its few shortcomings, which the declaration was aimed at repairing, and as such it followed the scheme of the earlier amendments by the PP. The governing party, however, this time went further than it had been willing to do before and recognized a fundamental difference between the two parts of the conflict, admitting that the nation had been split. This

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acknowledgement of a divided nation was used to revalue the spirit of consensus and moderation of the transition, which was seen to have healed the wounds of the national community. The counterpart of this new vision of the history of the Civil War and the Franco period was thus a further exaltation of the qualities of the transition. This perhaps was in harmony with how the Spaniards feel about the transition, but at the same time it did not exactly further the possibilities of a historical analysis of that period. Furthermore, the accord set the limits upon future dialogue with the past, that is of historical investigation and of reparation to victims of history, by setting the condition that it should not be used to ‘reopen old wounds or add fuel to the flames of the civil conflict’.23 The danger that wounds might reopen was thus seen to persist, which was an example of how the memory of the myth of the ungovernable character of the Spaniards was kept alive for the purpose of urging a certain sort of political and civic behaviour. The intention of the PP, and its reason for accepting to negotiate a common position, was that the declaration should be understood to be definitive, which was clearly indicated in the debate: The accord is a point of convergence between all the parliamentary groups of this Chamber, today and forever. The idea is to get these questions out of the political debate . . . [A]ll the groups today want to put a credible end . . . to the rosary of parliamentary initiatives that have been made regarding this issue in the Chamber.24 The PP clearly wanted to remove the issue of historical justice in its various aspects from the political debate, once and for all, and thereby block the use of the past as a political weapon that had characterized its period in power. This had been the principal aim of the pact to not instrumentalize the past politically, and in this sense the new agreement represented a formal renewal of the old informal pact based on an updating of the historical status quo on which it was based. This attempt to settle the political costs of the Civil War and the Franco regime once and for all bore certain parallels to the so-called historians’ dispute (Historikerstreit) in the mid-1980s in West Germany. The central issue of that discussion was the content and the necessity of a West German national identity or self-perception. Despite the denomination, it was not an internal discussion among historians only, and since it was conducted mainly in national journals and newspapers it reached a broad public, which became aware of the unsettled relationship with the past. From neoconservative revisionist historians came an attempt to relativize the Nazi crimes that made national identification and pride impossible. The aim was to normalize the German past and permanently settle the political costs of national socialism. The revisionists were not particularly successful in their attempt to close the debate on the traumatic past of Germany. In fact, the

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Nazi past has reappeared several times since, both in public debates and internal disputes among historians. The principal parallel with the German dispute was that, in both cases, conservative forces were trying to get around the problems of national identification created by the traumatic past. They therefore attempted to normalize the national past and settle the related political costs once and for all. In contrast to what happened in Germany, where the politicians remained on the margin of the Historikerstreit, which thus did not involve official statements, in Spain the new pact was the result of a negotiation between political elites. It was thus, in the first place, a political rather than a public discussion, and it was sealed with a political accord, in contrast to the result of the German dispute. The PP admitted that the blame for the Civil War and the dictatorship was not evenly distributed, and that this period therefore had created victims to whom historical justice had been denied by silencing their suffering in the official discourse. So far the actualization of the historical status quo in which the accord was based with respect to the pact to not instrumentalize the past politically. As a counterpart, the PP expected the other political parties to stop the ‘rosary’ of initiatives of the ‘bit-by-bit’ rectification of historical justice. That is that they would have to change the political use of the past that they had been adopting since around the year 2000 to come back to the modes of the old informal pact. The desire was to perpetuate the absence of a political use of the past conceived as an open process of permanent dialogue between the past and the present with this new formal accord. Instead of accepting the constant necessity to arrive at compromises regarding the national past, the government attempted thus to impede the presence of a particular past within political life. It was clear that the PP saw the declaration as a revival of the old informal pact not to instrumentalize the past hoping that it would put an end to the parliamentary initiatives in this regard (Humlebæk 2005, Aguilar Fernández 2006: 271–81). The date chosen to make this historical accord among the main Spanish political forces was hardly coincidental. The debate took place on 20 November 2002, the 27th anniversary of the death of Franco and the 66th of the death of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Spanish Fascist Party, Falange Española.

The ‘Law on Historical Memory’ The left-wing opposition tended to interpret the November 2002 accord in a completely different way seeing it as the beginning of a new kind of memory politics. After the general elections in March 2004 won by the PSOE, the question of recuperation of silenced memories, paraphrased as ‘historical memory’, took on a different proportion. Obviously, the demands were no longer related to obtaining power as they had been during the years

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of Aznar’s second government and after Zapatero became Prime Minister they instead became part of the political programme of the Spanish government. There was an evident aspect of generational change in this new politics as he was the first Spanish Prime Minister who belonged to the socalled ‘generation of the grandchildren’. Secondly, but probably more important for explaining the change in politics of memory, he was the first Spanish Prime Minister who was not an active politician during the transition to democracy, which might help to explain why he felt less tied to the political deals on which the transition was based. Lastly, he was also from a family that suffered losses in the war as his grandfather, a republican military officer, was shot in the early days of the Civil War. The reparation measures of the Zapatero government broke with every informal agreement from the transition time. Since then the question has become a constant element of the political confrontation between the right wing, on the one hand, and the left wing in coalition with the Basque and Catalan nationalists, on the other, which repeats the divisions of the Civil War. The new politics of memory that would focus on the recovery of the lost, forgotten or silenced ‘historical memory’ was not in the electoral programme of the PSOE for the March 2004 elections and Zapatero made no reference to ‘historical memory’ in his inaugural speech as head of government. But very soon thereafter it appeared as a focal point and in July 2004 it was included in a programmatical resolution of the Socialist Party. Zapatero began promising a ‘Law on Historical Memory’ and in September 2004 the government created an Inter-Ministerial Commission to study the situation of the victims of the Civil War.25 The aim with the Commission was to write a proposal for such a law that would morally recognize and rehabilitate the victims of the Civil War. The negotiations surrounding the coming into being of the proposal and of the final law itself, however, proved very difficult. It thus took the Commission almost two years to elaborate a proposal for a law, which was criticized by the collaborators of the Socialist government on this issue, the IU and the ERC. The proposal was presented to Parliament in July 2006 and then began the second round of negotiations. Initially, the government might have hoped to convince the PP to vote for the law, but the opposition of the conservatives was constant. The last tranche of negotiations was aimed at getting the moderately conservative Catalan nationalists of CiU to vote the law, which was successful. The amended version of the law was finally approved in December 2007 with the opposition of the PP and the ERC.26 The law was popularly known as the ‘Law on Historical Memory’ but which in the final edition received the more complex title ‘Law by which the rights of those who suffered persecution or violence during the Civil War and the Dictatorship are recognized and broadened and measures in their favour are established’. It was basically a law of reparation that pretended to give moral uprising to all those who suffered during the Civil

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War and the Franco regime and their relatives. The principal dispositions of the law were: ●

Francoist symbols were to be removed from public buildings and public space.

●

The common graves: The State will have to help to identify and eventually uncover graves of victims of the Francoist repression.

●

The victims of reprisal: The existing compensation for victims of Francoism and their families (pensions and economical compensation) were extended.

●

The Valley of the Fallen: The Francoist mausoleum was to be governed by statutes comparable to those of other religious sites and it was depoliticized, so that it could no longer be used for political rallies that exalted only one side of the Civil War.

●

The summary judgements of the Franco regime: The sentences were recognized as ‘radically unjust’ although they were not annulled en masse. The possibility, however, was opened for individual demands of revision.

●

The International Brigades: The still surviving brigadistas were given Spanish nationality.

●

Exiles and their descent: The possibility for grandchildren of exiles to opt for Spanish nationality was also opened.

●

The Documentation Centre of Historical Memory was created in Salamanca into which the materials from the General Archive of the Civil War were integrated.

The law, however, did not contain any concrete dispositions regarding how it was to be put into practice, which has delayed its application in many fields. The law and the lack of broad consensus behind it was a direct proof that there no longer existed a pact, formal or informal, between the principal political forces on how to deal with the difficult past of Civil War and dictatorship within the political realm. If in the transition, they were able to agree on a certain way of dealing with these problematic parts of the past for the sake of the superior goal of establishing a democracy, this way of dealing with the past was no longer considered valid by a majority of the Spanish population and their representatives in 2004. The original reason behind the agreement to keep questions related to the past out of the political equations – namely the consolidation of democracy – had been achieved. The problem was that there was no agreement about any new way of dealing with these parts of history. Memory of certain periods and events remained a very divisive issue, and the tensions caused by it contributed to the polarization of Spanish society and political life since the early 2000s. The

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troublesome past definitively entered the political arena and it is not likely to disappear in the short or medium term. The fact that these initiatives came from a government did not make them less controversial. In fact, this new politics of recognition and reparation caused heated debates on various occasions in Spain contributing to the increasingly polarized political climate in Spain that characterized Zapatero’s first term in office. Opinion polls suggest, however, that a majority of the Spaniards agreed to the political line of the government in this question. In an October 2005 poll by the CIS, 54.1 per cent agreed with the need to adopt some kind of recognition of the victims of the Civil War against 24.8 per cent who disagreed; 53.3 per cent believed that the victims of the war had been forgotten and that it was the right time to repair that wrong; 24 per cent disagreed. However, 43.3 per cent considered it useless to go over the facts because they already belonged to history.27 The ambivalence thus continued and although the opponents to Zapatero’s politics in this field constituted only a minority they had powerful allies such as, for example, the Catholic Church. The PP did not develop any answers to this new situation in which the old informal agreement no longer existed and in which the authoritarian past therefore had become a natural part of the political discussion with all the consequent demands for reparation, truth-finding, guilt, etc. The rightwing basically reacted as during the preceding decades arguing that too much memory would make old wounds spring open, thus still keeping to the common understanding of the transition. To them the so-called historical memory was at best redundant and possibly harmful to the peaceful coexistence of the Spaniards reviving old fractures of the social tissue of the nation. They vindicated the transition agreements as valid and wanted a reedition of the informal pact not to instrumentalize the past thus not acknowledging that the conditions under which the agreements were made had changed (i.e. that the Spanish democracy had been consolidated). Their arguments basically represented a revitalization of a particular version of the Francoist myths that the Spanish cannot govern themselves without resorting to violence: without agreement to silence certain (important) parts of the past, the peaceful collaboration of the former opponents will be in danger. Ultimately the threat is that a Civil War-like situation might result from the disagreements and the insufficiently developed democratic culture of the Spaniards to solve these peacefully.

Memory politics as a constant The political parties had good reasons to accede to the tacit transition agreement not to instrumentalize the past politically in the early democratic period, and for as long as the democracy was felt to be in need of further consolidation these reasons were still valid, which accounts for the existence

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of the pact in the 1970s and the better part of the 1980s. The principal reason, it seems, why the process of reckoning with the Francoist past did not begin in the late 1980s or 1990s was that the PSOE decided to deal with the past only when they were to lose power and therefore would have an interest in capitalizing on their advantage from breaking the agreement. The AP/PP, for its part, had no interest in breaking the pact as the party would have to account – at least to some extent – for the right wing’s actions since the Civil War. This explanation still leaves the period 1996 to 1999 unaccounted for, since the PP won the elections in 1996 but the demands to recuperate the silenced memories of the authoritarian past only appeared at the various levels of Spanish society between 1999 and 2001. There thus seems to exist a complex relationship between the media, the political sphere and social demands when it comes to explaining the eruption of memory, or rather the appearance of the demand to recuperate the silenced memories of the authoritarian past at the various levels of Spanish society. It certainly is difficult to maintain that the change originated solely as a social demand and above all, the timing of the appearance of this question seems rather fortuitous since it was unrelated to the change of government and only in a marginal way related to one of the major anniversaries of the Civil War, the 60th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. The argument about generational change is, of course, an important piece of the puzzle but still does not explain the timing of the eruption. In 2000 the young people born after the death of Franco would be turning twenty-five years old, but they were not the origin of this demand. Generally speaking, the generation of the grandchildren refers to people born in the 1960s and the question remains why they would begin to express their demands only around 2000 and not in 1996 after the change in government or even before.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Accommodating nationalist pretensions: Is it possible?

The constitutional postponement of the national problem In the 1978 Constitution a broad political consensus was reached around a vague idea that attempted to combine Spain’s unity and plurality, as explained above in Chapter 9. The Constitution only defined a loose set-up that in reality was to be realized through negotiations and subsequent settlements between the national Parliament and each regional Parliament with the Constitutional Court as an important gatekeeper in relation to interpreting the spirit of the constitutional text, in particular after the attempt to harmonize the autonomy process through the LOAPA-law was deemed unconstitutional (see Chapter 11). The fact of not having defined the autonomy system in detail undoubtedly was one of the major virtues of the new Constitution which helped secure the ample majority behind it, but it also created a series of problems. The vain hope of the responsible politicians was that a combination of the outcome of the negotiations and a modus vivendi created by the new institutional set-up around the autonomous regions would ultimately satisfy the wishes and needs of nearly everyone and thus slowly fill the ‘blank spots’ in the constitutional set-up of the ‘Estado de las Autonomías’ with relevant contents and interpretations. But even if it is definitely among the merits of the Constitution to have created a political and institutional framework within which these matters are discussed and settled (or so was the hope) the Constitution did not solve 179

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the fundamental tension between the principle of symmetry – inherent to democratic constitutions in general – and the principle of asymmetry advocated by the Catalan and Basque nationalists in their defence of special, collective rights as legitimization of particular arrangements regarding higher levels of autonomy. For a while, actually for almost two decades, the practical task of transferring competencies from the central state administration to the regional ones and the juridical task of settling disputes between the Autonomous Communities and the State at the Constitutional Court kept everyone busy. This is not to say that disputes that referred to the tension between symmetry and asymmetry did not occur, but simply that it remained within the capabilities of the system to solve them, either by giving the ‘slow’-track regions almost the same level of autonomy as the Basque Country and/or Catalonia were enjoying in particular areas or by defending particular Basque and/or Catalan rights with arguments of cultural, linguistic or historical nature that were finally accepted as valid. The impartial character and the functioning of the Constitutional Court, however, was questioned in part due to the mechanism behind the appointment of judges. Eight out of twelve judges are nominated by the two chambers of Parliament, four from each, and their nomination needs to be supported by at least 60 per cent of the corresponding chamber. But when this is combined with the electoral law and the resulting system of political parties, the result is that judges can only be nominated after agreement between the two main parties, the PSOE and the PP. The appointment therefore often becomes part of the political bargaining between the government and the main opposition party, because either one can block the process, which has happened several times. As a result the appointed judges are quite clearly perceived to be the candidates of one or the other party, which contrasts with the intended impartiality of the Constitutional Court. The 23-F coup attempt affected the situation surrounding the autonomy process deeply, as the granting of autonomy to the regions was perceived as an important reason for the military to react against the democratic system although the terrorism of ETA and the political handling of it was probably the main motive. The coup attempt, nevertheless, prompted the autonomy accords between the governing UCD and the PSOE, which were later transformed into the polemical LOAPA-law aimed at harmonizing the autonomy process. Among the political parties in general, even among the Catalan and Basque nationalist parties, the coup attempt served to spread a common understanding that care needed to be taken to avoid that the autonomy concessions did not get out of control. Towards 1987–8 the ‘slow’-route regions were coming close to completing the five-year period that would make a revision of their Statutes constitutionally possible. But the PSOE executive did nothing until 1992, when González reached a series of agreements with the PP leader José María

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Aznar, the so-called ‘autonomy pacts’ (pactos autonómicos) that was detailed in an Organic Law on transfers of competencies to the autonomous regions which, in turn, resulted in limited statutory reforms of eleven regions.1 In return for a range of new responsibilities that the Autonomous Communities could take over, a maximum level of autonomy was fixed. This regarded many aspects of the bilateral relationships between the Article 143 regions and the government aiming to level out the differences between them bringing their powers and responsibilities in line with each other. Cooperative links between the regions were also a part of the pacts through, among other, the creation of fifteen of the so-called ‘sectorial conferences’ (conferencias sectoriales). In practical terms, they consisted of officials from regional and central governments meeting regularly to discuss issues of relevance to various regions such as agriculture or tourism and they have the faculty to take decisions too (Gibbons 1999: 21). The autonomy pact was another way of harmonizing the autonomy process by granting the possibility of a higher level of self-government through a political process – in this case through a political deal between the two dominant political parties – outside the formally described framework in the Constitution according to which regions negotiate autonomy statutes via Articles  143 or 151 with the government and have the possibility to renegotiate after a minimum of five years. As the pact principally benefitted the ‘slow’ track regions more than the ‘fast’ track nationalities it thus represents a measure guided by the principle of symmetry. When in the 1990s the level of conflict at the Constitutional Court between the regional and state administrations was receding it thus seemed to indicate that the institutional and political framework of the ‘Estado de las Autonomías’ was actually working. So far the system had shown capable of satisfying most needs and wishes of both national and regional politicians and of settling the many disputes to the relative satisfaction of everybody involved. The legitimacy which was earned from this fact was reflected back onto the Constitution as a generalized perception that it had been useful for Spanish society as a basis for the development of democracy and autonomy. On the anniversary of the constitutional referendum in 1991, the editor of La Vanguardia reflected this perception complimenting the fundamental law: ‘The Constitution is not perfect, but it is useful’.2 Among the merits of the Constitution were usually mentioned that it had helped Spaniards to find a civil way of solving their problems. The granting of autonomy to the regions and the institutional framework around ‘El Estado de las Autonomías’ within which selfgovernment was negotiated was clearly perceived to be a central aspect of this usefulness of the Constitution too. This new way of finding solutions to political problems was perceived to be related to the emergence of a new political culture which resulted in a ‘normalization’ of Spain in the European context. In this sense, the Constitution was perceived to mark very strongly a dividing line in the history of cohabitation of the Spaniards

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and this legitimacy was profoundly democratic as it was based on popular satisfaction with the functioning of the democratic institutions and the State in general.

The leverage of the Basques and the Catalans Another important variable in the development of the system of selfgoverning regions has been the fact that the composition of the Spanish Parliament in Madrid on several occasions since the early 1990s has given the regional nationalist parties of the Basque Country and/or Catalonia a decisive role as supporting party or parties of minority governments, in particular the Catalan CiU and the Basque PNV. This issue is directly related to the particular structure of the party system in Spain which is a consequence of the nationalist conflict, the decentralization process and the electoral law. In practice the electoral law favours non-state-wide parties with a strong electoral base in one region such as the CiU and the PNV over state-wide parties with a minority representation in the whole country such as the IU. With the same number of votes, the latter type of party thus obtains considerably less seats in Parliament than the former type.3 The Catalan and Basque support of central government has of course been paid back in terms of further transfers of power and competencies always through alternative means rather than through formal negotiations of the Statute as detailed in the Constitution. Generally, these increases in the level of autonomy were later demanded by the ‘slow’-track regions in Spain that did not have the same leverage vis-à-vis the central government but which could appeal to the executive with arguments that referred to the principle of symmetry. In this way the tension between the two principles – symmetry vs asymmetry – innate in the Constitution inaugurated a spiralling effect of ever increasing levels of autonomy (Núñez Seixas 2010: 134–7). This possibility of using the loopholes of the Constitution to obtain a higher level of self-government when the executive in Madrid was favourable to this possibility meant that the Basque and Catalan executives by and large abandoned the ‘road’ of legal action at the Constitutional Court that they had preferred in the 1980s. There were other reasons for this as the impartial character of the Constitutional Court was being questioned, particularly by the Basque nationalists in the early 1990s. As a consequence of what they saw as a tendency of the high Court to be too pro-State, the Basque executive turned its back on the Constitutional Court and for almost two decades the regional government did not file any case against the State at the Court. The tension between those in favour of a symmetrical settlement of self-government and those in favour of asymmetry have on the other hand also produced a political climate in Spain, which is impregnated with the political logic that the process can only evolve in the direction of more

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autonomy to the regions (Balfour and Quiroga 2007: 286). Since the electoral victories of the PP in both the regional and general elections in 2011 the party has been enjoying an unprecedented level of power with an absolute majority in the Parliament in Madrid and control of thirteen out of seventeen regional governments. The harsh economic crisis that has placed many Spanish regional governments in serious economic difficulties has, however, spurred a development that could seem to question this logic as certain voices, in particular of leaders of some of the PP controlled regions, have been talking about recentralizing certain competencies. The fact that these regional leaders are ‘threatening’ to return powers to the State, nevertheless, precisely shows that the political logic since the creation of the autonomous regions has been that the level of autonomy could only increase.

Identity politics and political elite vs public opinion The introduction of the level of regional government has, as we have seen above, created a new political class which is interested in taking advantage of the various possibilities of increasing the levels of autonomy in order to boost their own share of political power. As concessions in terms of competencies – at least to some degree – depend on identity mobilization, this political class has a particular interest in advocating the particular identity of their own Autonomous Community. This is particularly true in the Basque and Catalan case where political elites consciously have promoted the Catalan and Basque (national) identities, but as shown above in Chapter  10 similar identity promotion also takes place in other regions although not necessarily for the same reasons. The question remains, however, to what extent these developments are mirrored in changes of public opinion in favour of the regional or sub-state identity. Since the early transition years polls have shown that the identification with Spain vis-à-vis their regions has changed over time: if in 1980 approximately 32 per cent identified themselves as primarily Spanish, this figure had dropped to 25 per cent in 1989 remaining between 20 and 25 per cent most of the years since then. On the other hand, while 24 per cent identified primarily with their Autonomous Community in 1980, this figure had dropped to 18.5 per cent in 1989 remaining between 17 and 23 per cent since then. The only category of identification which grew is that of dual identification, that is of those who identify equally with Spain and their region. In 1980 38 per cent felt like that, but in 1989 the figure had risen to over 48 per cent and in 1996 to over 50 per cent, remaining between 46 and 57 per cent since then. The most significant change in the patterns of identification thus occurs in the decade of the 1980s in which there is a

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rather dramatic shift particularly from identification with Spain to dual identification. The 1980s was also the decade in which the decentralized Spanish State was consolidated and in this sense the data on identification supposes a strong legitimization of the ‘Estado de las Autonomías’4 (Martínez-Herrera and Miley 2010: 18–19, Jiménez and Navarro 2014: 7–10). This support for the decentralized State is corroborated by data on the preferences for the different types of government. In 1976, 43 per cent preferred a centralized government, but over the years it dropped to about 9 per cent during the period 2002–8. In the same period, the number of those who advocate ‘more autonomy’ and ‘the possibility of secession’ have only shown a slight increase from the 1980s to the 1990s: those advocating ‘more autonomy than in the present’ rose from between 18 and 21 per cent in the 1980s to between 19 and 26 per cent in the 1990s, and those advocating the ‘right to secession’ rose from between 5 and 7 per cent in the 1980s to between 6 and 9 per cent in the 1990s. The category that increased most was those preferring the present system of selfgoverning regions which rose from 31 per cent in 1984 to approximately 40 per cent in 1990 and to approximately 50 per cent around year 2000 remaining above 50 per cent until 20085 (Martínez-Herrera and Miley 2010: 18–19, Jiménez and Navarro 2014: 8–10). There is thus evidence that the decentralized ‘Estado de las Autonomías’ was invested with solid legitimacy by the broad public opinion already in its first decade of functioning.

Renegotiating autonomy If the functionality of the legal and institutional framework surrounding the self-governing regions had reached a relatively high level towards the early 1990s, it was to be tested when the constitutionally permitted renegotiations of Autonomy Statutes was being realized by a number of regions. Naturally the wave of renegotiations would put the balance between symmetry and asymmetry as guiding principle to the test, as all the interested parties would fight for the principle they identify with, which most often is the one that serves to further their proper interests. It is, of course, not everything that can be renegotiated since certain principles have been defined in the Constitution, particularly in Article  2, but the system does actually permit renegotiating not just the contents of autonomy, but also certain aspects of the meaning of terms like nation, nationality, region, etc. Due to the fact that new or amended statutes have to be passed as organic law in the national Parliament, Las Cortes, in Madrid, the idea that a renegotiation is necessary have to be shared by a majority of the national Parliament in Madrid for the process to have any chance of success.

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First, the renegotiations had been delayed by González’ socialist executive unilaterally and then by means of the pact between the PP and the PSOE in 1992. The demand for a proper renegotiation leading to more comprehensive Statute reform was, nevertheless, voiced with increasing insistence particularly on behalf of Catalonia during the 1990s and early 2000s. But the Aznar government rejected the Catalan demands and instead set in motion another reform of the Statutes of practically all the ‘slow’-track regions including those who had not been reformed in 1994 following the 1992 pact between the PP and the PSOE, Navarre, Galicia and the Canary Islands.6 Just like the autonomy pact in 1992, the reforms only concerned the Article 143 regions and left out particularly Catalonia and the Basque Country thereby illustrating the Aznar government’s attitude, which was favourable to a so-called ‘harmonization’. This meant to even out the differences between autonomy levels as much as possible by raising that of the ‘slow’-track regions and as such was a measure of symmetry. With the arrival of Zapatero in the Moncloa Palace, the possibility of renegotiating autonomy in a more substantial way became real also for the so-called ‘historical regions’. The demands for a renegotiation were still voiced particularly by the Catalans. Already during the early phases of the 2004 election campaign Zapatero maintained an open attitude to the question and he had even promised the Catalans that he would support whichever result they could agree on in the Catalan Parliament (Martínez-Herrera and Miley 2010: 26). He probably did not expect to win the coming elections at the time, as the opinion polls unanimously indicated a PP victory (Encarnación 2008: 66). He probably also trusted that the Catalan executive – headed since November 2003 by his socialist colleague Pasqual Maragall of the Party of Catalan Socialists (Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya, or PSC) – would keep an eventual reform within certain limits that would be acceptable to broader sectors of the Spanish left-wing electorate. In any case, his promise to the Catalans as well as his politics on the subject afterwards shows that he trusted the constitutional set-up to function accepting the demand that the autonomy agreements need an update at intervals. But more than that, his attitude responded to a conception of Spain as ‘plural’ that was very different from the PPs concept. Zapatero’s difficulties to give exact definitions of what was meant by ‘plural Spain’, however, were paramount. The term was clearly meant as a way of accommodating the nationalist demands particularly of Catalonia, but it remained contradictory. The Basque case was different because ETA remained active and as long as that was the case accommodation of Basque nationalist demands was not an option. Nevertheless, after winning the elections by surprise, the new Socialist executive’s different attitude towards regional demands sparked a process in which more than half a dozen Autonomy Statutes were renegotiated without major problems,7 mainly because a pact between the socialists and the conservatives of the PP had been reached at regional level which eased the parliamentary proceedings in Madrid enormously.

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The Ibarretxe Plan and the Catalan Statute of Autonomy The most delicate of the reforms actually concluded during Zapatero’s time in office was the Catalan Statute of Autonomy, which did not enjoy this pre-accord favouritism that the other Statutes later would; on the contrary, it was the centre of a harsh conflict between the PSOE and the PP. The prominence of the renegotiation process of the Catalan Statute, however, was eclipsed for a period by the Proposal for Political Statute of the Community of Euskadi, popularly known as the ‘Ibarretxe Plan’ after the then President of the Basque regional government, Juan José Ibarretxe of the PNV. The plan which was presented as a reform of the Statute of Autonomy had been announced already in September 2001 but the elaboration had been kept secret until the contents were leaked in October 2003. The substance of the Plan was technical, but the proposal’s clearly nationalist preamble and first part proved the most controversial. The preamble thus declared that ‘the Basque people have the right to determine their own future . . . in accordance with the right to self-determination’. In the same anti-constitutional vein, in its Article 4.1 the plan created an ambiguous concept of ‘Basque citizenship’ granted to all residents of the Basque community and its Article 4.2 read: ‘Basque nationality is recognised officially for all Basque citizens in accordance with the pluri-national nature of the Spanish State.’ In other words a parallel set of nationality and citizenship would come into existence if the Plan was ratified.8 The incompatibility between these affirmations and constitutional compromise of Article  2 is self-evident (Martínez-Herrera and Miley 2010: 24). The proposal specified a three-step plan for its ratification, which included approval by the Basque legislature, an agreement with Madrid and a referendum on the agreement in the Basque Country. The conservative government of José María Aznar, in office in Madrid until the March 2004 elections, had refused any discussion of the plan, but the election of Zapatero’s government promised a less rigid attitude. In December 2004, the Basque regional Parliament, made up in majority of nationalists, finally ratified the plan with the narrowest possible margin9 allowing it to be sent to the Spanish Parliament to be debated. And the new Socialist government, as promised, allowed for the Plan to be debated in the Spanish Parliament. Despite the intervention of Ibarretxe during the initial debate of presentation on 1 February 2005, the vast majority of the Parliament rejected his plan as anti-constitutional. The proposal thus never reached formal negotiations as the rejection meant that it was not allowed to be ‘taken into consideration’, which is a necessary step before a proposal for a Statute reform enters the negotiation phase in the proper parliamentary commission.10 This was the end of the road for Ibarretxe’s controversial proposal. Even if the Plan was principally perceived – at least in the rest of

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Spain – to be about the relationship between the Basque Country and the Spanish state, it was also an attempt to leave ETA with no arguments to justify the continued use of violence. Part of the explanation for the very negative reception of the Plan was precisely related to ETA’s continued terrorist activity which made Spanish politicians reject discussing any accommodation of Basque nationalist demands. The causes of the Plan’s demise were thus to be found more in what it symbolized and in the context in which it was set than in the technical details of the plan itself. After more than a decade of Catalan demands for renegotiation of the regional autonomy voiced by the successive CiU governments, by the time of the November 2003 regional elections it was part of the electoral programme of all the Catalan political parties with the exception of the PP. The actual process of reform of the Catalan Statute was taken up enthusiastically by the new so-called ‘Triparty’ government that resulted from those elections. The government was headed by Maragall and consisted of the PSC, the ERC and the left-wing coalition Initiative for Catalonia Greens, United and Alternative Left (Iniciativa per Catalunya VerdsEsquerra Unida i Alternativa, or ICV-EUiA).11 Helped by Zapatero’s favourable attitude towards renegotiation, a proposal was elaborated during 2004 and 2005 by Maragall’s government. CiU remained sceptical and threatened for a long time to vote against the proposal heading for a more maximalist reform. But Zapatero intervened to secure support for the project and after reaching an agreement with CiU, the proposal was finally voted by the Catalan Parliament at the end of September 2005 with an overwhelming majority. Only the fifteen members of the PP in the 135seat Catalan Parliament voted against (Martínez-Herrera and Miley 2010: 26). The self-conception of Catalonia in the new Autonomy Statute was clearly that of a nation as the term was used more than 100 times through the text. Right after the preface, the first article thus read ‘Catalonia is a nation’.12 Zapatero was under increasing pressure from sectors within the PSOE, particularly party leaders of some of the southern regions like Andalusia not to stretch the meaning of the Constitution too much with his idea of Spain. Although Zapatero’s conception of ‘plural Spain’ thus remained contradictory, it is doubtful whether it would in fact be able to accommodate a conception of Catalonia as a nation, although he did his best in the first parliamentary debate in Madrid on the Catalan Statute in November 2005. Zapatero thus stated that ‘Catalonia has a national identity and that is perfectly compatible with Article 2 of the Constitution that considers Spain to be the nation of all of us’.13 Article  2 of the Constitution effectively reserves the term ‘nation’ for Spain inventing instead the term ‘nationality’ for the regions with historical claims to their proper identity, as explained above. The Prime Minister therefore contradictorily maintained that Catalonia was not a nation which in fact concorded with the conception contained in the constitutional text and at the same time admitted Catalonia

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to have a national identity trying to accommodate the Catalan demands partially. The November debate in the Cortes marked the beginning of the negotiation process of the proposal in the Spanish Parliament. As this Statute reform was not facilitated by a pact between the PP and the PSOE the initial phase of informal contacts between the parties and the filing of proposals for amendments lasted quite a long time. Only in early February 2006 was the joint commission (ponencia) between members of the parliamentary Commission on constitutional affairs and the Catalan Parliament established, which in a month would elaborate a report and an amended text that with only minor changes would pass through the two chambers of Parliament. It is rather clear from the tone and the discourses of this initial debate in the Commission, however, that in the meantime – that is between November 2005 and February 2006 – something close to an agreement had been arrived at between important actors in the process, in this case not the PP and the PSOE, but the PSOE and CiU.14 The fundamental deal regarded the two main problems with the new Statute: the definition of Catalonia and the level of financial autonomy granted to the region by the Statute. The deal meant that a number of amendments were made to the original text, which particularly with regards to the definition of Catalonia came very close to the amendments proposed by the PSOE already in December 2005.15 In the entire main section of the Statute the conception of Catalonia was thus changed from what was clearly a nation in the original text to the constitutionally acceptable but also more ambivalent term of ‘nationality’. Only in the Preamble to the Statute was one phrase left which alluded to Catalonia as a nation: In reflection of the feelings and wishes of the citizens of Catalonia, the Parliament of Catalonia has defined Catalonia as a nation by an ample majority. The Spanish Constitution, in its second article, recognises the national reality of Catalonia as a nationality.16 Instead of manifesting the character of Catalonia as a nation the paragraph thus left a relatively explicit reference to the conflict between different conceptions of Catalonia. The other principal contentious issues were the level of financial autonomy granted to Catalonia by the Statute, the status of the Catalan language and the relationship between Catalonia and the Spanish State. With regards to the financial issue, the agreed text was quite generous granting Catalonia its own Fiscal Agency and a financial autonomy of 50 per cent of all the taxes recollected in the region. With regards to the language, Catalan was described as co-official, as it is also defined in the Constitution, but the statutory text added the duty to learn both Catalan and Castilian Spanish. And it was recalled that Catalonia is a part of the State too and maintains a bilateral relationship with the central power in Madrid. The amended Statute was passed in the Parliament in Madrid in the spring of 2006, first by the Congress on 30 March 2006 and by the Senate

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on 10 May 2006, although naturally with a narrower margin than the vote in the Catalan Parliament due to the size of the PP in the Cortes. Against voted only the 146 MPs of the PP but the ERC, among the original proponents, abstained in the final vote considering the amended version too ‘decaffeinated’ with respect to their original aspirations. This conflict with the ERC caused the first Catalan ‘Triparty’ government to break up. As the Constitution prescribes it was afterwards passed through a regional referendum in Catalonia on 18 June 2006. The PP was campaigning heavily against the new Statute for being unconstitutional principally because it – according to the PP – questioned the status of Spain as the only nation in Spain, which as explained above was not really true in the final version of the Statute. Also the ERC ended up campaigning for a no in the referendum although for practically the opposite reason, namely for being less ambitious than the original proposal. Despite the opposition the Statute was voted with a comfortable majority: 73.2 per cent voted in favour of the new Statute against 20.6 per cent who voted no. The participation in the referendum at only 48.9 per cent, however, was remarkably low, which is telling for the relative disenchantment on both sides with the resulting statutory text.17 The approbation by referendum meant that the Statute became legally valid as of that day, 18 June 2006 although it took a month before it officially became an Organic Law on 19 July.18

The polarization of the Catalan situation The PP in its fervent opposition to the new Statute almost immediately filed a cause against it at the Constitutional Court on 31 July 2006, as leading party members had announced they would do. They argued that the new Statute was a kind of parallel constitution for which there is no legal room in the constitutional set-up of Spain. In early 2006 the party had also collected more than four million signatures against the treatment of the proposal as a reform of a Statute of Autonomy arguing that in reality it should be treated as a proposal to reform the Constitution. The recourse sent to the Constitutional Court was a document of over 400 pages that claimed that more than 120 articles and dispositions of the Statute were unconstitutional. Although the PP thus was critical of practically the entire Statute, the criticism focused particularly on six polemical issues: ●

The inclusion of the term ‘nation’ as well as the ‘national symbols’ of Catalonia.

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The ‘duty to learn’ Catalan.

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The regulation of the judicial power in Catalonia as a parallel system to the Spanish judicial power.

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The delimitation of competences, which according to the PP ‘diminishes the capacity of the State’ in Catalonia.

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The bilateral relationship Catalonia–Spain, due to what it means in terms of breaking the principle of equality among all Spaniards.

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The new model of financing the Region and the greater financial autonomy granted to Catalonia by the Statute.

The Statute clearly was a claim for asymmetry as an important guiding principle for the relationship between the Spanish regions in order to accommodate the Catalan claims and, on the contrary, the recourse against the Statute from the PP tried to ‘regain’ territory for Spain demanding recognition of the principle of symmetry (of rights of all Spaniards, etc.) as a guiding line. The deeper motivation for the cause against the Statute, however, also drew on the ancestral fears that have played such an important role in conservative Spanish politics during the entire twentieth century. The fear is that Spain will break up and in a sense cease to exist if regionalist demands are accepted. Despite the fact that the new Statute in theory was successfully negotiated and promulgated, the PP-led campaign against it created a lot of negative tensions in Catalonia. The period after the referendum on the Statute in 2006 therefore marked a difficult conjuncture in Catalan politics. At the regional elections in November 2006, the ‘Triparty’ constellation was able to continue in power although Maragall, the charismatic socialist President for the preceding four years, resigned. The new regional president, José Montilla quickly began warning his Madrid colleagues that there was a growing sentiment of distrust and dissatisfaction in Catalonia. The issues causing this discontent were principally concerned with obtaining better conditions for the Catalan autonomy and at the same time strongly critical towards the treatment of Catalonia by the State, particularly in terms of delays in infrastructure investments and in terms of an improved system of financing the regional budget. The reissue of the ‘Triparty’ government was a big disappointment to the Catalan nationalists of CiU and its leader Artur Mas. CiU had ‘won’ the elections but still had not enough seats to prevent the majority of the leftwing ‘Triparty’ and therefore decided to attempt to strengthen their own cause in order to win the next elections. This ‘refoundation’ of Catalanism was given form in Mas’ project ‘The Big House of Catalanism’ (La Casa Gran del Catalanisme) which was a sort of roadmap in which he suggested that Catalonia should have ‘the right to decide’. This was still not a proindependence movement as such and the focus of this right to decide continued to be the administration of infrastructure and other public investments in Catalonia. This was partly due to internal differences within CiU, where one-half of the federation – CDC of which Mas is president – did commit to a Catalan state at this time, whereas the other half – UDC – was more reticent.19 In any case, as time passed the scope of this ‘right to

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decide’ would widen in a continuous movement towards emphasizing Catalonia’s place within Spain translated into the ‘right to self-determination’ and a referendum on independence.20

The Constitutional Court ruling After almost four years of deliberations, the Constitutional Court finally ruled that fourteen of the new Statute’s articles were unconstitutional on 28 June 2010.21 In reality, the Constitutional Court did not criticize the issue most central to the PP critique regarding the character of Catalonia; the Court only pointed out that the phrase on Catalonia as a nation in the preface did not have any juridical significance, because it, as outlined above, only mentioned that the Catalan parliamentarians had defended the idea. The criticism most loudly voiced by the PP as a matter of fact had already been taken care of in the early phase of negotiations, particularly in the accord between Zapatero and Mas in January 2006. The other main issue of the way of financing the autonomous region was the object of moderate criticism ruling one of the articles on the question unconstitutional. Likewise, the third main criticism on the use of Catalan and the duty to learn both Catalan and Castilian Spanish was subjected to very moderate criticism. The Court thus only ruled unconstitutional the expression ‘and preferred’ referring to Catalan used as ‘the normal and preferred language of the public Administration and the public media in Catalonia’. The majority of the articles rendered unconstitutional with the sentence was concerned with the organization of the judiciary in Catalonia (six articles) and with issues regarding the shared competences in different matters (five articles).22 In reality these points of criticism could almost all be considered to be details that would have been rather easily mendable in a more pragmatic political environment, but there was a very strong feeling in Catalonia that compromise on these issues had reached the limits of toleration in 2006. Given the nature of the Constitutional Court with a majority of politically appointed judges, it was perceived as a political decision. The Catalan executive and the nationalist parties therefore took a hostile attitude towards the sentence and the PP likewise celebrated it as a victory over Catalan nationalism despite the fact that it did not really follow the arguments of the PP in the sense of a thorough criticism of the Statute.

The post-sentence phase of Catalan independentismo The immediate reaction to the sentence in Catalonia was expressed in a large popular rally in Barcelona celebrated on the 10 July with several

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hundred thousands of participants.23 Most political parties, including the ‘Triparty’ government and CiU, participated in the rally under the motto ‘We are a nation. We decide’ (Som una nació. Nosaltres decidim). The demand of independence had now become a dominating voice in Catalan society. The sentence thus had devastating consequences for the mutual trust between Castilian Spanish and Catalans and for the loyalty towards the Constitution and the ‘Estado de las Autonomías’ particularly among the majoritarian, moderate, non-separatist section of Catalan nationalism. Since the coming of democracy, moderate Catalan nationalism had generally defended the constitutional set-up of Catalonia as an autonomous region within Spain, but the sentence became the end to this long period in which Catalans felt there was a possibility of reaching a stable agreement with the rest of Spain that would respect the Catalans and Catalan identity. The nationalists had generally defended and celebrated the Constitution as their own victory and aimed at maximizing the benefits within the autonomy system as explained by the historical leader of the CiU, Jordi Pujol: [F]or many years the majority of the Catalan nationalist movement has not looked to independence. It has played its hand for autonomy with a high level of political and administrative competencies economically viable and with a guarantee of its identity. And it has rejected the demands of those sectors that called for independence. It had reasons to do so. Now it no longer has them.24 After the sentence, this relatively peaceful coexistence and belief in the future clearly came under pressure and Catalan nationalists began changing their attitude showing more doubts about whether the Constitution would ultimately be able to accommodate the wishes of the Catalans. A similar doubt, although it has not been voiced openly, gained ground within the PSOE, particularly among those who like Zapatero believed that the Constitution would be able to accommodate almost any result that a particular region and the Spanish Parliament might agree on in a democratic way. The ruling of the Constitutional Court shook this belief, but where the Catalan nationalists reacted with increasing secessionism the left wing reacted principally by advocating constitutional reform of Spain, possibly including a federal solution to the national problem. The perceived crisis of the decentralized State caused by the Catalan crisis is clearly reflected in Spanish public opinion with regards to the preferred system of government: the preference for the current system of self-governing regions dropped by more than 10 per cent between 2008 and 2011, from 55 to 45 per cent, and a further 13 per cent to 31 per cent in 2012. The preference for a ‘centralist’ option, i.e. without self-governing regions, more than doubled from 10 per cent in 2008 to 23 per cent in 2011 remaining stable throughout 2012 and 2013. However, the ‘more autonomy’ option

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also dropped from 20 per cent in 2008 to between 11 and 13 per cent in 2011 through 2013 and the ‘secessionist’ option, according to which regions should be allowed to secede, only increased its share marginally from 6.8 per cent in 2008 to between 8.5 and 9.7 per cent during the period 2011 to 2013. The bulk of the increase was thus taken up by the centralist option and a new category, ‘regions with less autonomy than today’, which appeared in the CIS polls in 2012 and which scored 14 per cent in both 2012 and 2013. The Catalan crisis has thus translated into an increased support for a certain recentralization of competencies, which is valid even for parts of the left-wing constituencies although not necessarily for the same reasons as those advocated by voters of the PP (Jiménez and Navarro 2014: 19–27, Núñez Seixas 2010: 138–9). On the other hand, the crisis has only led to a small increase in the ‘secessionist’ option among the populations of the regions characterized by a predominant identification with the region which was up from 17 per cent in 1996 to 20 per cent in 2013, but the increase was more than outweighed by a decrease in the ‘more autonomy’ option25 (Jiménez and Navarro 2014: 15). Lastly, it is worth noting that this crisis of legitimacy of the decentralized State of self-governing regions, however, did not interfere with the pattern of identification of the Spanish population, which has not changed substantially between the mid-1990s and the present: the dominant category remains dual identification which between 2010 and 2013 scored between 53 and 55 per cent (Jiménez and Navarro 2014: 7–10). Returning to Catalan politics in the aftermath of the ruling of the Constitutional Court, in reality the left-wing ‘Triparty’ government had lost its momentum and a large share of its public support even before the verdict as the defining line of Catalan politics was changing towards almost exclusively focusing on the independence issue and the tension with the rest of Spain. The traditional division between left and right wing was thus losing importance. The regional elections in November 2010 were another step in the evolution towards increasing demands for a referendum and/or independence. The ‘Triparty’ coalition lost to an empowered CiU under the leadership of Mas that came close to absolute majority.26 It is worth noting, however, that CiU then engaged in a pact with the PP in order to govern, which indicates that the secessionist agenda was still only of secondary importance to the governing elites. CiU was participating actively to change the focus of Catalan politics and the party had included the ‘right to decide’ as one of the fundamental points in its electoral programme. The scope of the ‘right to decide’ was now that Catalonia needed a new, more autonomous model of financing its budget, more similar to the so-called ‘economic concert’ (concierto económico) of the Basque Country, which in the Catalan context was called ‘fiscal pact’. The possibility of a referendum on independence was explicitly excluded, at least in the upcoming legislation. Nevertheless, in his installation address Mas proposed that Catalonia should begin a ‘national transition’ towards

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the full application of the Catalan ‘right to decide’. According to Mas the Constitutional Court ruling had terminated the constitutional pact between Catalonia and Spain and ended the belief in the Constitution as a useful instrument under which to pursue Catalan aspirations. He also disclosed a calendar whereby the following year (2011) would be used to obtain a common front among the political parties in Catalonia on the above objectives so as to present a strong proposal to whatever Spanish government that emerged from the the forthcoming Spanish general election. Mas did not explicitly exclude independence, but without mentioning it temporarily set it aside because the risk of a social fracture in Catalonia would be too big. In short: ‘Independence is a good and just idea, but it is still too early to demand it; we have to prepare ourselves more’.27 Also in terms of economic policy, the Catalan regional government was struggling to find a way to react to the strains presented by the economic crisis that would bolster the secessionist cause. Catalonia was struggling with one of the largest regional debts – second only in relative terms to the singular case of Valencia – and had to ask for rescue loans from the central State several times, much to the dismay of the nationalist government. The Catalan executive would never dream of voluntarily giving back competencies to the central State and reacted in a ‘country-like’ fashion with a neo-liberal economic policy response, realizing sharp cuts in services and increases in taxes and revenues in order to minimize the central government’s say in Catalan affairs. But this does not save the regional government from being in a catch-22 situation: the maximization of autonomy – which in the current context means heading for sovereignty – goes against the economic necessity to finance the huge regional debt with the help of the Spanish government in Madrid and achieving larger economic autonomy. The government partner in Catalonia since the 2012 elections, the republican and secessionist ERC, has been threatening between the lines to stop supporting the government if it leaves the track towards sovereignty. Voices from the PP, on the other hand – both from the regional branch and from the government in Madrid – have been talking about the possibility of a new system with larger fiscal autonomy for Catalonia as an incentive if it abandoned the secessionist track. The first government of Mas also represented the legislature in which the issue of a referendum on self-determination found its way into official politics. Already in 2009 a series of popular referendums on independence had been organized by pro-independence associations in 168 municipalities, first on 13 September in the town Arenys de Munt and then on 13 December in 167 other municipalities. The results showed, not surprisingly, a vast majority – 95 per cent – in favour of independence as the turnout was generated principally by the organizing associations. But the turnout was only about 30 per cent as only about 200,000 of the 700,000 possible voters bothered to vote on the matter.28 The polling movement continued until spring 2011 totalling in the end over 550 municipalities out of a total of less

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than 1,000 municipalities in Catalonia. The final grassroots poll was held in Barcelona on 10 April 2011. A few days later, at the end of April 2011 a ‘National Conference in favour of an Independent State’ (Conferència Nacional per l’Estat Propi) took place in Barcelona attended by approximately 1,500 people. It saw the birth of the pro-independence association National Assembly of Catalonia (Assamblea Nacional de Catalunya, or ANC), which was formally founded in March 2012 with the explicit aim of working towards the full independence of Catalonia. The association which is not directly affiliated to any political party was immediately very successful with branches spreading all over Catalonia very quickly: a clear sign of the widespread popular dissatisfaction with the situation. Thus this new pro-independence movement is both topdown and bottom-up at the same time. On the one hand, while the nationalist politicians are no longer ‘calling the shots’ in the struggle for increased independence from Spain on the other, the organizations depend on the political sphere to back their initiatives.

The March towards Independence From June 2012 and during the summer ANC organized the ‘March towards Independence’ (Marxa cap a la Independència) with multiple demonstrations all over Catalonia. The march culminated in Barcelona on the Catalan national holiday, ‘Diada’, 11 September 2012, with approximately 1.5 million people gathered under the motto ‘Catalonia, a new state in Europe’ (Catalunya, nou estat d’Europa). The immense success of the demonstration and its peaceful character shook Catalan politics thoroughly, creating a rather distinctive before and after. Referring to the distinction above between bottom-up and top-down, one might say that the strength of the bottom-up movement surprised the top-down movement – the politicians – making them change their strategy. A few days later, a handful of representatives of the ANC were received by Mas in his offices and during that meeting they suggested to him that the next regional elections should have a ‘plebiscitarian’ character and that a proper referendum should be held in 2014. Less than two weeks later Mas called new elections to the Generalitat to take place on 25 November. The argument for calling early elections – in fact two years early – was precisely that the ‘Diada’ manifestation had changed the political landscape so thoroughly that his mandate could not continue unaltered. He probably also hoped to capitalize on the rise of the pro-independence movement and the demand for a referendum, since those were demands heeded by CiU since 2006. As suggested by the ANC the elections developed into a quasi-referendum on sovereignty forcing all the participants to take a stand on the issue. The actual elections, however, did not go as Mas had hoped. The attempt to take advantage of the post-verdict surge of secessionism backfired on

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Mas because the Catalan electorate polarized. The most extreme secessionists and the most extreme anti-secessionists gained ground to the detriment of more moderate positions, which in the Catalan situation is constituted by the CiU and the PSC. The elections thus reduced CiU’s number of seats from sixty-two to fifty. The other major pro-independence party, ERC, on the other hand more than doubled their result to twenty-one seats and the also left-wing secessionist party Popular Unity Candidates (Candidatura d’Unitat Popular, or CUP), running for the first time in regional elections, obtained three seats.29 Those opposed to both referendum and secession, the PP and the recently created Citizens-Party of the Citizenship (Ciutadans-Partit de la Ciutadania, dubbed ‘C’s’) both obtained good results: the PP gained one seat obtaining nineteen and the C’s tripled their result obtaining nine seats. CiU, however, was far from an absolute majority and had to find a partner to be able to continue in government. After lengthy negotiations a government pact was formed between the CiU and the ERC permitting Mas to continue as president. That the moderately conservative nationalist party for the first time chose to form a government with a secessionist, but also markedly leftwing, party demonstrated that the independence agenda trumped the ideological agenda. The disappointing election results, however, indicated that not all Catalans support Mas’ nationalist project. Demographic studies show that the secessionist project is supported principally by the upper and uppermiddle classes of Catalan society, whereas it finds much less support among the poorer classes. When asked about their preferences regarding the territorial organization of the State, over 50 per cent of poorer Catalans advocate the status quo or a solution with less regional autonomy. Among the more affluent Catalans this percentage is reduced to approximately 25 per cent. Support for a solution with more autonomy than in the present (either a federal or an independent state) the relationship is the opposite: approximately 45 per cent of poorer Catalans support one of these two options against approximately 72 per cent of the more affluent. The working class constitutes 47 per cent of the population and many come from other parts of Spain. Sixty-six per cent of them have Castilian Spanish as their mother tongue and among them the support for CiU’s secessionist project is very limited. But even among the Catalan-speaking working class the support for independence is significantly lower than among the upper and upper-middle classes (50 vs 72 per cent). The majority of the working class and the lower-middle class thus turn their back on the secessionist project despite the fact that the media and the immense majority of Catalan politicians give the impression that it unites the entire Catalan population. The dissenting voice of the poorer classes has virtually no impact on the public and political agenda in Catalonia. Their propensity to abstain in elections makes them under-represented in Parliament and in retrospect perhaps also helps explain the low participation in the regional referendum of 2006 on the new Statute (Marí-Klose and Moreno Fuentes 2013).30

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After the elections the political agenda was marked by the request for a referendum on independence. The ‘right to decide’ was now clearly and exclusively related to it, claiming the Catalan population’s ‘right to selfdetermination’. The PP government in Madrid has consistently rejected any possibility of a referendum, threatening to take any such move by the Catalan executive to the Constitutional Court. As the power to call referendums, according to the Constitution, resides exclusively with the Parliament in Madrid, the Court would have to rule a unilaterally called referendum unconstitutional. There has been no flexibility in the attitude of Prime Mìníster Rajoy, not even after a Scottish referendum on independence in September 2014 was accorded peacefully between the British and Scottish Prime Ministers. The United Kingdom does not have a Constitutional Court and no written Constitution to interpret and therefore does not have the same problems. The country furthermore is a union of nations, which can be dissolved again should the parts wish to do so, which is fundamentally different from the constitutional conception of Spain as a unitary State with only one nation – the Spanish – as the sole source of sovereignty. Collective rights to parts of the country, such as the ‘right to decide’ for the Basque or the Catalan people, cannot be granted within the present Constitution. To fulfil the promise of a ‘popular consultation’, alternative solutions to a proper regional referendum that Rajoy has shown unwilling to negotiate have been investigated, among them loosely defined ‘plebiscitarian’ elections. The Catalan executive has made a regional law on ‘referendum’ attempting thus to ‘scoop’ out a competence for itself. In order to prepare the process of ‘national transition’ that Mas promised in the new government’s inaugual address just before Christmas 2012, the Catalan government designated an ‘Advisory Council for the National Transition’ (Consell Assessor per a la Transició Nacional) consisting of fourteen experts on judicial and political matters, nearly all of them from the Catalan university milieu. The first step of the so-called transition was identified as the exercise of the ‘right to self-determination’, i.e. the referendum, but the council is due to produce a long series of reports on all kinds of ‘how to’ – and ‘what if’ – questions in relation to an eventual independence. An integral part of the effort by the Catalan executive to press for a referendum and to further the case of independence has been to boost the diplomatic efforts of Catalonia on the international and particularly the European scene. So much so, that the Spanish government has been forced to react through a series of legal measures to control and curtail the international projection and diplomatic reach of the Autonomous Regions. In this regard, it has been interesting – not least to Catalan nationalists – that the minister in charge of the PP government’s policy towards Catalonia quite often has been the Spanish Foreign Minister (a kind of backward recognition of the region’s quasi state-like status?). The secessionists clearly envisage an independent Catalonia as a member of the EU and have thus also attempted to influence the Brussels machinery. But so far the hesitant

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answers from the EU officials have been quite disappointing indicating that an independent Catalonia would have to apply for membership as any prospective state. As accessions to the EU are accorded by unanimity, Catalan membership of the EU would thus depend on Spanish approval, which is not a promising prospect for Catalan nationalists.

The Basques in the shadow of Catalonia – the slow route to independence? The Basque nationalists, and particularly the dominant PNV, have traditionally demonstrated a much more ambivalent attitude towards the Spanish nation and the present constitutional set-up of self-governing regions than the Catalan nationalists used to do, at least until the post-2010 secessionist crisis. They have long demanded recognition of their right to self-determination and it was the absence of such recognition that prevented the PNV and other Basque nationalists from supporting the 1978 Constitution. They instead grounded their claims on having signed a foral agreement with the Spanish crown which had given the Basque Country a series of political rights and social and economic privileges since the twelfth century, the so-called fueros. Despite the failure to renew this old pact with the Crown in the Constitution of 1978, the Basque nationalists nevertheless claimed that the Basque provinces never gave up their autonomy. This tradition thus asserts a shared sovereignty and some type of contract between the Basques and the Crown. These historic rights were recognized by the Spanish Constitution, but debate continues over whether they are original, pre-constitutional, rights or they were created by the Constitution. For these reasons the Basque support for the Constitution was at best halfhearted and the nationalists were often openly ambivalent about whether the existing self-government could be developed satisfactorily or was to be regarded principally as a path to the long-term goal: Independence. For these reasons, the politics of the regional governments presided over by the PNV in some ways anticipated what has been happening in Catalonia since 2010 both in style and content. The best example of this characteristic of Basque politics is the abovementioned ‘Ibarretxe Plan’, which in many ways anticipated what was to come in Catalonia. With its ideas of an a symmetrical relationship in a pluri-national State and of co-sovereignty, it was close to the foral tradition in which the PNV is strongly rooted. A controversial section, Article 13, gave the Basque government the right to hold referendums in ‘the democratic exercise of the Basque citizens’ right to decide’. But recognizing the Basque people’s right to self-determination would be unacceptable to the Spanish political class, because it implied, indeed clearly stated, a right to secession. Furthermore it would be unconstitutional as sovereignty, according to the

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Constitution, emanates solely from the Spanish nation; the Constitution thus recognizes no other collective with this type of rights than the entire Spanish nation. Like the later Catalan Estatut, Ibarretxe’s Plan was presented as a Statute reform but it was not as consensual a proposal as the Catalan equivalent. It thus arrived in Madrid with a very narrow mandate and was in various ways openly anti-constitutional as explained above. The pretension was thus different from the Catalan proposition from the very outset. The goal was not to have it accepted in Madrid as the framework of a new ‘Basque community freely associated to the Spanish State’ (Article 1) but rather to show Basque discontent with the present state of autonomy and possibly to provoke a debate that would result in some kind of positive change. Indeed, such an outcome would have made the Plan a success in the Basque Country, particularly in PNV circles. The vagueness of the formulations regarding the legal base of the association with Spain precisely indicated some will to negotiate. Last but not least, in the internal Basque context, the Plan was a clear statement to the more radical ETA-related nationalism; it was an attempt to leave ETA with no arguments to justify the continued use of violence (Martínez-Herrera and Miley 2010: 23–5). As detailed above, the proposal was rejected in Madrid in the very initial phase of parliamentary negotiations. The plan’s radical new ideas of plurinationalism, asymmetrical power relations and pre-constitutional rights of a Basque demos challenged the legitimacy of the Spanish Constitution and its fundamental principle that the unitary Spanish nation is the sole source of sovereignty. The Ibarretxe Plan failed just as much because of what it symbolized as because of its content. But more than that, the Plan failed to provoke a constructive general debate on the system of self-government and its constitutional framework. On the contrary, it contributed to poisoning the political environment in all of Spain and although it principally came to symbolize a move towards radicalization on the part of mainstream Basque nationalism it would thus have long-lasting effects on the political discussion on the issue. Despite the fact that the idea of co-sovereignty and the right to selfdetermination of the Basque people had been among the principal reasons behind the Plan’s failure, Ibarretxe in another challenge to the Spanish State attempted to organize a referendum-like ‘consultation’ in the Basque Country in 2008. The initiative was announced in September 2007 and the vote was intended to occur on 25 October 2008. Two questions would be put to the Basque electorate and they were revealed in May 2008: the first concerned whether to engage in talks with ETA or not, and the second was on whether there should be negotiation in order to reach a democratic agreement on the ‘right to decide of the Basque People’. The latter question referred directly to the right to self-determination, which by definition acknowledges the existence of a separate Basque demos with particular collective rights including the right to secession. On 27 June 2008 the referendum plans in the form of regional law31 were finally approved by the

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Basque Parliament in a narrow vote similar to that of the Statute reform proposal: Ibarretxe’s three-party coalition government totalled thirty-three positive votes, whereas the PP and the PSE-PSOE totalled thirty-three negative votes. But in a tactical manoeuvre one of the MPs of the party EHAK/ PCTV (Communist Party of the Basque Homelands),32 regarded as ETA’s political branch, supported the initiative while the other seven abstained. The referendum was thus approved by thirty-four against thirty-three. Although Ibarretxe planned to negotiate the terms of the ‘consultation’ with the Spanish government he still threatened to hold a non-binding referendum on the future of the Basque Country should the negotiations fail. If still in government by 2010, the other referendum should decide on the final status of the Basque Country. As with the Statute reform proposal, Ibarretxe continued to refer to the conflict with ETA as a motive for the initiative stating that an open-ended discussion on Basque independence would be helpful to put an end to the terrorism of ETA. But the Spanish government appealed the decision to the Constitutional Court, which in September 2008 ruled that the ‘consultation’ was unconstitutional as only the Spanish Parliament can call such a referendum. Regarding the fundamental question of demos, the Court underlined that questions like the second one of the proposed referendum concerned all Spaniards and was thus not something the Basques could legitimately decide on themselves. The Court thus questioned the existence of a Basque right to selfdetermination, which meant a definitive end to the challenges posed to the Spanish State and the system of self-governing regions by the Ibarretxe executive. Paradoxically, the manifest failure of the Ibarretxe Plan – both externally towards the rest of Spain and internally within the Basque Country – was instrumental in forging the ‘constitutionalist’ block between the PSE-PSOE and the PP after the regional elections in 2009 and therefore in Ibarretxe’s fall (Martínez-Herrera and Miley 2010: 24–5). One fundamental difference in the nationalist dynamics between Catalonia and the Basque Country, of course is the presence of the terrorist organization ETA and of its political branch(es) within the political system, which at times have been declared illegal and thus not allowed to run for elections. Generally, the terrorism and radical nationalist discourse of ETA as a factor have worked towards a radicalization of the nationalist discourse as the democratically minded nationalism has attempted to include elements of ETA’s demands in order to capture its discursive territory. If Basque nationalism from the very beginning – long before ETA was founded – was more openly secessionist than Catalan nationalism, the presence of a radical nationalist terrorist organization has only worked to increase this tendency, at least until relatively recently. On the other hand, another fundamental difference is related to the sociological conditions of the Basque nationalist discourse and those of its Catalan equivalents, particularly since 2010. The situation in the Basque Country concerning identity and preferences for the territorial organization

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of the State is more polarized than in other parts of the country. When asked about what Spain means to them, between 12 and 13 per cent of the Basques (in 1996 and 2005, respectively) chose the option ‘an alien State’ which is significantly higher than the corresponding values for the Catalans, where that option was chosen by 2.8 and 5.4 per cent, respectively.33 Significantly the presentation of the Ibarretxe Plan and its failure in Madrid does not seem to have had an effect on this view of Spain. The figures for the Basque Country, by the way, correspond rather well to the vote of radical nationalist formations (HB/EH/PCTV/Bildu), but the figures for Catalonia are considerably smaller than the vote for ERC. When asked in a different way about their identity, the exclusive Basque identity (‘only Basque’) actually dropped from around 40 per cent in the transition period (1978 to 1982) to around 25 per cent from the mid-1980s and remained relatively stable until 2007. Neither in this case was any effect of the Ibarretxe Plan noticeable. Martínez-Herrera and Miley therefore conclude: By the mid-2000s, in comparison with the late 1970s, the proportion of citizens refusing to identify themselves with Spain has dramatically dropped in the Basque Country . . . In turn, citizens’ views of the Spanish and the regional communities are by no means homogeneous. Yet they are quite stable and there are always more people who regard Spain as a their ‘nation’ or ‘country’ than who confer on their region the category of ‘nation.’ (Martínez-Herrera and Miley 2010: 21) Contrary to the post-2010 situation in Catalonia, the wish for independence has so far never been supported by a majority in the Basque case. The Basque nationalist project furthermore has a specific demographic problem related to the southern province of Álava and the suburban districts surrounding the industrial centre of Bilbao. On the one hand, Álava, or at least a significant part of its territory, has traditionally been more closely linked to Castile than to the other Basque provinces and, on the other hand, the large immigrant population in the province of Vizcaya concentrated around Bilbao also holds different views on the Basque and Spanish nations than the Basque nationalist discourse. In these territories, therefore, the Basque nationalism of the PNV has always only been a minority option; when the Ibarretxe Plan was being debated the provincial government of Álava even stated that it would attempt to separate from the Basque Country in case of secession from Spain (Balfour and Quiroga 2007: 284). Altogether, these demographic factors have recommended prudence on the part of the Basque governments and nationalist elites when it came to push for advances of self-government down the path towards a possible independence. The Ibarretxe government’s various initiatives, at least to some extent, can be interpreted as an attempt to push forward such a development, but their failure only served to reinforce the pre-existing tendency towards prudence.

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As a consequence of Ibarretxe’s period in power and the nationalist agitation that had characterized it, Basque politics became more polarized along a nationalist–non-nationalist dividing line. In the 2009 regional elections, Ibarretxe’s PNV lost terrain and due to the radical nationalists of Euskal Herritarrok34 (EH) being made illegal because of their relationship with ETA, PNV was unable to form a government with a majority behind it. The Basque branch of the Socialist Party, the PSE-PSOE, on the other hand, with the support of PP was able to form a government.35 The socialist Patxi López thus became President of the regional government as the first nonnationalist lehendakari. With López at the head of the Basque government, the dynamics of nationalist politics changed completely. The updating of self-government no longer was a priority of government, which helped to lower the level of territorial conflict between Madrid and the Basque government significantly. Instead the PSE-PSOE executive concentrated on assisting the end of ETA and of the recovery of the Basque Country from the economic and financial crisis. The government coalition with the PP demonstrated the fact that politics in a Basque context – as in a Catalan context – is less about the difference between left and right than about the difference between (peripheral) nationalist and non-(peripheral) nationalist positions. In the end, however, the political differences between the two partners became too pronounced, particularly after the arrival of Rajoy in the government offices in Madrid whose harsh measures to cure the crisis were heavily criticized by the socialist lehendakari. In May 2012 the leader of the Basque PP, Antonio Basagoiti, announced the rupture of the government pact, thus forcing López to call regional elections in October 2012. After the elections, the PNV regained government from the odd coalition of PP and PSE-PSOE. The new lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, took office in mid-December in the midst of the separatist escalation of Catalan politics following the Catalan regional elections in November 2012. The traumatic experience of the failed Ibarretxe plan of 2005 is deeply ingrained in the political DNA of Urkullu and from the beginning of his time in office, Basque nationalist politics has been marked by a completely different attitude and rhetoric both with respect to the earlier PNV government as well as with respect to current Catalan nationalism. A number of reasons account for this new and less confrontational style of nationalist politics. The Basque Country has a different fiscal status, which gives it larger fiscal autonomy than the Catalan executive; furthermore, the regional economy has also been doing significantly better than in Catalonia. The Basque executive has thus been able to maintain a stronger fiscal discipline despite the financial and economic crisis and the region boasts one of Spain’s lowest unemployment rates and is among the least indebted of the regional economies. There has thus not been the same incentive to ask for more fiscal autonomy nor can economic dependence on Madrid be blamed for poor performance as in the Catalan claim.

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Furthermore, ETA’s recent abandonment of violence and the consequent legalization of the abertzale parties, since the summer of 2012 grouped under the name of Bildu,36 has implied a totally new dynamic in Basque politics. It thus remains a relatively open question how large the electoral potential of Bildu is and thus what kind of influence it is going to exert on the politics of the PNV and the other political parties in the Basque context. Lastly, the Catalan development and all the uncertainties it has entailed with regards to both the intra-Spanish conflicts and the relationship with the EU in itself has constituted a negative precedent that has affected the decisions of the Basque executive very directly. As the Catalan case cannot be considered to be a success story of anything, at least not yet, nothing recommends an imitation. The Scottish case has had more or less the same effect. The agenda of the Urkullu executive in this sense has been clear from the beginning: The Catalan and the Scottish secessionist developments will be allowed to unfold first with the Basque nationalists watching carefully to see what lessons can be learned from them. It would be a mistake, however, to interpret this prudent and less confrontational attitude as an expression of less ambitious nationalist aspirations. The PNV under Urkullu remains a nationalist party and maintains the same ambitions as before, but has opted for a different strategy in the face of the current context. He has announced that the new Statute has been postponed until 2015 and, with the Ibarretxe Plan in mind, he has promised that it will be based on a broader support than the original Statute from 1979. In the Basque context this means to obtain the support of more than the radical nationalists of Bildu which was the problem with Ibarretxe’s reform. In short, to have it supported by the PP and/or PSE-PSOE.37 When the Basque nationalist discourse has had a confrontational form it has been on a different background than the current Catalan development. The reasons for the Catalan confrontational turn have had to do with ‘institutional disappointment’ with the Spanish State related particularly to the failure of the new Statute, whereas it in the Basque case more has been a part of the political DNA of the PNV since the beginning. As moderate nationalism always only constituted a minority option in the Basque Country that was rivalled by the radical nationalism in ambivalent fraternization with ETA’s terrorist cause, the PNV often chose confrontation and absence of pragmatism as its way out of the dilemmas of identity politics. Now, it seems, however, that the roles hitherto occupied by Catalan and Basque nationalist discourse within the Spanish context are changing. The Catalan nationalists have been heading down an openly confrontational line of politics whereas the Basque nationalists under the leadership of Iñigo Urkullu have become more moderate, consensusoriented and even pro-constitutional in their demands regarding identity politics.

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Constitutional reform as a solution? Particularly viewed from the present, the Constitution did not solve the national tensions; it did provide some kind of modus vivendi in which all the Spaniards have been able to solve their problems rather peacefully, but it did not solve the principal tensions between symmetrical and asymmetrical demands. In view of the Constitutional Court ruling and the Catalan secessionist crisis, the Constitution’s main contribution in this regard was that it provided a postponement of the national problem, which was crucial at the time in order to concentrate on consolidating the democracy. The 2010 sentence on the Catalan Statute and the ensuing polarization illustrate the schism between decentralization and the preservation of a unitary State. The question is how far you can go in a decentralization process before a new nation-state arises and the old State disintegrates particularly when decentralization demands are mixed up with the identity politics of promoting a prospective national identity different from the dominant one within the State. The question, however, is more complex than that since a growing number of Spanish-speaking Catalans are embracing the cause of independence. The fact that the Constitutional Court ruling seemed to mark the limits of the possible development of the current autonomy system has spurred a debate about constitutional reform in Spain, which is more vivid than it was on other occasions. The status of the Constitution as a symbol of consensus and the fear of being unable to reach a similarly broad consensus in the case of a reform traditionally made all proponents of reform withdraw even though certain reforms were – and are – widely considered as necessary. The future development of the Senate into a proper chamber of regional representation was even foreseen in the Constitution itself, but the sheer weight of the original consensus has made all attempts to begin reforming it so far in vain. But under the impress of the current crisis, a reshuffle of the Constitution is not as unlikely as it used to be although it is highly doubtful whether it will solve the Catalan problem. The possibility of constitutional reform has routinely been ruled out on several occasions by Prime Minister Rajoy, but the situation might change relatively quickly. Opinion polls since the last elections in November 2011 have consistently been reflecting the disenchantment with the two dominant political parties to the benefit of the alternative parties, the left-wing IU and the recently founded centrist Progress and Democracy Union (Unión Progreso y Democracia, or UPyD).38 It is thus almost certain that there will be a more fragmented Spanish Parliament after the next elections and it is indeed possible that neither of the two large parties may constitute a government without the support of at least one of the alternative parties. As they have a different view on the issue of constitutional reform, it might reappear with renewed force.

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The main issue remains the ‘fitting of Catalonia [into Spain]’ (el encaje de Cataluña), but the solutions proposed would have to include provisions for the Basque Country as well. The proposals concern principally three issues: first, the above-mentioned reform of the Senate turning it into a chamber of regional representation by, for example, turning the elections to the Senate into indirect elections of senators by the regional Parliaments exclusively or to a higher degree than at present. Secondly, federalism is being discussed as a possible solution to the problems, both in the sense of strengthening the current quasi-federal set-up as well as in the sense of a full-blown reform of the Spanish State form in a federal sense. It remains clear, however, that even a real federalization of Spain will only provide a solution to the ‘fitting of Catalonia’ if it is done in an asymmetrical sense so as to avoid repeating the unsatisfactory ‘café para todos’ solution of the current principally symmetrical system of regional autonomy. If the current seventeen autonomous regions are simply turned into federal units in a Federal State of Spain, it is utterly unlikely to be a satisfactory solution for Catalan and Basque nationalists (Balfour and Quiroga 2007: 284–8). Thirdly, the issue of how to finance the autonomous regions is being discussed, but it is a discussion that repeats the tensions between symmetrical and asymmetrical solutions. In general, a reform of the way financing the regions is favoured – also in the PP controlled regions – as a way of increasing accountability of the regional executives vis-à-vis both the government in Madrid as well as the populations in the regions. People in many regions are now suffering the consequences of harsh spending cuts as a result of massive overspending in the recent past and lacking accountability of the regional executives. Such a general measure would of course be a symmetrical one. But an asymmetrical reform that would improve the financial autonomy of Catalonia particularly is also being discussed as a way of securing the ‘fitting of Catalonia’ within Spain. Originally, it was a demand of the Catalan executive during bilateral negotiations in 2012 with the Rajoy government but was not accepted by the latter. But now such an improved model for Catalonia or a general reform that would increase the financial autonomy of Catalonia more than the rest of the regions is being discussed even within the PP as a means of ‘damage control’. But the question remains, whether it is too late to ‘throw a bone’ to the Catalan nationalists to make them content. The chance of doing it as a sign of goodwill towards legitimate Catalan demands has passed. In any case, a constitutional reform will eventually – if that is the solution chosen – take quite a long period. That solutions to the perceived problem are dragging out is likely to favour the cause of secessionism as they represent the aggravated part in the current context. Recent opinion polls precisely show that the ERC is going up in the polls at the expense of the CiU. This represents a problem both for Mas as well as for the PP government. Despite his audacious ‘verbal’ secessionism, Mas is still losing the battle to the more outright secessionist ERC. A coming election – particularly if the option of

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‘plebiscitarian’ elections is chosen – might therefore see the ERC as winner and thus result in the ERC taking over presidency of Catalonia, which is definitely not what CiU and Mas want. The latent conflict between the two parties’ hugely different economic policies would tip to the benefit of ERC’s left-oriented economic policy. But a scenario with the ERC in the control tower would be horrendous for the government in Madrid as well. Therefore, in theory, Rajoy ought to have an interest in striking deals with Mas without waiting for too long, because otherwise he might find himself negotiating with the ERC. But, as noted above, Rajoy and his government so far has been strikingly slow to engage proactively in the Catalan situation, maybe due to pressures from other PP-controlled regions zealously monitoring any favouritism towards Catalonia or maybe due to a temptation to exploit anti-Catalanism for electoral reasons. But whichever the cause, the inaction has not helped Madrid’s case in the conflict.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Epilogue: Crisis and its effects on the national tensions In 2007, the Spanish economy was on the verge of taking over Italy’s position as the eighth largest economy in the world and jokes were being made that Spain would have to take over Italy’s seat in the powerful G8 club. At the same time, in early 2007, unemployment in Spain for the first time passed below the EU average reaching a mark just below 8 per cent, which was interpreted as a big success in Spain. For these and other similar reasons, Prime Minister Zapatero was touring Europe at the time marketing the Spanish growth as an accomplishment related to the successful political measures taken by his and preceding governments, among other, the controlled immigration as a way to find a sustainable solution to the demographic problems of all Western welfare states with an ageing population. The legalization of some 700,000 illegal immigrants at the beginning of his mandate in 2005 had been harshly criticized by his European colleagues, but in 2007 the measure seemed a success for the Spanish economy. Yet in 2012, the Spanish government, now headed by Mariano Rajoy from the PP, reluctantly had to ask the Euro rescue mechanisms for a rescue package to the Spanish banking sector. This meant that the country’s economy came under a very strict surveillance from the so-called ‘Troika’ composed of the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission. Officials from these institutions, also called the ‘Men in Black’ in Spain, visited the country regularly to verify the macroeconomic performance and the progress of the promised reforms until the termination of the emergency loan in late 2013. The economic crisis in Spain fell just short of a full-blown rescue package like those of Portugal or 207

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Ireland, but it came very close. Unemployment had risen to a record high of over 26 per cent and youth unemployment escalating towards 60 per cent, second only to that of Greece, and the continued large public budget deficits were making Spain’s debt rise at a record pace towards 100 per cent of Spanish GDP. The estimates at the time said that only in 2014 would the country return to a scenario of limited economic growth predicted at 0.5 per cent after receding in both 2012 and 2013. A situation in which the economic growth will be sufficiently high as to create so many new jobs that unemployment will begin to drop significantly still lies years ahead. The crisis caused Spain to fall in the ranking of the largest economies; from contesting Italy’s place as the 8th strongest economy in 2007, Spain had fallen to a position as 13th and the prediction of the International Monetary Fund was that Spain by 2017 will have dropped a further three places to the 16th largest economy in the world.1 The economic outlook thus no longer is as catastrophic as a few years back, but still rather grim: low growth rates for years to come, a continued high unemployment rate and consequent budgetary strains that will be more or less constant for the foreseeable future. The dreams shared by many Spaniards and Spanish politicians of reaching Scandinavian levels of welfare have thus been bitterly disappointed reactivating negative prejudices among many Spaniards about their own country. The current economic situation of Spain, which is relatively worse than almost all other European economies with the exception of Greece, has also meant a radical change in the immigration patterns to and from Spain. If during the 1990s the Spanish population grew only moderately from 39.5 million in 1991 to 40.5 million in 2001, the following decade saw the population increase dramatically by over 16 per cent to 47.2 million in 2011 largely due to the arrival of over five million immigrants. However, 2011 saw the first slight decrease in the number of immigrants in Spain in more than a decade and this tendency was reinforced in both 2012 and 2013 when numbers dropped by more than 200,000 every year to just over 5.5 million immigrants. With 11.7 per cent immigrants Spain continues to be one of the European countries with the highest proportion of immigrant population, but the tendencies have been inverted.2 Particularly Latin Americans are leaving Spain to go back to their country of origin, partly because Latin America has not been hit so severely by the current economic crisis. Instead of massive immigration, which was the tendency for years, Spain is now witnessing a trend towards growing emigration of particularly young, well-educated Spaniards. The crisis and the grim outlook for the coming years have made the younger Spaniards consider the possibility of emigrating to find work elsewhere. Although it is actually quite difficult to obtain exact data about this emigration there can be no doubt that it is taking place and that it is a phenomenon, which has been on the rise in the last few years. Data indicate that over 200,000 Spaniards have left the country since the

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beginning of the crisis in 2008 and other studies indicate that the large majority of them are highly qualified.3 Whether this tendency towards exporting highly qualified people, one of the most valuable resources in the globalized economy, will turn out to be negative for the Spanish economy remains to be determined. At the moment, when the Spanish economy is unable to take advantage of this resource it is not negative per se that they emigrate and get experience outside Spain. If they return to Spain within a reasonable time, their international experience might be very valuable for Spanish firms and the Spanish economy as a whole. However, it they remain outside Spain, the Spanish State will have invested in their education and receive no return on that investment. Part of the problem lies in a traditionally high mismatch between the labour market’s needs in Spain and the ‘production’ of the education system. Spain holds a European record of over-qualification with approximately 25 per cent of the work force which holds jobs below their qualifications. For the young Spaniards, the percentage increases to 40 per cent, which gives an idea of the extent of this problem. On the other hand, the Spanish labour market has historically not been very receptive towards the younger generations providing security first and foremost to those with the cherished permanent contracts. All in all the outlook for the current young generation, the best educated ever in Spanish history, is sufficiently grim for them to look beyond the borders of Spain as never before.

Why is the crisis of Spain worse? As demonstrated above, Spain has fallen from sustained growth to a protracted crisis whose effects it will take long to get over. Part of the difference vis-à-vis the other European countries resides in the fact that Spain before the crisis went through an unusually long period of sustained, high economic growth. The average growth of the Spanish GDP over the fifteen years from 1994 to and including 2008 was above 3.5 per cent a year totalling a growth of over 68 per cent in the period.4 Spain during this period outgrew all the other major economies of the European Union, which helps to explain Zapatero’s self-conviction during his ‘European tour’ in 2007. The reasons for Spain’s quick fall from being a champion of growth to one of the most troubled European economies have to do with the character of the ‘bubble’ economy of the time before the crisis, which, combined with a number of built-in weaknesses in the Spanish economy, resulted in the negative spiral of the crisis. The financial and economic crisis that many Western economies are still suffering was to a large extent caused by the extension of a ‘bubble’ economy based on rising property values, cheap credits, a banking sector only too eager to give credits and an inflated building sector as motors of growth. When the bubble burst with the crash of the American Lehman Brothers bank in the autumn of 2008, the formerly

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readily available credit dried out very fast resulting in the almost contemporaneous implosion of the real estate markets and the building sectors due to falling property prices and increasingly unavailable credit. This happened in practically all the Western economies although some countries were more affected than others, and in all countries unemployment began to grow rapidly. Due to the character of the crisis and its negative effects on the general faith in the economic system as a whole, this crisis is more than just a ‘bump’ on the road; as already demonstrated the recovery from this crisis is going to take a long time and things will never be as before. Pre-crisis Spain was characterized by a building sector which was approximately double the size of that of comparable Western economies in relative terms. The weight of the building sector within the Spanish economy was thus 15.7 per cent of the GDP against approximately 9 per cent in the United States, Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy. If we only look at the construction of housing, Spain’s 8 per cent relative to its GDP doubled the size of comparable economies, where the construction of houses weighed approximately 4 per cent. In fact, in 2005 more housing was being constructed in Spain than in France, Germany and Italy together, which demonstrates the extent to which the building sector was the motor behind the economic boom in Spain. About 20 per cent of the new jobs created since 2000 were generated by the construction sector, which was able to absorb a substantial part of the immigrants that came to Spain during that decade. There are many explanations behind the enormous size of the Spanish construction sector, which include the fact that the Spanish property market traditionally was characterized by a certain overproduction of housing. But the sizeable ‘black’ economy estimated at 20 per cent GDP and the Euro conversion in 2000–1 also meant that a lot of black money was invested in real estate inflating the bubble more. But the fact that Spain was able to join the Euro thus gaining access to credit in Euro – that was priced considerably lower than the credit hitherto available to Spain – also worked towards inflating the ‘bubble’ more than it would have been if Spain had not joined the Euro (Torrero Mañas 2009). The construction ‘bubble’ was thus much worse in Spain than in the other European countries which accounts for the rapid deterioration of the situation in Spain once the ‘bubble’ burst. Furthermore, the Spanish economy depends to a large extent on tourism, usually listed as the country’s most important industry although its relative weight within the Spanish economy is difficult to gauge exactly. But tourism too is a sector which is quite sensitive to the economic conjunctures, particularly in other countries. When the crisis hit the other European countries in 2008 it thus immediately affected the Spanish tourist sector with a 10 per cent drop in the number of tourists in 2009. The construction sector and the tourist industry thus accounts for a large part of the initial, rapid deterioration of the Spanish economy between 2008 and 2010. But a part of it is also explained by the structures of the Spanish

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economy and the fact that this model has not been updated sufficiently to make Spain competitive in the globalized economy. Traditionally Spanish products and services have been competitive due to low prices rather than a high level of innovation, technology or design. This model depends, obviously, on low wages and a large supply of workforce to keep wages low and historically, since the early structural adjustments of the Spanish economy following Franco’s death, the Spanish labour market was characterized by a structurally high unemployment. The low point of unemployment in Spain of 7.95 per cent which was reached in the second quarter of 2007 would thus not have been worth celebrating in most other European countries. In the boom years of 2000–7, when shortages of labour might have occurred in various sectors of the Spanish economy, the model was ‘saved’ by the enormous influx of immigrants. Between 2000 and 2011 4.8 million immigrants came to Spain, which represented a 12 per cent increase of the Spanish population in just over a decade! Although not planned by any Spanish government, the immigration thus saved or postponed an update of the economic model of Spain. The lack of preoccupation with Spain’s international competitiveness in terms of innovation, technology and design can be seen in the fact that Spain historically ranks among the European countries that invest less in development and research, both in terms of public and private sector investment. The total expenditure in development and research in 2011 was thus 1.3 per cent of the GDP, which accounts for a position as number sixteen in the EU that has declared 3 per cent as its official goal. Only Italy and Greece of the EU–15 countries invest less, whereas several of the ‘newcomers’ such as Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia invest considerably more of their GDP in development and research.5 Not even during the boom years was more spent on development and research to secure the Spanish economy’s future competitiveness, which is telling both for the economic thinking of the Spanish politicians as well as for the profitoriented culture of Spanish business. With readily available and cheap labour the temptation to continue with the existing model and reap the maximum benefit instead of investing in the future was simply too great. To update the model, that is to begin investing in development and research, etc., now that the crisis has struck, obviously is going to take much longer than if a part of the surplus produced by the boom had been invested. For these reasons the recovery from this crisis is going to take longer in Spain than in most other European countries.

Has the ‘autonomy spiral’ been broken by crisis? Since the electoral victories of the PP in 2011, first in the regional elections in May 2011 and secondly in the general elections in November 2011 the party is in an unusually dominant position with a comfortable absolute

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majority in the Cortes in Madrid and in control of thirteen of the seventeen regional governments. Such a political dominance has never been seen before in democratic Spain, but unfortunately for the PP – one might say – it happens as Spain is going through its worst crisis since the early post-Civil War period, which is effectively limiting the possibilities of the executives – regional and national – to carry out their desired policies. Despite harsh reforms the crisis has been worsening – public deficits are still not under control and public debt is therefore climbing rapidly, the crisis of the banking system is still not under control, unemployment figures keep rising, etc. – and the popularity of the government is dropping quickly. The crisis which began as financial and economic has therefore evolved into a social, institutional and political crisis with profound implications for Spanish society and for the institutional set-up, and it continues. The context of crisis is affecting the functioning of the system of autonomous regions and the relationship between the central State and the regions. Decentralization enabled the regions to take over many of the heavy burdens of the modern welfare state like healthcare and education: the economic crisis makes these responsibilities very difficult to manage and the division of competences therefore affects them more severely than the central State. Public income is going down due to decreasing activity and public expenditure is going up due to unemployment and pensions. With the PP in control of both the national government and of the vast majority of regional executives there have been calls from some regional leaders for a recentralization of certain competencies but others do not want to see a restriction of their regional powers. Things could still go either way but it seems unlikely that the trend towards decentralization will be reversed. What certainly is true, however, is that the crisis has put a halt – at least temporarily – to the process of renewing the autonomy statutes that was given impetus with Zapatero’s arrival in power. A few reforms are still in the ‘pipeline’, but they are minor with limited political significance. A large number of regions have difficulties making ends meet in their budgets and depend on the central executive in Madrid for emergency loans as they cannot borrow money on the free market at a reasonable interest rate any more.6 To obtain that kind of help they have to enact harsh austerity measures aimed at reducing the deficit on the regional budget, which consumes most of the political ‘energy’ leaving little room for worries about the constitutional set-up of regional autonomy. The theme of financing regional debt and inventing new systems of financing the regions has given the government in Madrid some leverage against the regions who wish to develop the autonomy system. Although the spiralling movement towards ever higher levels of regional autonomy that seemed to characterize democratic Spain thus cannot be said to have been broken by the economic, social and institutional crisis that Spain has been going through since 2008, the dynamics have certainly been

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affected. On the one hand, the fundamental dynamics that have meant a continuous development of the autonomy system particularly in the sense of a more or less constant process of transferring competencies to the regions is bound to continue even during the crisis. The debt crisis in many regions have increased the focus on the ways of financing the regions as providers of basic services in the modern Spanish welfare state, which continues to depend to a very high degree on the central executive in Madrid. So even during the crisis and despite having the PP governing in Madrid as well as in the majority of the regions new and more autonomous models of financing the regions are being discussed. On the other hand, the Catalan crisis was spurred by the fact that an accord between the central and the regional executives reached – and on a few issues exceeded – the limits of what is constitutionally possible. Therefore, the Catalan crisis seems to be an indication of where the limits of the possible development of the current constitutional set-up of regional autonomy are situated, which would mark an end to the spiral.

The EU and secessionist tendencies When talking about independence, the Catalan nationalists clearly want Catalonia to be a member of the EU. Even if the Catalans as a whole and the Catalan nationalists in particular cannot be said to be ‘super-Europeans’ anymore as shown in Chapter 11, this critical vision of the current European Union does not impede them from aiming at full membership in the case of independence. There is no contradiction in this, precisely because their disappointment with the Constitutional Treaty was related to the lack of formal power and influence for the regions. The road to such a hypothetical future membership for an independent Catalonia has, nevertheless, been filled with obstacles and uncertainties. Both from Scottish and Catalan sides, a clear answer from EU authorities as to their future status in the event of a secession has been requested on several occasions.7 The European Commission has been very reluctant to enter into a discussion about conditions for secessionist regions and the first answer has thus always been that the Commission refrains from official statements until a formal request is made, which means until after victory in a referendum. To the Commission, Scotland is an ‘internal British affair’ and Catalonia is an internal Spanish affair. But pressured for an answer, the Commission has usually – although grudgingly – answered that a part of a member state which becomes an independent country would have to apply for membership, just as any new member state.8 It is clearly not in the interest of the Commission to enter into any discussion or support one or the other side in this type of conflict as it would open a ‘Pandora’s box’ of endless battles related to ethnic and other minorities in a number of member states. Hence the formalistic insistence on the member states as the only legitimate holders of collective rights and that

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there can be no preferential treatment in formal terms of any seceding territory. The problem with this scenario, particularly for the Catalan nationalists, is that accession of new member states has to be agreed on by unanimity among existing members – which means that the accession of Catalonia would depend on Spanish acceptance. The Scottish case is probably less problematic in this sense, since the British government has promised to respect the outcome of the September 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. In line with this pacted settlement that will come into effect if the Scots chose independence in the referendum, the Scottish government had been attempting to convince Brussels officials that Scotland can join via a ‘common accord’ process without the need to apply as a new state: ‘Scotland is already an integral part of the EU, and there is nothing in the entire body of EU treaties which provides for the expulsion of an existing territory or the removal of its inhabitants’ rights as EU citizens’.9 According to Sir David Edward, Professor Emeritus at the School of Law, University of Edinburgh, and former Judge of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, the formalistic treaty-based rejection of continued membership can, in fact, be questioned from the angle of the individual rights (Edward 2013). There is thus a good chance that the European Court of Justice would rule the exclusion a priori of an independent Catalonia or Scotland from the European Union as a violation of the rights of the Catalans or Scots as European citizens. But what the practical result of such a ruling would be – whether unconditional admission of Catalonia as member state or some kind of conditioned entry of Catalonia – remains very uncertain. And in any case, the outcome would to some extent also depend on how the actual process of secession had taken place, since general attention is always paid to the condition of democracy when new members are to be allowed to accede. This general condition favours the case of Scotland due to the negotiated referendum and the promises about future collaboration vis-à-vis the Catalan case, where the reaction of the Spanish government could not be more different. With these contradictory messages from the European Commission and experts on European Law, respectively, the final outcome of a secession of Catalonia in terms of future membership of the European Union is, at best, uncertain.

Can secessionism be avoided? The case of the current PP government in Madrid, which is attempting – albeit not very successfully – to defuse regional nationalism as a threat to the territorial (and identitarian) integrity of Spain is a delicate, not to say impossible, one. Even if the regional executive is under pressure from three sides – from the government in Madrid against secession, from the smaller partner within the regional government, the ERC, against any deviations from the secessionist track and from a public opinion that is very divided

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and whose backing of the secessionist project is doubtful – Madrid has been incapable of taking advantage of this situation. Artur Mas can either accelerate down the secessionist track which, however, will have a toll to be paid in terms of higher economic uncertainty. The financial situation of Catalonia at the moment is not very positive and the markets are likely to react negatively to such an outlook and thus, presumably, an independent Catalonia or a Catalonia becoming independent would face tougher economic conditions at least in the short term. There are so many unknown factors to take into account in the case of secession, however, that the calculation of risk and probabilities will be virtually impossible. Not only questions related to the debts – both the Catalan regional debt as well as the Catalan share of Spanish State debt – but also questions related to the way in which an eventual secession would take place – if peacefully after common accord or otherwise – influence these calculations and thus find their way into the conditions with which an independent Catalonia would be met. The Mas administration is attempting to avoid or defuse this threat through the output of the high-powered Advisory Council, which is supposed to be delivering over fifty reports on all kinds of issues. Alternatively, the Catalan executive can, of course, also head for a more PP government-friendly route characterized by higher economic autonomy within the existing system through a pact with the PP government in Madrid. This road would have a softening of the secessionist rhetoric as a price to be paid with the consequent loss of credibility of the current executive internally in Catalonia, particularly among the secessionist constituencies. The government in Madrid cannot put too much pressure on the regional executive of Catalonia – in the current case, but the same goes for the Basque Country – because victimism inevitably will help the cause of the nationalists bolstering secessionism with increased legitimacy. If the government in Madrid does nothing, most likely it will also end up furthering the secessionist cause due to the delicate financial situation of Catalonia and the successful discursive framing of this situation by Mas’ government. The best Rajoy’s government could do would probably be to be as accommodating as possible towards any initiative from the Catalan executive, but so far the Rajoy government has shown to be close to inept at this. In any case, there is very little central governments can do to solve the problem of a secessionism built on a strong regional identity. Any resistance against referendums, constitutional changes, concrete politics or even simple economic help to regions in financial problems will be experienced as imposition and increase the victimism of the aggravated collectivity bolstering their case with increased popular and democratic legitimacy. The only sensible reaction in order to find parsimonial solutions is to tolerate as much as possible or constitutionally admissible – as in the case of the deal on the Scottish referendum – and hope the legitimacy of the secessionist case does not rise uncontrollably.

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Referendum – the fundamental question of demos So far the answer from central government in Madrid has been completely different from that of the British–Scottish deal. The pragmatic British solution has been contrasted with a completely different, intransigent Spanish opposition to a referendum on the issue. And in a contemporary setting where democratic legitimacy is almost unbeatable, the argument about the ‘right to self-determination’ seems irrefutable. But these questions go beyond democracy and democratic rights, because in order for democracy to work and be legitimate, the constituency needs to agree on who composes the collective which is to take democratic decisions. The key issue really is not the clichéd collective right, but rather the question of who composes the basic demos of that democratic decision: the Catalans or all the Spaniards or something in-between. Instead of denying the idea of a referendum altogether, the Spanish government could thus have raised the issue of who composes the demos that were to be asked in the case of a referendum on Catalan independence: should it really only be the Catalans, which in this context means the people living in Catalonia at the time of the hypothetical referendum, as the regional executive in Catalonia seems to be planning? Since Spain is a unitary state and Catalonia as such has never really been it, the case could easily be made that it would be fair to ask all the Spaniards whether they agree to Catalan independence or not. If you ask the Constitution, which asserts that Spain is the ‘indivisible homeland for all Spaniards’ the answer is yes: the question of Catalan independence regards all Spaniards as the only legitimate demos of the Spanish state is that of the Spanish nation which comprises the Catalans. For the same reason Catalan independence necessarily would entail a change of the Constitution, which is recognized by everyone. According to the Catalan nationalists, however, Catalan independence is a question to be decided by the Catalans only. They (attempt to) assert their historical right to self-determination as a preconstitutional right and therefore appeal to the existence of a separate Catalan demos. To let the rest of Spain have a decisive influence on that question, according to the Catalan nationalists, would be just another example of imposition and interference in Catalan affairs. The exact definition, however, of who the Catalans are in the latter case is not an easy task. Legally the figure of Catalan citizen does not exist as citizenship is endowed only by ‘membership’ of a state (or of the European Union). But in their defence of a Catalan demos, the Catalan nationalists seem to operate with some kind of parallel Catalan citizenship to exist besides that of Spain which means – if these premises are accepted – that the ‘Catalans’ would be those with residence in the Catalan Autonomous Community. But is it fair that the Catalans are simply the people with residence in Catalonia, including those from the rest of Spain who have recently moved to Catalonia? Is it

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reasonable that they can all participate in deciding whether Catalonia should be independent? What about the Catalans who have moved away from Catalonia? Should not they be allowed to participate? All these questions of course also apply in the Scottish case but they have only surfaced very occasionally and with no effect on the legal course of the referendum. It is clear that particularly the Catalan nationalist executive has no interest in entering this debate; their interests are best served if they silence this debate avoiding thus both to broaden the issue to be a concern for the whole of Spain as well as to enter into the ethnic question of birthrights. To achieve success, they have to aim for a broader consensus-based definition of what it means to be Catalan. The national government, however, could probably have achieved a partial win by demonstrating a more open attitude to the question of referendum insisting at the same time – with backing in constitutional law – that it was a question that concerned all the Spaniards. The conflict over the Catalan referendum thus calls into question the most central aspects of democratic Spain: the status of the Constitution of 1978 and of the Spanish nation: whether the Constitution is the only recognized origin of rights and whether the Spanish nation is the sole source of sovereignty as the only recognized demos. In a sense these fundamental questions bring us back to the question at the beginning of this book: When to call an old state like Spain a nation? Although, Spain undoubtedly went through many of the same historical developments that lead to the ‘building’ of nations all over Europe and although these developments undoubtedly led to the formation of a Spanish nation in the most classical sense of the term, the question about the essence of Spain remains: What is Spain? The impossibility of finding an answer to that question that will satisfy a majority of the inhabitants in the various corners of the peninsula is the most fundamental characteristic of Spain today. This does not mean that the recognition of Spain as a nation should in any way be limited; the Spanish nation certainly exists, but the fact remains that it, on its territory, coexists with various other ‘national realities’ and that it is in a more or less permanent state of conflict with these. The attempt to find solutions to the equation of the essence, particularly in its future variant – What should Spain be? – and the action or inaction undertaken will continue to mark the history of Spain for years and decades to come.

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Chapter One 1 The Basque proposal for a changed status was done through a reform of the Statute of Autonomy and thus its origin was similar to that of the current Catalan tension. The Basque proposal, however, was rejected by the Spanish Parliament as anti-constitutional and it therefore never came to real negotiations. For the proposal, see Boletín Oficial de las Cortes Generales [hereafter BOCG], B-149-1, 21 January 2005, pp. 1–22. 2 ‘Trillo resalta que “en esta Constitución caben todos”’, El Mundo, 7 December 1998, p. 8. 3 ‘Tous les habitants d’un meʃme Eʃtat, d’un meʃme pays, qui vivent ʃous meʃmes loix, & uʃent de meʃme langage’ (Académie Françoise 1694, vol. II: 110). 4 In his famous lecture ‘What is a nation?’ (Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?) which he gave on 11 March 1882, Renan underlined the necessity of oblivion for the existence of the nation (Renan 1882/1997).

Chapter Two 1 The census of Floridablanca, carried out between 1785 and 1787, is generally considered to be the first Spanish census which applied modern methods of statistics. A previous census had been carried out in 1768–9, which had given a result of 9.3 million, but it is considered less valid. 2 The elections were ruled by a decree of 1 January 1810, which is considered to be the first Electoral Law in Spain. They were a complex affair combining traditional forms of representation, which gave a seat to each of the thirtyseven cities with representatives in the last Assembly celebrated in 1789 and a seat to each of the seventeen original provincial Juntas, as well as new forms of representation proportional to the population according to which there was one seat per 50,000 inhabitants in provincial circumscriptions. The proportional system resulted in the election of 209 parliamentarians in all, since it was still based on the population of roughly 10.3 million of the last census realized in 1787 (see above). The elections in the colonies followed a scheme similar to the cities with a right to vote with a representative chosen by the council in all the sixty-four provincial capitals. Provisions were made to elect substitutes for the territories occupied by the French as well as temporary

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substitutes for the representatives from the colonies, who were arriving in Cádiz with delay. For more details, see Casals Bergés 2012. 3 Translated from the version of the Constitution on the portal of the Spanish Congress of Deputies: http://www.congreso.es/constitucion/ficheros/historicas/ cons_1812.pdf [accessed 6 November 2013]. Note that all translations are made by the author unless stated. 4 In the following, I use ‘Liberal’ and ‘Conservative’, with capital initial, to denominate concrete political formations or parties and ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’, all in lower case, in all other cases.

Chapter Three 1 Similar laws or charters were also introduced in a series of other Spanish towns and surrounding areas (such as Valencia, León and Zaragoza) in order to accommodate regional leaders and they can be interpreted as a kind of self-government. But they were abolished long before in other areas of Spain, mostly in the early eighteenth century, than in the Basque Country, which doubtlessly increased the Basque sense of a particular identity.

Chapter Four 1 The number of students in La Institución de Libre Enseñanza never surpassed 250 (Boyd 1997: 35, Bennassar, Bonnassie, Gerbet and Guichard 1989: 274). 2 That the feelings of crisis, decay, degeneration and so on were already relatively widespread well before the military defeat of 1898 is shown by the fact that various of the most important intellectuals had already published books on the theme before the debacle like, for example, Miguel de Unamuno who published his ‘Entorno al casticismo’ in 1895 or Ángel Ganivet, who published Idearium Español in 1897. 3 For a good study of how these different patterns of development determined different evolutions of the Basque and Catalan nationalist movements, respectively, see Díez Medrano 1995. 4 For an analysis of the Basque nationalist vocabulary, which demonstrates the connections between Castile and the Basque provinces since the Middle Ages, see Loyer 1997: 69–128. 5 For a study of these different emotional structures of mobilizing nationalism, see Conversi 1997. 6 For an explanation of the low social status of the Basque language vis-à-vis Castilian, historically as well as in the present, see Tejerina Montaña 1992: 73–137, 180–253. 7 This role of the city had been immortalized by the painter Francisco de Goya in the two large paintings dedicated to the 2nd and the 3rd of May, respectively, realized in 1814. The two paintings show the uprising and the French repression, respectively. Perhaps the paintings were originally four, and

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perhaps they were used as decoration of a triumphal arch at the re-entry of Fernando VII, but their exact utility remains unknown. Afterwards, they remained for over fifty years in the stores of the El Prado museum until the nationalization of the collection by the provisional government in 1868. 8 Columbus actually became a myth in the New World long before he did so in Spain, and the anniversary of the landfall was celebrated there, especially in the United States, long before its first commemoration in Spain. The earliest commemorations thus date back to the late eighteenth century (Trouillot 1995: 119–24). 9 Law of 15 June 1918 discussed in Parliament on 8 May 1918. For a detailed account of the different initiatives and the struggle to define the character of this new national holiday, see Serrano 1999: 318–29. 10 For the religious elements of the national mythology, see Di Febo 2002.

Chapter Five 1 The American vocation of the dictatorship was also expressed in the celebration of the Congreso Español de Ultramar, and reforms within the Ministerio de Estado and the diplomatic corps (González Cuevas 1997: 316).

Chapter Six 1 For a detailed account of the development of republicanism, see Duarte 1997. 2 Estatuto Jurídico, Gaceta de la República, 15 April 1931. 3 For a discussion of the nationalization policies of the republican regime, see Sandie Holguin’s book Creating Spaniards: Culture and National Identity in Republican Spain. The book is in many respects superficial and misleading, but it is the only one analysing the nationalization policies during the democratic, republican period (Holguin 2002). 4 By a proposal from 4 February 1932, the 11th of February was actually declared a ‘Festivity of the Republic’ in commemoration of the proclamation of the First Republic in 1873. The proposal was passed with acclamation and enthusiasm. The republican regime here referred to the history of the First Republic, rhetorically drawing a foundational legitimacy from its predecessor, but it remained a solitary gesture. Proposición no de Ley of deputy Ayuso: Diario de Sesiones de las Cortes Constituyentes 1931–1933, 6, 111 (4 February 1932), pp. 3624–5. 5 The official change of flag was confirmed thirteen days later in a decree of 27 April 1931, and the definition of the tricolour flag was included in the Constitution approved in December 1931 (O’Donnell y Duque de Estrada 2000: 336–42). 6 Coronel Rafael de Riego was the officer who led the uprising against Fernando VII in 1820, which eventually forced him to accept the 1812 Constitution initiating the liberal triennium (see Chapter 2).

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7 According to census data from 1930, 37 per cent of the male population and 49 per cent of the female population were illiterate (Liébana Collado 2009: 10). 8 Pamela Radcliff establishes the distinction between what she calls a ‘participatory drama’ in which popular participation is the Alpha and Omega of the celebration and ‘elitist’ commemoration consisting typically of military parades and receptions for local dignitaries (Radcliff 1997: 316–17). 9 Frente rojo (Valencia edition), 3 May 1937: p. 2, quoted in Serrano 1999: 317. 10 Of the different studies (Sepúlveda Muñoz 1996, Radcliff 1997, Barrachina 1998, Serrano 1999, Alonso de los Ríos 1999, Pozo Andrés 2000, Álvarez Junco 2001) that touch upon the commemorative practices of the republican regime only Pozo Andrés mentions the Fiesta de la Raza explicitly, and Sepúlveda Muñoz and Barrachina indirectly. Pike 1971 dedicates some chapters to the question of ‘hispanismo’ during the republican period, but he deals with the relationship between Spain and Spanish America and how it was understood by intellectuals, and not with the commemoration of the 12th of October. 11 Unamuno, M.de, ‘La fiesta de la raza’, La Nación, Buenos Aires, 29 November 1919, cited in Barrachina 1998: 170–1. 12 Unamuno, M.de, ‘De nuevo la raza’, El Pueblo gallego, Vigo, 12 October 1933, cited in Barrachina 1998: 171. The article was published contemporaneously in several provincial newspapers. 13 ‘El valor de la hispanidad’ (no. 6, 7, 9, 13, 15 and 38), ‘La defensa de la hispanidad’ (no. 5), ‘La hispanidad en crisis’ (no. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22), ‘El ser de la hispanidad’ (no. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 and 32) and ‘La hispanidad y el espíritu’ (no. 83). A few other writings on this theme also appeared in Acción Española, like the replica of the Portuguese integrist Hipólito Raposo, ‘Filología y política’ (no. 4), in which he proposes to use the terms ‘castellanidad’ and ‘lusitanidad’ without rejecting totally the idea of hispanidad and the article ‘Goethe y la hispanidad’ by González Ruano (no. 8), which is a manifestation of the success of the term in the reactionary environment.

Chapter Seven 1 For a thorough study of the ideological origins and development of NationalCatholicism, see Botti 1992. 2 O’Donnell y Duque de Estrada simply mentions that the bicolour flag was made official because it was the most acceptable to the various fractions. Cruz, on the contrary, concentrates in his interesting study precisely on those one and a half months of uncertainty and symbolic struggle from the outbreak of the war until the publication of the decree on 29 August. 3 Juan Telleria retained the copyright of the song, but in the writing of the words a whole group of Falangist intellectuals took part, like José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange; Rafael Sánchez Mazas, short-lived minister of Franco; Dionisio Ridruejo, poet and politician; José María Alfaro,

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writer and ambassador of Spain to Argentina; and Agustín de Foxá, writer and aristocrat. In 2000 the Spanish State bought the copyright to the hymn. See Rafael Fraguas, ‘El Estado se queda el “Cara al sol” ’, El País Digital, 6 April 2000. 4 Decree of 2 February 1938, Boletín Oficial del Estado [hereafter BOE], 470/1938, quoted in Serrano 1999: 102.

Chapter Eight 1 Order of 16 May 1939 ‘Día de la Victoria. Normas’, BOE, 137/1939, p. 2690. 2 Opus Dei (Latin: Work of God) is a global Catholic organization founded in 1928 by the Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá. From post-Civil War Spain it spread across the globe stressing dedication to God in ordinary and professional life thus permitting its members to lead ordinary civilian lives, contrary to the practice in many other religious orders. Particularly during the second half of the Franco regime members of Opus Dei, known as the technocrats, came to play an important role in government. 3 See also Aguilar Fernández and Humlebæk 2002, and Humlebæk 2006. 4 The phrase ‘todo queda atado . . .’ is mentioned in Franco’s speeches at least as early as 1962. It later became very famous and was used as a catchphrase, especially after the death of Franco as it became clear that everything had in fact not been so well lashed down (Franco 1971). 5 The Basque name means Basque Homeland and Freedom. The organization was created in 1959 by young discontents from the PNV, who thought that the PNV was not resisting the Francoist pressure as it ought to. 6 ‘18 de julio de 1975’, ABC, 18 July 1975, p. 3; ‘Treinta y seis años’, Ya, 1 April 1975, p. 7.

Chapter Nine 1 For an anthropological study of bullfighting, see Douglass 1997, and for a social history of bullfighting, see Shubert 1999. 2 For an example of these doubts, see Chao 1976. 3 In fact, not all political parties were legalized with the legalization of the PCE. Any party which in its name alluded to the Republic or republicanism was not legalized in time to participate in the first elections of June 1977. This was true even for a moderate party like Spanish Republican Democratic Action (Acción Republicana Democrática Española) (Aguilar Fernández 2006: 254). 4 ‘Declaración programática de la Junta Democrática’ made public in Paris on 25 July 1974, http://www.filosofia.org/his/1974jde.htm [accessed 5 November 2013]. 5 In their interesting study of the political discourse of the transition from 1984 Rafael del Aguila and Ricardo Montoro investigated how a series of terms and

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concepts were used by politicians during the transition and how their meaning changed. Tellingly, there is no separate chapter on the concept of nation or Spain. In the study from 1992 by Javier de Santiago Güervós, however, there is a long and interesting chapter on precisely the use of these terms (Del Aguila and Montoro 1984, Santiago Güervós 1992: 194–251). 6 This constituent quality of the Parliament elected in 1977 was, for example, recognized in 1983 when the deputies elected in 1977 were officially recognized with the title ‘deputies of the Constituent Assembly’ (parlamentarios de las Cortes constituyentes) in a ceremony celebrated on the fifth anniversary of the constitutional referendum. ‘La semana constitucional’, El País, 5 December 1983, p. 13. 7 The constitution of the Commission was a very complicated affair too: first it should have been a nine-member Commission of MPs that would have given representation to all the parliamentary groups. But that would almost inevitably have given representation to political parties which were unwanted as members, particularly the Popular Socialist Party that was competing with the PSOE. Therefore it was agreed to reduce the Commission to seven members with representatives of only the major parliamentary groups: three members to the governing UCD, two members to the PSOE, one member to the communists (PCE/PSUC) and one member to the AP. But this distribution left the Catalan and Basque parties without representation, which was only solved when the PSOE gave up one of its seats to the combined ‘CatalanBasque minority’ (Suárez 1996: 105–8). Most of the members of the Commission – the so-called ‘Constitutional Fathers’ have written one or more books on their experiences; see, for example, Solé Tura 1985. 8 Taken from the official translation to English available at http://www. congreso.es/constitucion/ficheros/c78/cons_ingl.pdf [accessed 15 May 2013]. 9 For a very lucid and interesting analysis of the different interests and visions involved in the drafting of Article 2, see Martínez-Herrera and Miley 2010: 8–11. 10 The Constitution, however, in its Fourth Transitional Disposition specified that Navarre can integrate into the Basque Country after holding a referendum. This was something extraordinary and the only time that the Constitution made the union of two regions possible. 11 By September 1978 the ‘pre-autonomous’ regime had been extended to Galicia, Aragon, Valencia, Canary Islands, Andalusia, Extremadura, Castile and León and Castile-La Mancha (Gibbons 1999: 17).

Chapter Ten 1 Law 1980/21392 of 12 June 1980 ‘por la que se declara fiesta nacional de Cataluña la jornada del 11 de septiembre’, BOE, 239/1980, p. 22087. 2 For a history of the celebration, see Michonneau 2001: 165–77, 229–51. For an analysis of the contemporary commemoration, see Llobera 1996.

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3 ‘Declaración del Aberri-Eguna como Día Oficial de las Instituciones de la Comunidad Autónoma Vasca’, Boletín Oficial del País Vasco, C24.1, p. 1. 4 Text cited from http://www.interbook.net/personal/angelberto/vop/car141150.htm#Los mitos del nacionalismo vasco [accessed 31 May 2013]. 5 Royal Decree 1135/1977 of 27 May ‘sobre indulto a personal de las Fuerzas Armadas’, BOE, 127/1977, p. 11814. See also Aguilar Fernández 1996a: 282. 6 Royal Decree 996/1978 of 12 May ‘por el que se establece el ‘Día de las Fuerzas Armadas”, BOE, 114/1978, p. 11418. 7 Royal Decree 1358/1976 of 11 June ‘sobre fiestas civiles’, BOE, 149/1976, p. 12104. 8 Royal Decree 1728/1977 of 11 July ‘sobre fiestas civiles’, BOE, 166/1977, p. 15724. 9 On its meeting on 21 December 1977, the Council of Ministers ratified the decision to abolish the 18th of July as a holiday. 10 ‘El 18 de julio’, El País, 17 July 1977, p. 6. 11 This aspect only emerges very rarely in the investigations. Serrano mentions that Alfonso XIII held a speech on 12 October 1917 in San Sebastián, in which he said that ‘we shall always celebrate this date’, and on the 12 October 1919 he participated in a commemorative act in the Municipality of Madrid (Serrano 1999: 320–1). 12 The 1978 event celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the declaration of the Virgin of Guadalupe as Patron of Hispano-America by the Pope in 1928. 13 In 1980 the Día de la Hispanidad was celebrated in Valladolid, in 1981 in Palos de la Frontera, in 1982 in Cádiz, in 1983 in Granada, in 1984 in Palma de Mallorca, from 1985 to 1991 in Madrid. In 1992 it took place in Seville as a part of the closure of the Universal Expo, in 1993 in Aranjuez, in 1994 in La Granja de San Ildefonso, from 1996 onwards in Madrid. 14 ‘El destino colectivo’, La Vanguardia, 6 December 1978, p. 5. Other editorials in the same vein: ‘El deber de votar’, El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco 5 December 1978, p. 32; ‘Acuerdo para el futuro’, ABC, 1 November 1978, p. 2; ‘La Constitución de todos los españoles’, Ya, 1 November 1978, p. 5; ‘Sí’, El País, 5 December 1978, p. 10; ‘72 horas para un futuro’, Mundo Obrero, 3 December 1978, p. 5; ‘Tras el “sí”, que funcione la Constitución’, El Socialista, 3 December 1978, p. 2. 15 ‘Manos a la obra’, La Vanguardia, 7 December 1978, p. 15; ‘Afirmación mayoritaria’, ABC, 7 December 1978, p. 2; ‘La Constitución de todos los españoles’, Ya, 7 December 1978, p. 7; ‘Primera reflexión’, El País, 7 December 1978, p. 8; ‘Y también la intendencia’, Mundo Obrero, 8 December 1978, p. 5; ‘Hoy somos ciudadanos’, El Socialista, 10 December 1978, p. 2. 16 ‘Homenaje de los militares a la Constitución’, El País, 6 December 1980, p. 11; ‘Piden al Gobierno que el día 6 de diciembre sea considerado fiesta nacional’; ‘Apoyo asturiano al texto constitucional’; and ‘Inauguración de la plaza de la Constitución en Las Palmas’, all three: El País, 7 December 1980, p. 15. 17 ‘Proposición de ley de declaración de Fiesta Nacional a todos los efectos del día 6 de diciembre’, BOCG, B-116-I, p. 429.

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18 Other institutions also sent petitions to turn the 6th of December into the national holiday. A plenary session of the municipality of Alicante, on the occasion of the second anniversary in 1980, thus agreed by unanimity to formally ‘suggest and solicit’ the government to turn the anniversary of the referendum into the national holiday of Spain, denominating it ‘the Day of the Constitution’. The reason adduced was that Spain lacked a national holiday. See ‘Piden al Gobierno que el día 6 de diciembre sea considerado fiesta nacional’, El País, 7 December 1980, p. 15. The editorial of El País of 6 December 1980 mentioned the existence of other proposals to celebrate the national holiday on the 6th of December without specifying where they originated. See ‘Dos años de Constitución’, El País, 6 December 1980, p. 8. 19 The political parties of the mentioned examples are the Aragonese Regionalist Party (Partido Aragonés Regionalista), Alavese Union (Unión Alavesa which refers to the southern and more Castile-oriented of the three Basque provinces, Álava), Navarrese People’s Union (Unión del Pueblo Navarro), Valencian Union (Unió Valenciana) and Canarian Coalition (Coalición Canaria). For a more complete panorama, see Núñez Seixas 1999: 152–7 and Núñez Seixas 2000. 20 For the different laws on the regional symbols, see Law 1984/12186 of 27 April 1984 ‘[por la] que se establece el himno del Principado y se regula su uso’, BOE, 129/1984, p. 15353; Law 1985/01806 of 4 December 1984 ‘por la que se regulan los símbolos de la Comunidad Valenciana y su utilización’, BOE, 23/1985, p. 2256; Law 1985/05019 of 29 May 1984 ‘de símbolos de Galicia’, BOE, 75/1985, p. 8251; Law 1985/18485 of 31 May 1985 ‘reguladora de signos de la identidad riojana’, BOE, 205/1985, p. 27024; Law 1985/18840 of 3 June 1985 ‘del escudo, himno y día de Extremadura’, BOE, 210/1985, p. 27714; Foral Law 1986/24867 of 28 May 1986 ‘reguladora de los símbolos de Navarra’, BOE, 225/1986, p. 32382; Law 1987/11090 of 6 March 1987 ‘por la que se establece el himno de Cantabria y se regula su uso’, BOE, 110/1987, p. 13427; Law 1989/11470 of 21 April 1989 ‘del himno de Aragón’, BOE, 120/1989, p. 15137. 21 Law 1984/14761 of 25 April 1984 ‘por la que se declara fiesta de la Comunidad de Madrid la jornada del 2 de mayo de cada año’, BOE, 155/1984, p. 19184. 22 Law 1984/03351 of 23 December 1983 ‘de bandera, escudo e himno de la Comunidad de Madrid’, BOE, 33/1984, p. 3337. 23 Pilar Pintado, ‘Veinte años no es nada’, in http://www.madridiario.com [accessed 13 August 2003]. 24 Patricia Ortega Dolz, ‘El estado de los himnos’, El País Digital, 10 June 2001. 25 Author’s translation. The original excerpt reads: ‘. . . y yo era el centro. / Ya el corro se rompe, / ya se hacen Estado los pueblos, / Y aquí de vacío girando / sola me quedo. / Cada cual quiere ser cada una: / no voy a ser menos: / ¡Madrid, uno, libre, redondo, / autónomo, entero!’ The score for the hymn was composed by Pablo Sorozábal. The lyrics are included in the law 1984/03351. 26 Pilar Pintado, ‘Veinte años no es nada’, http://www.madridiario.com [accessed 13 August 2003].

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Chapter Eleven 1 CiU was formed in 1978 by federating the two Catalan nationalist parties: Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya, or CDC) of liberal ideological orientation and the Democratic Union of Catalonia (Unió Democràtica de Catalunya, or UDC) of Christian Democratic orientation. 2 ETA had already stepped up its terrorist activity in 1978 with 66 killings and 76 killings in 1979. The organization had committed its first deadly attack in 1968, but it was not until 1973 that a regular terrorist activity began. The 1970s was thus a history of increased activity whereas the 1980s became characterized by a declining but stable terrorist activity resulting in between 92 casualties (1980) and 19 casualties (1989). For details, see http://www. interior.gob.es/es/web/interior/ultimas-victimas-mortales-de-eta-cuadrosestadisticos [accessed 17 March 2014]. For an analysis of the fight against ETA, Jaime-Jiménez and Reinares 2000. 3 Pronounced in a conference in El Sitio in Bilbao on 12 March 1910. 4 The participation at national level was 41.8 per cent and the affirmative votes were 76.3 per cent against 16.9 per cent negative and 6.8 per cent blank and invalid votes. In Catalonia participation was 40.6 per cent and the affirmative votes were 64.3 per cent against 27.7 per cent negative and 8.1 per cent blank and invalid votes, and in the Basque Country participation was 38.5 per cent and the affirmative votes were only 62.4 per cent against 33.2 per cent negative and 4.5 per cent blank and invalid votes. See the European Election Database at http://www.nsd.uib.no/european_election_database/ [accessed 21 June 2013].

Chapter Twelve 1 For the proposal, see ‘Proyecto de ley. Por la que se regula el uso de la Bandera de España y el de otras banderas y enseñas en desarrollo del artículo 4.° de la Constitución’, BOCG, 189-I, I-1, I-2, II, III, IV, V, pp. 1273–6/1-25. For the discussion in Parliament, see Diario de Sesiones del Congreso de los Diputados [hereafter DSC], 178/1981, pp. 10686–93 and 188/1981, pp. 11170–1. For the final Law, see BOE, 271/1981, p. 26494. 2 For the proposal, see ‘Proposición de ley. Escudo de España’, BOCG, 64-I, II, II-1, III, IV, V/1979, pp. 251–2/1-11. For the discussion in Parliament, see DSC, 68/1980, pp. 4565–9, 166/1981, pp. 10163–6, 183/1981, pp. 10952–3. For the final Law, see BOE, 250/1981, p. 24477. 3 ‘Proposición de Ley: Declaración de fiesta nacional, a todos los efectos, del día 6 de diciembre’, BOCG, 116-I and II/1980, pp. 429–30. For the discussion in Parliament, see DSC, 169/1981, pp. 10261–9. 4 Personal interview with Juan José Laborda, 21 January 2003. 5 For the debate in the Parliament, see DSC, 169/1981, pp. 10262–9.

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6 Exactly the same argument was repeated during the debate on the law that instituted the 12th of October as the national holiday of Spain in 1987. See the chapter on the 12th of October for details. 7 Royal Decree 3217/1981 of 27 November ‘por el que se establecen normas para la celebración del 12 de octubre, Fiesta Nacional de España y Día de la Hispanidad’, BOE, 1/1982, p. 3. 8 For example, the editorial of ABC on 13 October was dedicated to the ‘sacrilege’ committed by the Catalans. Also the editorial of Ya on 11 October mentioned the issue. ‘Agitación sentimental’, ABC, 13 October 1981, p. 2 and ‘Desde España, sin retórica’, Ya, 11 October 1981, p. 5. See also: ‘El 12 de octubre del 83, fiesta en Catalunya’, La Vanguardia 13 October 1982, p. 4. 9 See, for example, ‘Numerosas fiestas, actos políticos y homenajes populares en el tercer aniversario de la aprobación de la Constitución’, El País, 8 December 1981, pp. 16–17; ‘Los españoles celebraron el tercer aniversario de la Constitución’, Ya, 8 December 1981, p. 7; ‘Éxito de participación en los actos del Día de la Constitución’, ABC, 8 December 1981, p. 9; ‘Se celebró en toda España el Día de la Constitución’, El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco, 8 December 1981, p. 22. 10 In early December 1981, the regional Parliament of Navarre, for example, officially requested the Prime Minister to turn the 6th of December into an official holiday. See ‘Empiezan los actos del Día de la Constitución’, La Vanguardia, 5 December 1981, p. 7. 11 This fact was not mentioned by any of the newspapers, but the presence of the Francoist flags is clearly visible in the photos in El Alcázar. See El Alcázar, 24 November 1981, pp. 4–5, 19–23. For the laws, see Law 33/1981 of 5 October ‘del Escudo de España’, BOE, 250/1981, p. 24477; and Law 39/1981 of 28 October ‘por la que se regula el uso de la bandera de España y el de otras banderas y enseñas’, BOE, 271/1981, p. 26494. The use of the national flag by political parties or associations had been forbidden by a decree in November 1978, but, as far as I know, the organizers of the 20-N events were never sanctioned. See Royal Decree 2749/1978 of 24 November ‘sobre la utilización de la bandera nacional’, BOE, 282/1978, p. 26787. 12 Personal interview with Juan José Laborda, 21 January 2003. 13 Puente (literally ‘bridge’) in this context denotes a mini-vacation resulting from joining one or two holidays with a weekend. 14 Order of 25 November 1982 ‘por la que se dictan instrucciones para la celebración en los centros docentes del cuarto aniversario de la ratificación de la Constitución por el pueblo español’, BOE, 285/1982, p. 32694. The Order was repeated in 1983 and 1985. 15 See, for example, ‘Peces-Barba: «Esta es hoy, y será para siempre, la casa del pueblo»’, El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco, 7 December 1982, p. 19. 16 Interview in La Vanguardia. See ‘España conmemoró la Constitución’, La Vanguardia, 7 December 1982, p. 7. 17 Royal Decree 2964/1983 of 30 November ‘por el que se establece el “Día de la Constitución” ’, BOE, 287/1983, p. 32477.

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18 CIS survey 1441, cited in Aguilar Fernández and Humlebæk 2002: 149. 19 Royal Decree 2403/1985 of 27 December ‘por el que se modifica el artículo 45.1 del Real Decreto 2001/1983, de 28 de julio, sobre regulación de la jornada de trabajo, jornadas especiales y descansos y se aprueba el calendario laboral, de ámbito nacional, para el año 1986’, BOE, 312/1985, p. 40779. 20 According to above-mentioned rumours in Ya. See ‘El año próximo, mensaje del Rey a los españoles’, Ya, 13 October 1985, p. 10. 21 Law 18/1987 of 7 October ‘que establece el Día de la Fiesta Nacional de España en el 12 de octubre’, BOE, 241/1987, p. 30149. The law was passed with 243 votes in favour, three against (the IU) and eight abstentions (the Catalan Minority and the PNV). See ‘El 12 de octubre será Fiesta Nacional de España’, El País, 18 September 1987, p. 17. 22 Personal interviews with Juan José Laborda on 7 March 2002 and 21 January 2003. 23 Intervention by deputy Beviá Pastor from the PSOE, DSC, 1987/61, p. 3622. 24 Remark by deputy López de Lerma from the CiU, DSC, 1987/61, p. 3624. The amendments are not included in the comprehensive list of publications concerning the law, which was published two years after the debate. ‘Índice de las publicaciones. Proyecto de Ley que establece el día de la Fiesta Nacional de España en el doce de octubre’, BOCG, A-42-3/1989. 25 This is not to say that there was no politics towards the Francoist legacy left in the streets of Madrid. In fact, the municipal administration under the first democratically elected mayor, the Socialist Enrique Tierno Galván, changed all the street names that had been altered by the Francoists back to their pre-Francoist names. The names given by the Francoist administration to new streets that therefore did not have a pre-Francoist variant were not changed. The Second Republic too had changed many street names. For an account of the changes during the Second Republic and the Franco regime and the political reason behind, see Serrano 1999: 173–82. 26 The monument was designed by the architect Ruiz Larrea and is situated in the park adjoining the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales. It was inaugurated on 27 December 1982, the fourth anniversary of the signing of the Constitution by the King. For a positive evaluation of the abstract architecture of the monument, see Enrique Domínguez Uceta, ‘La mirada del arquitecto’, El Mundo Digital, 2 December 2000. For its construction, see ‘“Tenemos la obligación de enraizar la Constitución en nuestra patria” (José María Rodríguez Colorado)’, ABC, 5 December 1981, p. 19 and ‘La Constitución cumple cuatro años’, El Socialista, 1 December 1982, p. 16. 27 See, for example, ‘Numerosas fiestas, actos políticos y homenajes populares en el tercer aniversario de la aprobación de la Constitución’, El País, 8 December 1981, p. 16 and ‘Las comunidades autónomas celebraron el X aniversario de la Carta Magna’, ABC, 7 December 1988, p. 21. 28 The Monument to All the Fallen for Spain had been added to the Monument to the Heroes of the Second of May and inaugurated on 22 November 1985, the tenth anniversary of the proclamation of King Juan Carlos. 29 ‘La fiesta nacional’, El País, 14 October 1987, p. 10.

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30 In 1987 approximately 4,500 soldiers participated in the parade, a similar figure to the Day of the Armed Forces parade. From 1988 until 1994 the numbers were diminished to approximately 1,500 soldiers to be further diminished in 1995 and 1996 to approximately 400 soldiers. In 1997, the big parade from the Day of the Armed Forces was again transferred to the 12th of October and the figure rose to 4,500 soldiers (see below). 31 ‘Ha sido deseo de la Generalitat que se restableciera la celebración de la Hispanidad’, La Vanguardia, 12 October 1981, p. 23. 32 See, for example, ‘Sesión académica del «Día de la Hispanidad»’, La Vanguardia, 13 October 1965, p. 21 or ‘El Día de la Hispanidad. Ofrenda simbólica de coronas ante el monumento a Colón’, La Vanguardia, 13 October 1978, p. 18. 33 ‘Pujol afirma que el resultado de la presencia de España en América ha de asumirse “sin complejos” ’, La Vanguardia, 13 October 1985, p. 21. 34 See, for example, ‘La celebración del 12 de octubre, deslucido por incidentes aislados de grupos radicales’, La Vanguardia, 13 October 1986, p. 19. 35 Only the first year, in 1987, did the lehendakari attempt to excuse his absence, alleging that ‘a mistake in the form’ of the invitation caused him to stay away. Ostensibly, it was the phrase ‘the fallen for Spain’ that caused discontent in the Basque government offices. ‘Ardanza no acudió por “un desacierto en la forma” de la invitación’, El País, 13 October 1987, p. 18. 36 Cited in ‘Los españoles celebraron el tercer aniversario de la Constitución’, Ya, 8 December 1981, p. 7. 37 ‘Pujol destaca el papel de la Constitución en la España democrática’, La Vanguardia, 7 December 1986, p. 23. 38 See, for example, ‘Los españoles celebraron el tercer aniversario de la Constitución’, Ya, 8 December 1981, p. 7. 39 See ‘Carmelo Renovales: “Mi presencia aquí es normal” ’, El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco, 7 December 1982, p. 19. 40 ‘Ardanza justifica su presencia en el palacio Real por cortesía hacia el Jefe del Estado’, El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco, 7 December 1988, p. 23. 41 The Basque name Herri Batasuna means People’s Union. 42 See, for example, ‘Herri Batasuna insiste en la necesidad de una negociación para que cese la violencia’, El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco, 7 December 1988, p. 10. 43 Also youth groups of the PNV participated in the manifestations, but the HB was always the main organizing force. See, for example, ‘HB organiza un día de incidentes callejeros contra la Constitución’, La Vanguardia, 7 December 1995, p. 12; ‘Violentos disturbios en Pamplona tras una marcha de HB contra la Constitución’, El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco, 7 December 1996, p. 14.

Chapter Thirteen 1 The data are from the CIS, Eurobarometer and Latinobarómetro cited in Encarnación 2008: 45–7.

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2 For a good history of the Spanish press in democracy, see Barrera 1995. 3 The test, very simply consists of two peaceful changes of government after elections: the group that takes power in the initial elections hands over power to another group after losing elections, and when that other group loses a subsequent elections and hands over power peacefully to the winners the test has been met (Huntington 1991: 266). 4 The value for both Spain and the EU is a mean of five results from 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2004 (data from Irene Martín-Cortés cited in Encarnación 2008: 47). Only Portugal scored lower values with 16 per cent in 1996. 5 The PSOE obtained 159 seats against the PP’s 141. To achieve a majority (176 seats) Felipe González made a government pact with the Catalan nationalists of CiU (seventeen seats). 6 See, for instance, ‘Los ponentes de la Constitución, salvo Fraga, rechazan su reforma a corto plazo’, El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco, 6 December 1991, p. 22. 7 ‘Felipe González afirma que no habrá cambio de Gobierno antes de enero’, El País, 7 December 1990, p. 17. 8 See, for example, ‘Aznar advierte a ETA que prolongar la tregua no basta para lograr la paz’, La Vanguardia, 7 December 1998, p. 13. 9 The percentages are taken from La Vanguardia which published a survey on the 6 December 1998 elaborated by the Institute Opina. El País published a digest of surveys from the CIS spanning the period from 1987 to 1995. The 1995 data from El País (46.1 per cent in favour, and 32.5 against changing the Constitution) differ very little from the 1998 data in La Vanguardia, and during the period 1988 to 1995 there is only limited variance (in favour ranges between 41 and 46.1 per cent; and against between 23 and 34.6 per cent). See ‘Apoyo generalizado a la Constitución’, La Vanguardia, 6 December 1998, p. 14, and ‘Los españoles valoran la Carta Magna porque garantiza sus libertades’, El País, 7 December 1998, p. 14. 10 For the declaration, see http://www.eaj-pnv.eu/documentos/declaracionbarcelona-1671998_4644.html [accessed 18 March 2014]. The declaration was a resurrection of former declarations by the same three nationalist blocks, the Triple Alianza from 1923, and the Galeuzca from 1933. 11 In fact the appointment of the judges to the Constitutional Court proved a problem several times. For details, see Chapter 15. 12 ‘500 años después’, El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco, 12 October 1992, p. 29. 13 CIS surveys 1441 and 2401, quoted in Aguilar Fernández and Humlebæk 2002: 149. 14 See, for example, ‘Felipe González y los principales líderes, ausentes en los actos de la Constitución’; and Consuelo Álvarez de Toledo, ‘La gripe del presidente’, El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco, 7 December 1991, p. 28. 15 Royal Decree 862/1997 of 6 June ‘por el que se regulan los actos conmemorativos del Día de la Fiesta Nacional de España, en el ámbito del

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Ministerio de Defensa’, BOE, 151/1997, p. 19591. The decree, however, did not abolish the celebration of the Day of the Armed Forces; it simply exported the largest and most significant event, the military parade. 16 Curiously, also the attendance at the reception in December 1995 was markedly more numerous than the previous years, although there was no apparent reason. Maybe what was perceived to be the last chance to see Felipe González as Prime Minister attracted more people. 17 ‘La mayor bandera de España, regalo de la Armada a la ciudad, ondea desde ayer en la plaza de Colón’, ABC, 13 October 1996, p. 75. 18 The Spanish language has two common words for patriotic, patriótico, which simply means patriotic, and patriotero, which means ‘too’ patriotic in a pejorative sense, equivalent to the French patriotard and the English superpatriotic, referring to a patriotism with counterproductive effects. 19 The citations are taken from ‘Polémico homenaje a la bandera’, and ‘Anasagasti: “La independencia es un planteamiento que no tiene la menor viabilidad” ’, both in El País Digital, 3 October 2002; and ‘Aznar tilda de “chantaje inaceptable” la propuesta de diálogo de Ibarretxe’, El País Digital, 4 October 2002. 20 M. G., ‘Trillo pacta que el homenaje a la bandera no sea partidista’, El País Digital, 27 November 2002; and M. G., ‘Homenaje del Parlamento a la bandera sin IU ni nacionalistas’, El País Digital, 7 December 2002. 21 See, for example, ‘Trillo resalta que «en esta Constitución caben todos»’, El Mundo, 7 December 1998, p. 8. 22 ‘Veinte años de Constitución’, El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco, 6 December 1998, p. 43. The other editorials on the anniversary during the 1990s: ‘Una constitución mayor de edad’, Ya, 6 December 1996, p. 3; ‘Una Constitución para todos’, ABC, 6 December 1996, p. 17; ‘Mantener el consenso’, La Vanguardia, 7 December 1996, p. 20; ‘Eje constitucional’, El Correo Español – El Pueblo Vasco, 6 December 1996, p. 29; ‘Hace 20 años’, El País, 6 December 1998; ‘Una constitución de todos y para todos’, El Mundo, 6 December 1998, p. 5; ‘El Rey en las Cortes’, ABC, 5 December 1998, p. 15; ‘Vigencia de la Constitución’, ABC, 6 December 1998, p. 19; ‘Vigor de la Constitución’, La Vanguardia, 6 December 1998, p. 28.

Chapter Fourteen 1 A good study of the questions of transitional justice in the case of the Spanish transition is Aguilar Fernández 2001. On the issue of the amnesty laws, see also Aguilar Fernández 1996b. 2 In political science this variable is called ‘risk aversion’: the more averse an actor is to risk, the less inclined he/she is to risk the possibility of disagreement, and the more concessions he/she will make, the less he/she will obtain from a negotiation (Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca cited in Aguilar Fernández 2001: 95). 3 ‘Un pueblo vota en paz’, ABC, 16 June 1977, p. 2.

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4 ‘La democracia empieza hoy’, Ya, 16 June 1977, p. 7. See also ‘El decreto de las urnas’ El País, 16 June 1977, p. 6. 5 The way in which the new master narrative was constructed ex negativo from the Francoist narrative is in some ways parallel to the West German master narrative of modernization, the thesis of German deviation in a Sonderweg. See Welskopp 2002 and Jarausch 2004. 6 Juan G. Ibáñez: ‘ “Eran más los riesgos que las dificultades”. Diputados elegidos en 1977 y que continúan en el Congreso hacen balance’, El País Digital, 15 June 2002. 7 For a study of the political use of the past in Spain since 1975 and the rupture of the informal pact in the late 1990s, see Humlebæk 2005. 8 ‘Ley 46/1977, de 15 de octubre, de Amnistia’, BOE, 224, pp. 22765–6. The other two amnesties were Juan Carlos’ decree of 25 November 1975: ‘Decreto 2940/1975, de 25 de noviembre, por el que se concede indulto general con motivo de la proclamación de Su Majestad don Juan Carlos de Borbón como Rey de España’, BOE, 284, p. 24666; and the Royal Decree of 30 July 1976: ‘Real Decreto-Ley 10/1976, de 30 de julio, de Amnistia’, BOE, 186, pp. 15097–8. 9 As a proof of this imperfectness, between March 1978 and September 1979, four different pieces of legislation were passed which amended the Amnesty Law or gave material reparation to certain groups (Aguilar Fernández 2006: 271–81, 2008b: 419–21). 10 The coalition CiU was formed in 1978 from the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya) founded in 1974 and the Democratic Union of Catalonia (Unió Democràtica de Catalunya) founded in the times of the Second Republic in 1931. 11 Baviano, J. M., ‘El juicio contra el alcalde de Torremegía el recuerdo de los fusilamientos de 1936’, El País, 22 June 1980; ‘Los vecinos desembargaron la vaca del alcalde’, El País, 22 June 1980; ‘El alcalde de Torremegía, absuelto de la supuesta malversación de caudales públicos’, El País, 25 June 1980; Piedehierro, M., ‘Homenaje a 25 años de dignidad en Torremejía’, El Periódico Extremadura, 4 September 2004 (Torremejía is most commonly spelled with ‘j’, but the other variant with ‘g’ is also quite frequent). For a more detailed account of the events of 1979–80, see Humlebæk 2011. 12 Apart from the above example from Extremadura, there were other cases in Lerma and Torresandino, both in the province of Burgos and in Navarre. For the Lerma story, see Arsenio Escolar Blog (2006) ‘Tumbas de la Guerra Civil’, available online at: http://blogs.20minutos.es/arsenioescolar/post/2006/09/06/ tumbas-la-guerra-civil. There exists no complete survey of these exhumations of 1979 and 1980 that defied the sense of the informal pact not to instrumentalize the past politically. The Association to the Recuperation of Historical Memory (ARMH), which was founded in 2000 with the specific aim to ‘locate all the common graves from the Spanish Civil War and identify the maximum number of bodies’, does not mention the events of 1979 and 1980 on its web page even if they can be considered a predecessor to the association. Extensive search in 2007 of the home page of ARMH available online at: http://www.memoriahistorica.org.

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13 In the principal Spanish newspapers there is no mention of any common grave being opened between 1981 and 2000, nor on the web page of ARMH or any other web page. 14 Declaration of the government, cited in extenso in ‘Declaración del Gobierno: “Una guerra fratricida no es un acontecimiento conmemorable” ’, Ya, 19 July 1986, p. 3. 15 The question has not been included in the surveys since 2000. More detailed information about evaluation of the dictatorship and democracy in the opinion polls, see Aguilar Fernández and Humlebæk 2002. 16 Personal interview with Emilio Silva Barrera on 14 June 2003. A search in the archive of El País on http://www.elpais.com reveals that the first news article on the opening of mass graves appeared in September 2001, almost a year after the first opening. 17 Both the original proposal ‘Proposición no de ley sobre conmemoración del 60.° aniversario del exilio español con ocasión de la finalización de la guerra civil española’ and the counterproposal of the PP, ‘Proposición no de Ley relativa al 60.° aniversario del exilio español tras la guerra civil española’, BOCG, D-447/1999, pp. 12–14. For the debate and its results, see Diario de Sesiones del Congreso de los Diputados. Comisiones [hereafter DSCC], 743/1999, pp. 21851–9 and BOCG, D-479/1999, pp. 8–9. 18 Intervention by deputy Alcaraz Masats from the IU. DSC, 59/2001, p. 2820. 19 Intervention by the same deputy, Alcaraz Masats, DSC, 82/2001, p. 4147. 20 Intervention by deputy Silva Sánchez from the Catalan parliamentary group: DSCC, 272/2001, p. 8234. 21 Alternative proposition by the PP: BOCG, D-447/1999, pp. 13–14. 22 Amendment by the PP to the original proposal: BOCG, D-135/2001, pp. 4–5. 23 Compromise amendment: BOCG, D-448/2002, pp. 12–14. 24 Intervention by deputy Atencia Robledo from the PP: DSCC, 625/2002, p. 20517. 25 ‘Real Decreto 1891/2004, de 10 de septiembre, por el que se crea la Comisión Interministerial para el estudio de la situación de las víctimas de la guerra civil y del franquismo’, BOE, 227, pp. 31523–24. 26 ‘LEY 52/2007, de 26 de diciembre, por la que se reconocen y amplían derechos y se establecen medidas en favor de quienes padecieron persecución o violencia durante la guerra civil y la dictadura’, BOE, 310, pp. 53410–16. 27 CIS: Barómetro octubre 2005. Estudio no. 2622.

Chapter Fifteen 1 ‘Ley Orgánica 9/1992 de 23 de diciembre de transferencia de competencias a Comunidades Autónomas que accedieron a la autonomía por la vía del artículo 143 de la Constitución’, BOE, 308, pp. 43863–7. The law resulted in reforms of the Autonomy Statutes of the eleven ‘slow’-track regions: Valencia,

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Balearic Islands, Aragon, Castile and León, Extremadura, Asturias, Cantabria, La Rioja, Murcia, Castile-La Mancha and Madrid, which were all passed as Organic Laws 1–11 in 1994. 2 ‘La Constitución del consenso’, La Vanguardia, 6 December 1991, p. 14. 3 To illustrate the disparity between results of the two types of parties with data from the most recent general elections in 2011: the Catalan CiU thus obtained sixteen seats in Madrid from 1,014,263 votes whereas the UPyD obtained only five seats from 1,140,242 votes. Data from http://elecciones.mir.es/ resultadosgenerales2011/99CG/DCG99999TO_L1.htm [accessed 23 November 2013]. 4 The data are from CIS surveys. For more details, see Martínez-Herrera and Miley 2010: 18–19 and Jiménez and Navarro 2014: 7–8. 5 The data are from CIS surveys. For more details, see Martínez-Herrera and Miley 2010: 18–19 and Jiménez and Navarro 2014: 8–10. Jiménez and Navarro have also investigated the influence of the type of region of residence as well as the ideological variable inherent in voting the state-wide parties (IU, the PSOE and the PP), and with some variation the result is in broad terms the same: the dominant category of identification for the period 1980–2008 is that of dual identity and it is either increasing all along or increases first and then remains stable. They establish three categories of region: 1) ‘dual regions’ characterized by dual identification, 2) ‘more españolista regions’ characterized by identification with Spain and 3) ‘more autonomista regions’ characterized by identification with the region and in all three types the dual identification reaches or surpasses 50 per cent. Also the voters of all three state-wide parties show very similar identification patterns in this regard: the dominant category of identification for the same period is that of dual identity and in all cases it reaches or surpasses 50 per cent (Jiménez and Navarro 2014: 11–21). 6 In total thirteen Statute reforms were negotiated during the first Aznar government: those of Aragon, Castile and León, Navarre, Extremadura, Asturias, Galicia, Cantabria, La Rioja, Murcia, Castile-La Mancha, Canary Islands, Madrid. Of the Article 143 regions only Valencia’s Statute was not touched during the Aznar reform wave. During the second government 2000–4 with an absolute majority in Parliament the government discourse on the autonomy system became even more intransigent and no reforms were negotiated. Only the final approval of the reformed Statute of Navarre dragged on to 2001, but had been negotiated during the first government. 7 Also the Statutes of Valencia, Aragon, the Balearic Islands, Andalusia and Castile and León were reformed between 2006 and 2010 and the Statutes of Castile-La Mancha, Extremadura and the Canary Islands were reformed later or have begun the process of reform. 8 For the proposal ‘Propuesta de reforma de Estatuto político de la Comunidad de Euskadi’, see BOCG, B-149-I/2005, pp. 1–21. English translation from http://glosbe.com/en/eu/Basque%20National%c20Liberation%20Movement [accessed 19 March 2014].

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9 At the presentation in the Basque regional parliament the Plan was voted by a majority against all odds, principally because the three members of the illegalized HB, who at the time had formed a party named ‘Sozialista Abertzaleak’, voted in favour despite the fact that they had announced their abstention beforehand. The proposal needed an absolute majority – thirtyeight votes – and in this manner it obtained thirty-nine favourable votes against thirty-five negative. 10 The proposal was rejected by 313 negative votes against twenty-nine positive. For the plenary debate on the admission of the proposal in February 2005, see DSC, 65/2005, pp. 3088–150. 11 The coalition was created in 2003 when Initiative for Catalonia Greens (Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds, or ICV) – originated in 1997 from PSUC among others – joined forces with the Catalan version of IU, United and Alternative Left (Esquerra Unida i Alternativa, or EUiA). 12 ‘Propuesta de reforma del Estatuto de Autonomía de Cataluña’, BOCG, B210-1/2005, p. 2. 13 DSC, 125/2005, p. 6172. 14 DSCC, 469/2006, pp. 2–21. Presumably the fundamental deal was struck at a secret meeting on 21 January 2006 between Prime Minister Zapatero and Catalan opposition leader Artur Mas (CiU) (Núñez Seixas 2010: 141). See also Salgado, M., ‘Cronología del nuevo Estatut de Catalunya, un lustro de modificaciones y recursos’, www.20minutos.es, 9 September 2010, http:// www.20minutos.es/noticia/674621/0/cronologia/estatut/catalunya/ [accessed 18 March 2014]. 15 BOCG, B210-7/2006, pp. 72–83. 16 BOCG, B210-15/2006, p. 304. Official English translation available at http:// www.parlament.cat/porteso/estatut/estatut_angles_100506.pdf [accessed 19 March 2014]. The formulation of the preamble was agreed upon by a majority in the ponencia on its final meeting 6 March 2006 before the text agreed upon by them passed on to the parliamentary Commission on constitutional affairs the following day. See ‘Aprobado el término ‘nación’ en el preámbulo del Estatut, con la oposición de PP y ERC’, www.20minutos.es, 6 March 2006, http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/96862/0/montilla/ERC/estatut/ [accessed 18 March 2014]. 17 Results of the referendum in BOE, 158/2006, pp. 25193–4. 18 ‘Ley Orgánica 6/2006, de 19 de julio, de reforma del Estatuto de Autonomía de Cataluña’, BOE, 172/2006, pp. 27269–310. 19 CiU was formed in 1978 by federating the two Catalan nationalist parties: the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya, or CDC) of liberal ideological orientation and the Democratic Union of Catalonia (Unió Democràtica de Catalunya, or UDC) of Christian Democratic orientation. 20 Roger, M., ‘El técnico que se ungió como Mesías’, El País Digital, 25 November 2012: http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2012/11/25/ catalunya/1353862846_065281.html [accessed 23 November 2013].

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21 There were other similar processes against the Statute open at the Constitutional Court filed by other neighbouring regions and the Ombudsman, but the most important cause was the one filed by the PP. The other causes came to a conclusion within half a year. 22 ‘Sentencia 31/2010, de 28 de junio de 2010’, BOE, 172/2010, pp. 1–491. 23 As always in these cases, the figures vary from source to source: from 425,000 according to El País to 1,500,000 according to Òmnium Cultural, the main organizer. 24 Pujol, J., ‘From the Constitutional Court to independence, via Quebec’, http:// www.jordipujol.cat, 10 January 2011: http://www.jordipujol.cat/en/jp/ articles/9478 [accessed 21 November 2013]. 25 The interesting study of Jiménez and Navarro only operates with the three categories of regions and does not specify the data for each region. Catalonia and the Basque Country are thus included in the group with predominantly regional identification (CAMAS) together with the Canary Islands, Galicia and Navarre. 26 The ‘Triparty’ thus only totalled forty-eight seats (PSC: twenty-eight, ERC: ten and ICV-EUiA: ten) against CiU’s sixty-two seats. For the results, see http://www10.gencat.cat/pls/gov_eleccions/p12.consultar_res_cat?v_tipus_ eleccio=A&v_any_eleccio=2010&v_num_eleccio=1 [accessed 23 November 2013]. 27 Sust, T., ‘Los ocho pilares del arturismo’, El Periódico de Cataluña, 21 December 2010: http://www.elperiodico.com/es/noticias/politica/20101221/ los-ocho-pilares-del-arturismo/632592.shtml [accessed 23 November 2013]. 28 ‘Fracaso total del referéndum sobre la independencia catalana: votó menos del 30%’, El Confidencial, 14 December 2009. 29 For the results, see http://www.gencat.cat/governacio/resultats-parlament2012/ 09AU/DAU09999CM_L2.htm [accessed 22 November 2013]. 30 The data are from CIS survey 2956 (2013). For more details, see Marí-Klose and Moreno Fuentes 2013. 31 For the approved law, see ‘Ley 9/2008, de 27 de junio, de convocatoria y regulación de una consulta popular al objeto de recabar la opinión ciudadana en la Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco sobre la apertura de un proceso de negociación para alcanzar la paz y la normalización política’, BOE, 212/2008, pp. 95727–34. 32 The Communist Party of the Basque Homelands (in Basque: Euskal Herrialdeetako Alderdi Komunista, EHAK; in Spanish: Partido Comunista de las Tierras Vascas, PCTV) suddenly rose to notoriety in 2005 when the party publicly assumed the programme of the parties that had been banned due to their relationship with ETA such as HB. The EHAK/PCTV was illegalized by the court system in September 2008 for the same reasons as its predecessors. 33 The data are from CIS surveys, but Martínez-Herrera and Miley do not give the survey numbers. 34 The Basque name Euskal Herritarrok means Basque Citizens.

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35 The PSE-PSOE and the PP together obtained thirty-eight of seventy-five seats in the Basque Parliament. But if the null votes given in protest against the illegalization of EH had been taken into account the two parties would only have totalled thirty-three seats and thus not have had a majority. 36 The coalition Bildu (the Basque name means Reunite) was founded in June 2012 integrating the four parties: Eusko Alkartasuna, Aralar, Alternatiba and Sortu. Sortu is the inheritor to the illegalized Herri Batasuna, but it was nevertheless legalized by the Constitutional Court in June 2012. 37 In December 2013, Urkullu’s government had been in office for a year and commentators were reflecting on its merits although these reflections ‘drowned’ in the media coverage of the practically contemporaneous publication by the Catalan government of the date and the contents of the questions of the referendum. See, for example, Anía Elorza, ‘Gobierno Urkullu, año uno’, El País, 14 December 2013 and Juan Mari Gastaca, ‘La “vía vasca” más lenta’, El País, 18 December 2013. 38 Polls from spring 2013 to spring 2014 have thus given the PP and the PSOE an equal share of just over 30 per cent of the vote, which represents a small increase for the PSOE with respect to the 28.7 per cent it obtained in November 2011 and a significant drop for the PP from the 44.6 per cent it obtained in the last elections. Both IU and UPyD, by contrast, almost double their results from November 2011: IU is up from 6.9 per cent to between 12 and 13 per cent and UPyD is up from 4.7 per cent to between 7 and 8 per cent. See, for example, CIS survey 3001 http://www.cis.es/cis/export/sites/ default/-Archivos/Marginales/3000_3019/3001/Ft3001.pdf [accessed 14 March 2014], ‘El PP remonta, según el CIS, y el PSOE recela de los datos’, El País, 6 November 2013 and ‘PP y PSOE pendientes de movilizar a sus votantes desencantados’, El País, 8 March 2014.

Chapter Sixteen 1 ‘La economía de México superará a la española relegada al puesto 16’, El País, 10 October 2012. 2 Of the 5.5 million immigrants in Spain on 1 January 2013, 2.4 million are European Union citizens, over one million come from Latin American countries and some 800,000 are Moroccans. Some immigrants are hidden in the statistics, as approximately 100,000 immigrants a year, particularly Latin Americans, obtain Spanish citizenship. The statistics show that 14.1 per cent of the population have been born outside Spain, which gives an idea of the extent to which part of the immigrant population have obtained citizenship. ‘La población en el padrón se reduce por primera vez en 17 años’, El País, 22 April 2013; and ‘La población extranjera acentúa su caída con casi 200.000 inmigrantes menos’, El País, 17 January 2014. 3 ‘¿Cuántos trabajadores han emigrado de España?’, Cinco Días, 19 June 2013; ‘El 89% de los españoles que emigran en busca de empleo cuenta con educación superior’, El País, 7 November 2013.

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4 For the data, see Eurostat’s database on Real GDP growth rate at http://epp. eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode= tec00115&plugin=1 [accessed 2 December 2013]. 5 For the data, see Eurostat’s database on Research and development expenditure at http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init= 1&language=en&pcode=tsc00001&plugin=1 [accessed 2 December 2013]. 6 A total of fourteen of Spain’s seventeen autonomous regions have benefitted from the Regional Liquidity Fund (Fondo de Liquidez Autonómico) created by the Spanish state in 2012 although only seven of those have had to ask for real bailouts: Catalonia, Valencia, Andalusia, Castile-La Mancha, Murcia, Canary Islands and Balearic Islands. ‘Las autonomías ahorran 5.000 millones en intereses por los créditos estatales’, El País, 10 November 2013. 7 The Scottish nationalists have tried their best to avoid reinforcing parallels with Catalonia in order to avoid an eventual Spanish veto to Scottish entry into the EU, whereas the Catalan nationalists are attempting just the opposite: to convince that Scotland is in fact a precedent for Catalonia. 8 See, for example, Barroso’s and other Commission officials’ statements in ‘Barroso casts doubt on independent Scotland’s EU membership rights’, The Guardian, 12 September 2012. 9 ‘Scottish independence: Spain blocks Alex Salmond’s hopes for EU transition’, The Guardian, 27 November 2013.

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248

INDEX

1898 Generation see Generation of ’98 23-F coup attempt (1981), 92, 102, 108–9, 113, 117–18, 120, 127, 165–6, 180 Abd-el-Krim, 34–5 Aberri Eguna see Basque Country, National Holiday of absolutism, 7–11 Acción Española, 52, 60, 222 agriculture, 67, 113, 181 Aguila, Rafael del, 223–4 Aguilar Fernández, Paloma, 158, 160–1, 162, 167, 232 Álava, 102–3, 201, 226 regionalist party of (Unión Alavesa), 102–3, 226 Alcalá-Zamora, Niceto, 47 Alcaraz Masats, Luis Felipe, 234 Alcorcón, 127 Alfaro, José María, 222 Alfonso XII, 18 Alfonso XIII, 29, 32, 37, 40, 46, 63, 78, 98, 225 Algeciras Conference, 26 Alhucemas Bay, 35 Alicante, 226 Almeria, 91, 128 Almunia, Joaquín, 144–5 Alternatiba, 237 Álvarez de Manzano, José María, 150 Amadeo I, 17 American Revolution, 3 Amnesty Law see Law on Amnesty (1977) anarchist movement, 17, 20, 27, 28, 30, 33, 40, 45–6, 47, 48, 50, 63 Anasagasti, Iñaki, 151, 232

ANC see Catalonia, National Assembly of Catalonia Andalusia, 8, 45, 49, 53, 58, 91, 109, 127, 187, 224, 235, 239 Autonomy Statute of, 91, 109, 224, 235 Annual, 27, 32 anti-capitalist, 18, 24, 67 anti-communist, 66 Anti-España, 68 anti-fascist, 59, 66 AP see Popular Alliance Aragon, 20, 49, 102–3, 224, 226, 235 Autonomy Statute of, 109–10, 224, 235 Kingdom of, 62, 94 regionalist party of (Partido Aragonés Regionalista), 102–3, 226 Aralar, 237 Arana, Sabino, 95 Aranjuez, 225 Ardanza, José Antonio, 133, 230 Arenys de Munt, 194 Argentina, 52, 137, 223 Arias Navarro, Carlos, 78, 79 Armed Forces, 42, 44–5, 65, 78, 80, 86, 96, 129, 148–9, 230, 232 ARMH see Association to the Recuperation of Historical Memory army, 10–11, 14, 15, 17, 26–7, 28, 33, 37, 44–5, 48, 56–8, 65–6, 70, 72, 80, 96, 101, 108–9, 110, 118, 129, 149, 154 Article 143 regions see ‘slow’-track regions Article 151 regions see ‘fast’-track nationalities 249

250

INDEX

Association to the Recuperation of Historical Memory (ARMH), 168, 233, 234 Asturias, 28, 47–8, 90, 101, 103, 226, 235 Autonomy Statute of, 109–10, 235 ‘autonomy accords’ (1981), 92, 109, 180 ‘autonomy pacts’ (1992), 180–1, 185 Azaña, Manuel, 21, 44–5, 47, 56 Aznar, José María, 144–6, 149–51, 175, 180–1, 185–6, 231, 232, 235 Aznar, Juan Bautista, 38, 40 Bahamas, 26 Bailén, 8 Balearic Islands, 109–10, 235, 239 Autonomy Statute of, 109–10, 235, 239 Barcelona, 20, 27, 36, 49, 94, 130, 132, 135, 143, 191, 195 Barcelona Declaration (1998), 146 Barrachina, Marie-Aline, 222 Barranco, Juan, 105 Barroso, José Manuel Durão, see also European Commission, 239 Basagoiti, Antonio, 202 Basque Country, 1, 10, 18, 23–5, 34, 37, 43, 55, 56, 58, 60–1, 69, 75, 76, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 98–91, 93, 94–5, 101, 102, 103, 108, 110, 114, 117, 127, 130–4, 144, 146, 147, 150–1, 163, 169–70, 175, 180, 182–3, 185, 186–7, 193, 197–203, 205, 215, 219, 220, 223, 224, 226, 227, 230, 236, 237 Autonomy Statute of, 108, 133, 186–7, 198–9, 203 Basque language, 24, 220 ‘economic concert’, 193 foral privileges, 18, 91, 131, 133, 198 fueros, 18, 91, 131, 198 independence of see Basque Country, secessionism National Holiday of (Aberri Eguna), 94–5, 225 nationalism, 1, 23–5, 34, 37, 43, 55, 60–1, 69, 75, 83–4, 86, 87–8,

89–92, 94–5, 103, 110, 114, 127, 130–1, 133–4, 146, 150, 163, 169–70, 175, 180–3, 185–7, 198–203, 219, 220, 223, 224, 236, 237 regional elections 2009, 200, 202 regional elections 2012, 202 secessionism, 24, 76, 114–15, 130–1, 198–201 separatism see Basque Country, secessionism Basque nationalism see Basque Country, nationalism Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), 24, 25, 60, 95, 108, 131–4, 144, 146, 150, 151, 163, 182, 186, 198–203, 223, 229, 230 Basque Socialist Party (PSE-PSOE), 133, 200, 202, 203, 237 Bastille Day, 41 Belgium, 75 Benítez, Benito, 165 Berber tribes, 27, 34–5 Berenguer, Dámaso, 37, 40 Besteiro, Julián, 21 Beviá Pastor, José Vicente, 126, 229 bicolour flag, 41, 61–2, 80, 222 see also national flag Bilbao, 49, 134, 201, 227 Bildu, 201, 203, 237–8 Blas Guerrero, Andrés de, 84 Blue Division, 66 Borrell, José, 144 Bosch, Milans del, 109 Boyer, Miguel, 138 Brussels, 197, 214 Buenos Aires, 52 bullfight, 77, 223 búnker, 78, 79 Burgos, 233 caciquismo, 19–20 Cádiz, 8–9, 220, 225 Caldera, Jesús, 151 Calvo Sotelo, José, 33, 48 Calvo Sotelo, Leopoldo, 108–9, 110–11, 118 Canary Islands, 49, 91, 99, 185, 224, 235, 237, 239

INDEX

Autonomy Statute of, 91, 109–10, 185, 224, 235 regionalist party of (Coalición Canaria), 102–3, 226 Cánovas del Castillo, Antonio, 16, 18 Cantabria, 90, 226, 235 Autonomy Statute of, 109–10, 235 Cara al sol, 62, 69, 222–3 Carlism, 11, 18, 95 Carlist Wars, 11, 14, 15, 18 Carlists, 10–11, 17, 20, 61, 65 Carlos III, 7, 26 Carlos IV, 7, 8 Carlos María Isidro de Borbón, 10 Carr, Raymond, 21 Carrero Blanco, Luis, 76 Carrillo, Santiago, 50, 79 Castile, 25, 49, 53, 105, 201, 220, 224, 226, 235, 239 Castile and Leon, 109–10, 220, 224, 235 Autonomy Statute of, 109–10, 224, 235 Castile-La Mancha, 105, 224, 235, 239 Autonomy Statute of, 109–10, 224, 235 Castilian language, 5, 188, 191–2, 196, 204, 220, 232 Catalan nationalism see Catalonia, nationalism Catalan-Basque minority, 86, 131, 224 Catalonia, 1, 10, 18, 23–5, 26, 27, 28, 33–4, 37, 42–3, 48, 55, 56, 60–1, 69, 75, 87, 88–91, 93–4, 95, 102–3, 108, 117, 130–2, 180, 187–198, 200–1, 202, 203, 204–6, 213–17, 227 Advisory Council for the National Transition (2012), 197, 215 Autonomy Statute of (1979), 108 Autonomy Statute of (2006), 186–91, 204 Catalan language, 25, 34, 188–9, 191, 196 ‘fiscal pact’, 193 independence of see Catalonia, secessionism National Assembly of Catalonia (ANC), 194

251

national holiday of (Diada), 94, 95, 195 nationalism, 1, 23–5, 33–4, 37, 42–3, 48, 55, 60–1, 69, 75, 83–4, 86, 87, 88–91, 93–4, 95, 102–3, 108, 110, 114, 127, 130–2, 144, 146, 151, 163, 175, 180, 182–3, 185–6, 187–198, 199, 200–1, 202, 203, 204–6, 213–17, 219, 220, 224, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 233, 234, 236, 237, 238, 239 regional elections 2003, 187 regional elections 2006, 190 regional elections 2010, 193 regional elections 2012, 194–7, 202 secessionism, 1, 34, 114–15, 130–1, 190–8, 202, 204–6, 213–17 separatism see Catalonia, secessionism ‘Triparty’ government, 187, 189–193, 237 Catholic Church, 14, 29, 32, 42, 43–4, 57, 60, 65, 66, 68, 75, 86, 142, 153, 177 Catholic Monarchs, 5, 16, 62, 63, 70, 152 Catholicism, 5, 10–11, 14, 15, 16–17, 20, 24, 25, 32, 35, 37, 40, 44, 46, 50, 51–3, 54, 55, 57, 60, 63, 68, 75, 95, 100, 134, 222, 223 CDC see Democratic Convergence of Catalonia CEDA see Spanish Confederation of Automous Right-wing Groups Celtiberian, 152 census, 7, 14, 22, 89, 91, 219, 222 Centre for Sociological Research (CIS), 123, 177, 193, 229, 230, 231, 235, 237, 238 Cervantes, 36 Chile, 15, 137 CIS see Centre for Sociological Research Citizens, Party of the Citizenship (C’s), 196 CiU see Convergence and Union Civil Directory, 35 Civil Guard, 108, 139 civil society, 137, 141–2

252

INDEX

Civil War (1936–9), 18, 43, 49, 50, 54, 55–64 legacy of, 65–76, 96–7, 137, 157–78, 233 Clavero, Manuel, 90 CNT see National Confederation of Labour Coalición Canaria see Canary Islands, regionalist party of Cochinchina, 15 Cold War, 66, 70 colonization, 26, 29, 52–3, 125, 129, 130, 131, 136 Columbia, 98 Columbus, Christopher, 25, 26, 125, 130, 136, 143, 149, 221 Committee of Regions, 114 communism, 53, 56, 57, 66, 70, 141 Communist International see Komintern Communist Party of the Basque Homelands (EHAK/PCTV), 200, 201, 237 communists, 48, 50, 59, 63, 68, 79, 80, 88, 119, 135, 224, 237 see also Spanish Communist Party Condor Legion, 58 conquest (of America), 5, 26, 100, 125, 130, 131, 149 Constantine of Greece, 78 Constituent Assembly of 1810, 8, 219–20 of 1868, 17 of 1931, 41, 42 of 1977, 78, 85, 107, 164, 224 Constitution of 1812, 9–10, 220, 221 of 1869, 17 of 1876, 31, 35 of 1931, 41–5, 49, 88–9, 90–1, 221 of 1978, 1–2, 84–9, 90–1, 92, 93, 97, 99, 100–2, 103, 107–8, 111, 118–28, 130–5, 145–9, 151–5, 162, 164, 171–2, 179–82, 184–9, 191–4, 197–205, 212–17, 219, 224, 226, 229, 231 Constitutional Commission, 86–8, 97, 131, 224

Constitutional Court, 86, 110, 145, 147, 179–82, 189, 191–4, 197, 200, 204, 231, 236, 237, 238 ‘Constitutional Fathers’, 86, 119, 122, 145, 224 constitutional patriotism, 152 constitutional reform, 145–7, 152, 172, 192, 204–6, 215 Constitutional Treaty, 114–15, 213 constructivism, 4 consubstantiality, 16, 60 Convergence and Union (CiU), 108, 144, 146, 163, 175, 182, 187–8, 190, 192–8, 205–6, 227, 229, 231, 233, 235, 236 Corcuera, José Luís, 139 Counter-Reformation, 52 Cruz, Rafael, 61, 222 C’s see Citizens, Party of the Citizenship Cuba, 15, 21, 26 CUP see Popular Unity Candidates Czech Republic, 211 Day of the Armed Forces, 96, 129, 148–9, 225, 230, 232 Day of the Constitution, 117–35, 147–8, 154–5, 171, 226, 228 Day of the Victory, 70, 71, 96 Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC), 190, 227, 233 see also Convergence and Union (CiU) Democratic Union of Catalonia (UDC), 190, 227, 233 see also Convergence and Union (CiU) Día de la Hispanidad, 26, 29, 36, 51–3, 59, 98–100, 120–1, 124–6, 129–31, 134–6, 222, 225, 228, 230 see also national holiday Día de la Raza see Dia de la Hispanidad Diada see Catalonia, national holiday of discovery (of America), 25–6, 98, 125–7, 129, 136, 143, 149 Documentation Centre of Historical Memory, 176 Douglass, Carrie B., 77, 223

INDEX

economic model, 79, 211 Edward, David, 214 EEC see European Economic Community EH see Euskal Herritarrok EHAK/PCTV see Communist Party of the Basque Homelands El Mundo, 139–40 El País, 97, 100, 101, 113, 129, 135, 140, 226, 231, 236, 237 elections of 1810, 8, 219 of 1931, 42, 47 of 1933, 47 of 1936, 48 of 1977, 80–1, 85, 97, 100, 101, 108, 112, 154, 159, 163, 223 of 1979, 107–8, 163 of 1982, 111, 121, 163 of 1993, 141, 144, 146, 167 of 1996, 144, 167, 178 of 2000, 145 of 2004, 174, 175, 185, 186 of 2011, 183, 204, 211, 235, 238 electoral system, 47, 80–1, 87, 111, 146, 180, 182, 219–20 emigration, 24, 89, 113, 208 Encarnación, Omar, 142, 158, 166, 230, 231 Enlightenment, 7, 17, 52 ERC see Republican Left of Catalonia essentialism, 4, 5, 16, 23, 25, 95, 104–5, 134, 151–2 Estado de las Autonomías, 90, 179, 181, 184, 192 Estado integral, 43, 88–9 Estonia, 211 ETA see Euskadi Ta Askatasuna EU see European Union EUiA see United and Alternative Left Eurobarometer, 230 European Capital of Culture see Madrid, European Capital of Culture (1992) European Central Bank, 207 European Commission, 207, 213–14, 239 European Court of Justice, 214

253

European Economic Community (EEC), 110–15, 130, 142–3 Treaty of Accession, 113 European Monetary System, 143 European single market, 143 European Union (EU), 114–15, 141, 144, 157, 197–8, 203, 207, 211, 213–14, 231, 238, 239 Eurostat, 238 Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), 76, 108, 109, 138, 169, 180, 185, 187, 199, 200, 202, 203, 223, 227, 231, 237 Euskal Herritarrok (EH), 201, 202, 237 Eusko Alkartasuna, 237 exile, 10, 64, 67, 69, 78, 80, 169, 171, 172, 176 Expo see Universal Expo (Sevilla, 1992) Extremadura, 45, 103, 164–5, 224, 226, 233, 235 Autonomy Statute of, 109–10, 224, 235 extreme right wing, 51, 109, 121, 130–1 Falange Española, 52, 57, 61, 62, 65–6, 69, 174, 222 Falangists, 57, 61–2, 65–6, 69, 222 fascism, 33, 36, 47, 52, 56, 57, 66–7, 69 ‘fast’-track nationalities, 90–1, 181 federalism, 1, 17, 43, 61, 88–9, 192, 196, 205 Felipe V, 94 Fernández Miranda, Torcuato, 79 Fernando III, 16 Fernando VII, 8–11, 17, 221 Fiesta de la Raza see Dia de la Hispanidad Fifth Centenary see quincentennial Filesa affair, 138–9 First Spanish Republic, 18, 41, 88, 221 First World War, 28–30, 35, 36 fishing, 113 Floridablanca, 7, 219 foral privileges see Basque Country, foral privileges Foxá, Agustín de, 223

254

INDEX

Fraga, Manuel, 144, 163 France, 3, 7–8, 13, 26, 34, 58, 66, 75, 113, 138, 210 Franco, Francisco, 43, 48, 54, 57–8, 59, 62, 63–76 Francoist dictatorship, 38, 60–1, 64–76, 94, 95, 222, 223, 229 legacy of, 74–76, 78, 81–5, 96–100, 108–9, 111, 117–18, 128–9, 142, 144, 157–78, 229, 233 Francoist ideology, 38, 51–3, 56, 59–60, 62–3, 68–70, 71–4 Francoist national symbols, 62–3, 69, 102, 117–18, 121, 162, 176, 228 Franco-Spanish War (1793–5), 8 freemasons, 69 French Foreign Legion, 56 French Morocco, 66 French Revolution, 2–3, 7, 20 ‘frozen democracies’, 140–1 fueros see Basque Country, fueros Fusi, Juan Pablo, 2, 243 GAL affair, 138–9 Galeuzca (1933), 231 Galicia, 20, 24, 34, 48, 60, 84, 89–90, 91, 103, 109, 146, 185, 224, 226, 235, 237 Autonomy Statute of, 91, 109, 185, 224, 235 Galician Nationalist Block, 146 Ganivet, Ángel, 220 García Calvo, Agustín, 105 General Archive of the Civil War, 176 General Union of Workers (UGT) 28, 33, 144 see also labour movement and National Confederation of Labour (CNT) Generalitat, 43, 94, 120, 132, 195 Generation of ’98, 21–3, 112, 114 ‘generation of the grandchildren’, 168, 175, 178 German–Spanish friendship treaty, 66 Germany, 3, 56, 58, 63, 66, 69, 75, 173–4, 210, 233 Getafe, 127 Gibraltar, 58, 66 Gil Robles, José María, 47 Giner de los Ríos, Francisco, 21

González Ruano, César, 222 González, Felipe, 79, 86, 112, 121, 122, 126, 137, 138, 144–5, 148, 159, 166, 180, 185, 231, 232 Goya, Francisco, 8, 220 Graham, Helen, 40 Granada, 225 Grandes, Luís, 151 Great Britain, 1, 8, 22, 26, 34, 58, 66, 137, 197, 210, 213–14, 216 Greece, 78, 112, 141, 208, 211 Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación see GAL affair Guadalupe, Virgin of, 99, 225 Guernica, 58 Guerra, Alfonso, 118, 160 Habermas, Jürgen, 152 Habsburg, 16 HB see Herri Batasuna Herrero Rodríguez de Miñón, Miguel, 118 Herri Batasuna (HB), 134, 201, 230, 236, 237, 238 Himno de Riego, 41 Hispania, 2 hispanidad, 29, 36, 51–3, 59–60, 98–100, 120–1, 124–6, 129–31, 134–6, 222, 225, 228, 230 Hispano-America, 36, 51, 59, 98, 100, 128, 153, 225 Hispano-American exhibition (1929–30), 36 Historians dispute, 173–4 historical justice, 84, 107, 169, 173–4 ‘historical nationalities’ see ‘historical regions’ ‘historical regions’, 83, 90, 91, 92, 103, 108, 110, 131–2, 185 Historikerstreit see Historians dispute Hitler, Adolf, 47, 58, 66, 78 Holland, 75 Huntington, Samuel, 140, 157, 231 ‘Ibarretxe Plan’, 186, 198–200, 201, 202, 203, 219, 236 Ibarretxe, Juan José, 150, 186–7, 198–203, 232 Ibercorp case, 138–9

INDEX

Iberian Peninsula, 2, 113, 154 ICV-EUiA see Initiative for Catalonia Greens – United and Alternative Left IMF see International Monetary Fund immigration, 23, 104, 207–8, 210–11, 238 independence of Catalonia see Catalonia, secessionism industrialization, 22–4, 74, 89, 91 INI see National Institute of Industry Initiative for Catalonia Greens – United and Alternative Left (ICV-EUiA), 187, 236, 237 Inquisition, 63 Institución Libre de Enseñanza, 21, 220 Institute of Agrarian Reform, 45 Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericano, 128 Instituto de Cultura Hispánica, 99 Integral State see Estado integral International Brigades, 57, 59, 176 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 70, 207–8 Ireland, 208 Isabel II, 11, 17, 18 Italian Fascist Party, 36 Italy, 3, 17, 22, 33, 36, 56, 57–8, 63, 66, 67, 69, 137, 149, 207–8, 210, 211 IU see United Left Japan, 71 Jews, 68 José I (Bonaparte), 8 JSU see Unified Socialist Youth Juan Carlos I, 76, 78, 79, 80, 86, 98–100, 109, 121, 129, 133–4, 139, 148–9, 154, 159, 229, 233 Junta Democrática (1974), 83–4, 223 Juntas de defensa (1917–18), 28 Juridical Statute (1931), 40, 221 Komintern, 59 Krause, Karl C.F., 20–1 Krausism, 20–1 La Granja de San Ildefonso, 225 La Rioja, 90, 103, 226, 235

255

Autonomy Statute of, 109–10, 235 Laborda, Juan José, 118, 126, 227, 228, 229 labour movement, 17, 27, 28, 33, 46, 50, 56, 81, 141–2, 144 see also General Union of Workers; National Confederation of Labour Lafuente, Modesto, 16 Las Palmas, 101, 225 Latin, 2, 5 Latin America, 24, 89, 143, 157, 208, 238 Latinobarometer, 230 Law for Political Reform (1976), 80–1, 87, 100–1, 161 Law of Congregations (1933), 44, 47 Law on Amnesty (1977), 108, 160–1, 162, 163, 165, 169, 170, 232, 233 Law on Historical Memory (2007), 174–8 Leganés, 127 Leguina, Joaquín, 104–5 lehendakari, 131, 133, 150, 202, 230 Lehmann Brothers, 209 Lerma, 233 Lerroux, Alejandro, 47 lieux de mémoire, 5–6, 69 Llamazares, Gaspar, 151 LOAPA see Organic Law on the Harmonisation of the Autonomy Process López de Lerma, Josep, 229 López, Patxi, 202 Maastricht Treaty, 114, 115 madre patria, 100 Madrid, 8, 9, 20, 23, 26, 29, 36, 43, 49, 50, 51, 56, 58, 70, 98, 99, 101, 103, 114, 121, 122, 127, 128, 131, 132, 133, 135, 143, 149, 150, 165, 182–8, 190, 194, 197, 199, 201, 202, 205, 206, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 225, 229, 235 Madrid (Autonomous Community), 90, 103–6, 109–10, 226, 235 Autonomy Statute of, 109–10, 235 coat of arms of, 104, 121

256

INDEX

Madrid, European Capital of Culture (1992), 143 Maeztu, Ramiro de, 22, 52, 99 Mallorca, 49, 225 Mancomunidad of Catalonia, 33–4, 88, 94 Manzanas, Melitón, 169 Maquis, 170 Maragall, Pasqual, 114, 185, 187, 190 Mas, Artur, 190–7, 205–6, 215, 236 mass graves, 164–5, 168, 172, 234 Menéndez Pelayo, Marcelino, 17, 68 Mexico, 15, 58, 99, 169, 238 Mexico City, 105 Miaja, José, 59 Military Directory, 35 Mitterrand, François, 113 Mola, Emilio, 48 monarchists, 32, 39, 42, 50, 57, 61, 65 monarchy, 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 28, 31, 32, 34, 38, 40, 41, 46, 53, 76, 78, 80, 86, 87, 125, 133, 134, 162 Moncloa, Pacts of, see Pacts of Moncloa Montilla, José, 190 Montoro, Ricardo, 223–4 Monument to the Fallen for Spain, 128, 229 Morocco, 15, 25, 26, 27, 31, 32, 34–35, 48, 49, 56, 66, 238 Móstoles, 127 municipal elections of 1931, 38, 40 of 1979, 108, 164, 229 Murcia, 90, 103, 235, 239 Autonomy Statute of, 109–10, 235 Mussolini, Benito, 57, 67 myth of the ungovernable character of the Spaniards, 72, 73, 85, 134, 159, 173, 177 Napoleon, 8–10, 14, 16, 59 national anthem, 41, 61–2, 69, 93, 121 National Assembly of Catalonia see Catalonia, National Assembly of Catalonia (ANC)

national coat of arms of 1868, 41 of 1931, 41 of 1938, 62–3, 69, 118, 121 of 1981, 117–18, 121, 227, 228 National Confederation of Labour (CNT), 27, 28, 33, 40, 45, 47, 48 see also General Union of Workers; labour movement national flag, 41, 61–2, 77, 80, 117–18, 121, 130–1, 149–51, 153, 221–2, 226, 227–8, 232 national holiday, 25–6, 29, 41, 50, 77, 93, 97–102, 104, 105, 106, 117–36, 147–50, 153–5, 162, 221, 225, 226, 228, 229, 231 National Institute of Industry (INI), 67 national symbols, 5–6, 14, 49, 53, 61, 62, 63, 69, 93, 96, 102, 117–18, 121, 147–50 national-Catholicism, 59–60, 63, 65, 68–69, 95, 100, 222 nationality, 88, 90–2, 176, 184, 186–8 NATO, 110–11, 113 Navarre, 10, 18, 49, 90, 91, 102–3, 185, 224, 226, 228, 233, 235, 237 Autonomy Statute of, 91, 109–10, 185, 235 Kingdom of, 62 regionalist party of (Unión del Pueblo Navarro), 102–3, 226 Nazi-Germany, 69, 173–4 see also Germany negotiated transitions, 76, 140–1 Nora, Pierre, 5, 69–70, 97, 245 Núñez Seixas, Xosé-Manoel, 55, 60, 103 O’Donnell y Duque de Estrada, Hugo, 222 OECD, 71 OEEC, 70 oil crisis, first (1973), 79 oil crisis, second (1979), 110 Olympic Games (1992), 135, 143 ombudsman, 86, 236

INDEX

Opus Dei, 70, 223 Organic Law on the Harmonisation of the Autonomy Process (LOAPA), 92, 109–10, 179, 180 Ortega y Gasset, José, 112, 114 Osborne Brandy, 77 Our Lady of the Pillar of Zaragoza, 29 pact not to instrumentalise the past politically, 160–7, 169–70, 173–8, 233 Pact of San Sebastian (1930), 39, 88 Pacts of Moncloa (1977), 81, 110 Palacio Real see Royal Palace Palma de Mallorca, 225 Palos de la Frontera, 225 Partido Aragonés Regionalista see Aragon, regionalist party of Party of Catalan Socialists (PSC), 185, 187, 196, 237 Patriotic Union (UP), 32, 35 Patrons of Spain, 26, 36 PCE see Spanish Communist Party PCTV see Communist Party of the Basque Homelands Peace Parade (1964), 72 Peces-Barba, Gregorio, 119, 122 Pemán, José María, 69 Peru, 15 Philip II, 36 Philippines, 15, 21 Piqué, Josep, 152 Plan for Youth Employment (1988), 145 Plaza de España (Barcelona), 36 Plaza de España (Madrid), 36 Plaza de España (Seville), 36 PNV see Basque Nationalist Party political culture, 72, 137–8, 140–1, 153, 170, 177, 183 political ‘families’, 65, 66, 82 Politico-Social Brigade, 169 Popular Alliance (AP), 80, 88, 127, 133, 135, 144, 160, 163, 178, 224 Popular Front, 48 Popular Party (PP), 139, 144–5, 146, 148–55, 157, 163, 166–7, 169–75, 177–8, 179–80, 183, 185, 186,

257

187, 188, 189–91, 193, 194, 196, 197, 200, 202–3, 205–6, 207, 211–15, 231, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238 Popular Socialist Party, 224 Popular Unity Candidates (CUP), 196 Portugal, 8, 24, 57, 112, 207, 231 Pozo Andrés, María del Mar, 222 PP see Popular Party Prado museum, 221 paseo del, 128 ‘pre-autonomous’ regimes, 90, 224 Prieto, Indalecio, 39 Prim, Juan, 17 Primo de Rivera, José Antonio, 174, 222 Primo de Rivera, Miguel, 27, 31–8, 39, 40, 42, 44, 46, 51, 68, 76, 88, 94 Progress and Democracy Union (UPyD), 204, 235, 238 protestantism, 17 Provincial Defensce Juntas (1808–14), 8, 219 PSC see Party of Catalan Socialists PSE-PSOE see Basque Socialist Party PSUC see Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia Puerto Rico, 21 Puigcercós, Joan, 151 Pujol, Jordi, 94, 130, 132, 192, 230, 237 quincentennial, 117, 127, 129, 135, 143, 147–8 Radcliff, Pamela, 222 Radical Republican Party, 47 Rajoy, Mariano, 197, 202, 204–6, 207, 215 Raposo, Hipólito, 222 recentralization, 183, 193, 212 reconquest (of Iberian peninsula), 5, 15, 36, 63, 100, 125 referendum on Basque Autonomy Statute (1979), 133 on Catalan Autonomy Statute (2006), 189–90, 196, 236

258

INDEX

on Catalan independence, 193–5, 197, 215–17, 238 on Constitution of 1978 (1978), 86, 100–2, 118–27, 132–5, 153, 162, 181, 224, 226 on Constitutional Treaty (2005), 115 on Law for Political Reform (1976), 80, 100, 101, 161 on NATO membership (1986), 113 on Scottish Independence (2014), 1, 197, 213–15 Reformation, 5 regenerationism, 21–3, 32, 68 Regionalist League, 25 regulares, 56 Renan, Ernest, 4, 219 Renovales, Carmelo, 133, 230 Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), 131, 132, 151, 175, 187, 189, 194, 196, 201, 205–6, 236, 237 republican national symbols, 41, 49–50, 61–2, 80, 221 Restoration regime (1875–1923), 19–30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 39, 40, 46, 88 retroactive justice, 158, 169 Richthofen, Wolfram Freiherr von, 58 Ridruejo, Dionisio, 222 Riego, Rafael del, 41, 221 right to self-determination, 84, 134, 186, 191, 194, 197–9, 216 Ríos, Fernando de los, 21 Roca, Miquel, 86, 119, 131 Roldán, Luís, 139 Roman Empire, 2, 5, 152 Royal Academy, 69 Royal Academy of History, 16 Royal March, 41, 62, 69 see also National Anthem Royal Palace, 78, 128, 133 Rubio, Mariano, 138 Ruiz Larrea, César, 229 Russian Revolution, 27 Saint James, 26, 29 Saint John, 62 Saint Theresa, 26 Salamanca, 176 Salazar, Antonio, 57

San Gil, María, 152 San Sebastian, 39, 88, 169, 225 Sánchez Mazas, Rafael, 222 Santiago Güervos, Javier de, 223–4 scandals, 138–41, 143, 145, 147 Scotland, 1, 197, 203, 213–14, 215, 216, 217, 239 Second International, 53 Second Spanish Republic, 37–8, 39–54, 55–7, 58, 59–64, 69, 72, 74, 80–1, 83, 85, 87, 88–9, 90, 94, 97, 105, 164–6, 175, 221, 222, 229, 233 Second Vatican Council, 75 Second World War, 15, 65–6, 67, 82 secularization, 37, 42, 43–4, 53 Semana Trágica (1909), 27 Senate, 86, 118, 146–7, 188, 204–5 Sepúlveda Muñoz, Isidro, 222 Serra, Narcís, 139 Serrano, Francisco, 18 Seville, 36, 135, 143, 147, 225 sexenio revolucionario (1868–74), 17–18, 19, 29 Silva Barrera, Emilio, 168, 234 Silva Sánchez, Manuel José, 234 Slovenia, 211 ‘slow’-track regions, 90–1, 102–6, 180–2, 185, 235 Solchaga, Carlos, 138 Solé Tura, Jordi, 88, 224 Sorozábal, Pablo, 226 Sortu, 237–8 South Africa, 169 Soviet Russia, 53, 56 Soviet Union, 58, 66 Sozialista Abertzaleak, 236 Spanish Communist Party (PCE), 80–1, 84, 88, 111, 133, 135, 142, 163, 164, 223, 224 Spanish Confederation of Automous Right-wing Groups (CEDA), 47 Spanish Legion, 56 Spanish Morocco, 26–7, 31, 32, 34–5, 48, 49, 56 Spanish National Bank, 138 Spanish protectorate (in Morocco), 27, 34 Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party (PSOE), 17, 33, 39, 40, 42, 46, 47,

INDEX

48, 50, 79–80, 84, 86, 88, 92, 109, 110, 111–13, 118, 121–8, 131, 133, 135, 137–40, 142, 144–5, 146, 148, 151, 157, 158–61, 163–7, 170, 174–5, 177, 178, 180, 185–8, 191, 192, 207, 209, 212, 224, 229, 231, 232, 235, 236, 238 Spanish–American War (1898), 15, 21–3, 25, 26, 30, 220 Stabilization Plan (1959), 71 Steer, George, 58 Suárez, Adolfo, 79–81, 85, 86, 87, 91, 96, 97, 107–8, 159, 163 Supreme Central Junta (1808–14), 8 Switzerland, 5, 75 technocrats, 70, 71, 223 Tejero, Antonio, 108–9, 165 Tellería, Juan, 62, 222 The Movement, 57, 62, 65, 79 Tierno Galván, Enrique, 229 Torresandino, 233 tourism, 75, 181, 210 trade unions see labour movement traditionalism, 10, 11, 18, 20, 23, 24, 52, 53, 57, 68, 100, 151 Treaty of Fontainebleau, 8 tricolour flag, 41, 61–2, 80, 221 see also national flag Tridentine Council, 52 Trienio liberal (1820–3), 10, 221 Trillo, Federico, 2, 150–1, 219, 232 ‘Triparty’ government see Catalonia, ‘Triparty’ government Triple Alianza (1923), 231 truth commission, 158, 169 turno pacífico, 19 two-turnover-test, 140, 157, 231 UCD see Union of Democratic Centre UDC see Democratic Union of Catalonia UGT see General Union of Workers ultra-right wing see extreme right wing Unamuno, Miguel de, 51–2, 220, 222 unemployment, 28, 33, 45–6, 79, 81, 111, 113, 143, 202, 207–8, 210, 211

259

Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC), 88, 224, 236 Unified Socialist Youth (JSU), 50 Unió Valenciana see Valencia, regionalist party of Unión Alavesa see Álava, regionalist party of Unión del Pueblo Navarro see Navarre, regionalist party of Union of Democratic Centre (UCD), 80, 85, 88, 91, 92, 101, 108, 109, 110, 111, 118, 119, 120, 123, 128, 133, 163, 180, 224 unions see labour movement United and Alternative Left (EUiA), 236 see also Initiative for Catalonia Greens – United and Alternative Left (ICV-EUiA) United Left (IU), 126, 127, 151, 170, 175, 182, 204, 229, 234, 235, 238 United Nations, 70 United States, 15, 22, 59, 66, 70, 113, 210, 221 Universal Expo Barcelona (1929), 36 Sevilla (1992), 135, 143, 147, 225 UPyD see Progress and Democracy Union Urkullu, Iñigo, 202, 203, 238 Uruguay, 141 Valencia, 91, 102, 103, 109, 194, 203, 220, 224, 226, 235, 239 Autonomy Statute of, 109–10, 224, 235 regionalist party of (Unió Valenciana), 102–3, 226 Valladolid, 225 Valley of the Fallen, 176 VAT, 113 Vatican, 70, 75 vertical unions, 82, 142 Victory Parades, 72, 96, 129 Visigoths, 2, 152 Vitoria, 133 Vizcarra, Zacarías de, 52 Vizcaya, 133, 201 Volksgeist, 52

260

INDEX

Wall Street, 36 war of Africa (1859–60), 15 of Cuba (1868–78), 15 of Independence (1808–14), 8–10, 14, 15, 16, 50, 59, 104 of Melilla (1893–4), 15 of Morocco (1911–27), 26–7, 31–2, 34–5 of Santo Domingo (1863–5), 15 of Succession (1701–13/15), 94 of the Pacific (1879–83), 15

Weber, Eugen, 3, 243 Wehrmacht, 58 Wellington, Duke of, 8 Western Allies, 66, 70 World Bank, 70 World Cup soccer championships, 77 World Swimming Championships, 77 Zapatero, José Luís, 145, 158, 161, 175, 177, 185–7, 191–2, 207, 209, 212, 236 Zaragoza, 29, 220

261

262

263

264