Though it is largely forgotten today, there was during the late 80s
and early 90s a vigorous debate in numerous sectors of European life
about whether the EU would be best structured as a Union of Regions or
as a Union of States.
Adherents of the first posture hoped and believed that the goal the
then still-emerging Union should be to greatly lessen the importance of
existing national boundaries and governments and to promote, or at least
not stand in the way of, the emergence of new economic and social
regions. For example, since the Galician region of Spain shares much in
the way of language culture and geography with neighboring northern
Portugal, it should, according to this outlook, be free to loosen
existing bonds with far-away Madrid and direct more of its resources and
infrastructural aims toward forging economic and social integration
with nearby and traditionally dynamic Oporto.
This, of course, frightened the proponents of a Europe of States, who
quite rightly saw such developments as a threat to dramatically
diminish the prerogatives of existing governments.
For reasons that are too numerous to examine fully here, but that
include bureaucratic inertia, and the desire of an always meddling US to
have the ability to play states off against each other both within a
dramatically-expanded NATO and the EU as a whole, the idea of the Europe
of Regions was eventually bludgeoned into insignificance by the
proponents of a Europe of the States.
Yet, for all their success in neutering the practical day-to-day
effects of a Europe of Regions, the proponents of the Europe of States
were unable to fully disable certain institutions, such as the European
Parliament and the European Court of Justice, forged and/or strengthened
in the early years of the EU, and whose structure implicitly militated
against the continuing weight and hegemony of state governments within
the overall functioning of the confederation.
For example, while a candidate for the European Parliament nominally
“comes from” one or another member state, voters from any jurisdiction
in the Union can select him or her on the ballot. He or she is thus not
only a representative of, say, Spain and the Spanish citizens, but of
the European people as a whole.
Catalonia has been plunged into turmoil again by Spain's removal of
its regional president, Quim Torra, and his separatist party’s refusal
to call a snap election.
The Spanish Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Torra violated
electoral law, paving the way for his immediate removal as the region’s
separatist leader.
The court upheld last year’s regional court ruling
that Torra was guilty of disobedience for taking three days to remove
banners and yellow ribbons draped on public buildings in support of
jailed pro-independence leaders during an election campaign in 2019, in
defiance of the election commission.
The lower court had banned him from public office for 18 months and
fined him €30,000 plus the legal costs of the trial. In his appeal,
Torra argued that his decision not to remove the symbols immediately was
“political” rather than “administrative” and should be protected by the
right to freedom of expression.
Three years after Catalonia held a historic referendum on
self-determination, we are still a long way from resolving a conflict
that continues to deny Catalonians the right to determine their future.
The Spanish state, immersed in an institutional crisis of a depth not
seen since the death of dictator Francisco Franco, has been unable to
come up with political proposals to solve the dispute.
Several recent developments are standing in the way of progress.
The country’s highest office, the monarchy, has lost all credibility.
Public support for the institution is at an all-time low following the flight of King Juan Carlos I,
who has sought to escape a corruption investigation. His son Felipe
VI’s decision to align with the right-wing, conservative branch of
politics is another blow to the royal family’s reputation. In Catalonia,
some 71 percent of people say they would prefer a republic; only 14 percent prefer a monarchy. The fact that dictator Franco was the one to appoint
Juan Carlos to be his successor as head of state, and thereby restored
the monarchy when he died, no doubt plays a part in people’s growing
rejection of the monarchy.
The Andorra Hustle review – pulsating exposé of international corruption
A heist-movie mood propels this rigorous doc about the role of an obscure bank in a US plan to undermine Catalan separatism
The subject of Eric Merola’s film at first seems small: how a private bank in the tiny mountain nation of Andorra
found itself at the centre of a conspiracy. But its real interests are
wide-reaching: the tactics used by the US government to disrupt
Catalonia’s independence movement, and the modern face of American interventionism.
The Andorra Hustle — Full Documentary (English) — by Eric Merola
Synopsis: If you have never heard of the country of Andorra, you will now.
Andorra, a tiny, independent country situated between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains with a total population of 80,000 people found itself at the center of one of the most convoluted and outrageous bank robberies in modern history: on March 10, 2015, Banca Privada d’Andorra (BPA), a private bank in Andorra, was shut down by Spanish, American, and Andorran governments in Spain’s efforts to destroy the Catalonian Independence Movement thus leaving dozens of innocent civilians facing prison for money laundering crimes that never existed, and scores of innocent families have had their entire life savings stolen from them.
The incentive for the Spanish government to destroy BPA was part of Spain’s ongoing “Operation Catalonia”—a covert state-sponsored war-like operation to undermine the progress of Catalonia’s efforts to separate from Spain due to generations of humanitarian and economic repression Madrid has inflicted upon Catalonia. America’s incentive was to protect Spain’s interests, as an ally of the United States. Andorra’s incentive appears to be purely economical on behalf of its leadership.
BPA was targeted due to the assumption that members of the top Catalonian leadership (President Jordi Pujol, President Artur Mas, and Vice President Oriol Junqueras) had their money stored at BPA. Spanish Police were of the opinion that destroying the bank accounts of the Catalonian leadership would help win their war against Catalonia.
A little known fact presented in THE ANDORRA HUSTLE: America’s FinCEN (US Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) has the power to shut down any bank in the world with a single press release called a “Section 311” – part of the USA Patriot Act—without requiring any evidence of wrongdoing, under the guise of “protecting the world’s financial system”. Spanish Police presented fake evidence of money laundering to America’s FinCEN, resulting in America issuing a “Section 311” against BPA. In the weeks following, the American private equity firm J.C. Flowers purchased the newly destroyed BPA at an 86% discount—precisely verbatim as Spain warned would happen to BPA.
Most mainstream news reporting on the closing of BPA have reported that BPA was shut down due to money laundering activity concerning the Sinaloa Drug Cartel, the Venezuelan government, and Russian and Chinese mafias. This documentary examines these money laundering charges in a forensic fashion, proving that BPA was categorically innocent of these crimes. THE ANDORRA HUSTLE gives the audience a well-researched narrative that contradicts all mainstream news coverage of these events.
Affirm that Catalonia is one Colony of Spain seems, even for the most committed nationalists, a dialectical exaggeration. It is a concept that independentism has not assumed in a regular way, as has been shown in the election programs of September 27. The comparative historical analysis of the features that characterized colonialism from the sixteenth to the twentieth century allows the typology of contemporary Catalan reality to be unequivocally colonial. What are these features? For starters, the armies of the metropolis occupy without a right a country that until then was sovereign. Catalonia was occupied by the armies of Castile between 1705 and 1714. The Principality was then an independent state integrated into a confederation, the Crown of Aragon. Let us remember the occupation of America, Africa or Asia in the centuries of colonialism. We note the existence of the Spanish flag on the facade of Capitania, irrefutable testimony of the current presence of the Spanish army in Catalonia. Second, the invasive power destroys the institutions of the occupied country and imposes military control over it. From the Bourbon decree of the New Floor of 1716 is what has happened to Catalonia. The autonomous periods have been nothing more than a lenitarian force of military occupation. Third, the occupying power organizes the economic downturn of the colony. Let us remember the drainage of American gold to Castile after the conquest. This is what has happened with Catalonia. From the Bourbon Tax to the Cadastre in the XVIII century to the Sixteen billion annual fiscal deficits in recent times, Catalonia has been, for three hundred years, a country spoiled by Spain. Fourthly, the colonizing power has found and promoted, within the colony, political, social or economic organizations favorable to the metropolis and, therefore, opposed to the liberation of that one. These sectors have acted as the fifth column to support the power occupying and curbing the aforementioned release movements. In Catalonia, this fifth column has fought against the forces of the metropolis, independentism. In the past 27-S elections, this fifth branch column has personal names and political organizations that are in the minds of everyone. Fifthly, the Settlers have attempted to disrupt the language and culture of the conquered countries. The imposition has also affected, with repressive or inquisitorial actions of great hardness, the religious beliefs of the occupied countries. The attempt to make Catalan language and culture disappear as an identifying element of the first order of the Catalan state has been constant. The repression of Catalan has been manifested permanently since the first Bourbon arrangements after 1714, up to the Wert law. The decrees, laws, regulations and provisions of the Madrid court against Catalan occupy hundreds of pages and have been unalterable throughout the centuries South American countries know what language repression meant for the maintenance of their own languages. When the metropolis has not managed to make these languages disappear, it is wrong to turn them into second category languages. A last factor. The metropolis never allowed the colony to freely decide on its destination through a referendum on self-determination that allowed decolonization. This is the case of Catalonia. History teaches that colonizing processes have only been defeated when the countries victims of the destructive action of the metropolis have achieved independence. Catalonia is one of the few countries on the planet that has not yet been liberated from colonizing oppression, and if we look only for Europe, we will see that Catalonia continues to be, based on the features I have mentioned, the only colony that still exists in the Old Continent From this there is a broad collective consciousness, that which must allow the liberation National of Catalonia that is already seen on a horizon that is closer to each day.
Hero to pariah: Juan Carlos’ exile sparks anger in Spain
Legal woes have forced former king into exile and tarnished the monarchy in crisis-stricken country
" Juan Carlos’ downfall started one morning in April 2012 in a hunting camp in Botswana, when he tripped on a stair and broke his hip.
Details of the previously undisclosed €40,000 trip — paid for by a Saudi businessman and shared with a former lover and her child — sparked anger at a time when Spaniards were suffering through the global financial crisis. Within days, the then Spanish king emitted an apology: “I am sorry. I made a mistake.”
This week, after more controversy and allegations, Juan Carlos formulated another apology in the form of exile. The royal was to “leave Spain” after “public repercussions that certain past events in my private life are generating”, he wrote in a statement.
It has been a rapid fall from grace for the man once feted as both the architect and saviour of Spain’s democracy. The past decade has witnessed cracks in a phenomenon author Javier Cercas called the “taboo of the king” — whereby Spain’s major media outlets long omitted negative stories about the monarchy.
“We’ve gone from not saying anything bad about the king to convicting him without a trial,” Mr Cercas said. [ ... ] ".
The United States national election is now only three months away and it
should be expected that the out-and-out lies emanating from both
parties will increase geometrically as
the polling date nears. One of the more interesting claims regarding the
election itself is the White House assertion that large scale voting by
mail will permit fraud, so much so that the result of the voting will
be unreliable or challenged. To be sure, it is not as if voter fraud is
unknown in the United States. The victory of John F. Kennedy 1960
presidential election has often been credited to all the graveyards in
Mayor Richard Daley’s Chicago voting to swing Illinois into the
Democratic camp.
◼️◻️📰 Another slap in the face lto the Spanish court prosecuting the exiled Catalan leaders.
#Belgium justice denies #Spain
extradition of @LluisPuigGordi because it is not incumbent upon the
Supreme Court to request it. Yet again, Spanish justice finds itself in
trouble when dealing with truly independent European courts.
Juan Carlos, ancien monarque espagnol soupçonné de corruption, s’exile
Aucune précision n’a été faite concernant le pays où l’ancien roi, qui avait abdiqué en 2014 sur fond de scandales, s’installera.
" Soupçonné de corruption et sous le coup d’une enquête de la Cour suprême, l’ex-roi d’Espagne Juan Carlos a annoncé sa décision de quitter le pays dans une lettre adressée à son fils, le souverain Felipe VI, rendue publique par la maison royale lundi 3 août. Aucune précision n’a été faite concernant le pays où il s’installera.
« Guidé à présent par la conviction de rendre le meilleur service aux Espagnols, à leurs institutions, et à toi en tant que roi, je t’informe de ma décision réfléchie de m’exiler, en cette période, en dehors de l’Espagne », a écrit l’ancien souverain, estimant devoir prendre cette décision sur fond de « répercussions publiques de certains épisodes de [sa] vie privée passée ». Il s’assure ainsi de ne pas rendre la tâche plus difficile à son fils, ajoute-il. Dans un communiqué de la maison royale, son fils fait savoir qu’il accepte sa décision et l’en remercie. [ ... ] "
Juan Carlos et son épouse, Sophie de Grèce, à Ceuta, le 5 novembre 2007. JOSE LUIS ROCA / AFP
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain’s former king Juan Carlos has decided to leave
his country, a dramatic exit designed to protect the monarchy after a
barrage of corruption allegations surfaced against him.
Paluzie: "In October 2017, the force of the citizenry was prepared to go a long way"
Elisenda Paluzie (Barcelona, 1969) is to be president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) for two more years after being re-elected in June 2020 by the new secretariat of this key pro-independence organization in Catalonia. At a time when the organization she leads is further away than ever from the Catalan political parties and the independence issue has been pushed into the background by the health crisis, Paluzie speaks in this interview with ElNacional.cat about what has been learned from 2017 and how the ANC sees the issue of independence - and a unilateral strategy to reach it - as returning to the centre stage of the Catalan political debate.
Press Release (English) 16 February, 2017 CIA espionage orders for the last French presidential election
All major French political parties were targeted for infiltration by
the CIA's human ("HUMINT") and electronic ("SIGINT") spies in the seven
months leading up to France's 2012 presidential election. The
revelations are contained within three CIA tasking orders published
today by WikiLeaks as context for its forth coming CIA Vault 7 series.
Named specifically as targets are the
French Socialist Party (PS), the National Front (FN) and Union for a
Popular Movement (UMP) together with current President Francois
Hollande, then President Nicolas Sarkozy, current round one presidential
front runner Marine Le Pen, and former presidential candidates Martine
Aubry and Dominique Strauss-Khan.
The CIA assessed that President Sarkozy's party was not assured
re-election. Specific tasking concerning his party included obtaining
the "Strategic Election Plans" of the Union for a Popular Movement
(UMP); schisms or alliances developing in the UMP elite; private UMP
reactions to Sarkozy's campaign stratagies; discussions within the UMP
on any "perceived vulnerabilities to maintaining power" after the
election; efforts to change the party's ideological mission; and
discussions about Sarkozy's support for the UMP and "the value he places
on the continuation of the party's dominance". Specific instructions
tasked CIA officers to discover Sarkozy's private deliberations "on the
other candidates" as well as how he interacted with his advisors.
Sarkozy's earlier self-identification as "Sarkozy the American" did not
protect him from US espionage in the 2012 election or during his
presidency.
The espionage order for "Non Ruling Political Parties
and Candidates Strategic Election Plans" which targeted Francois
Holland, Marine Le Pen and other opposition figures requires obtaining
opposition parties' strategies for the election; information on internal
party dynamics and rising leaders; efforts to influence and implement
political decisions; support from local government officials, government
elites or business elites; views of the United States; efforts to reach
out to other countries, including Germany, U.K., Libya, Israel,
Palestine, Syria & Cote d'Ivoire; as well as information about party
and candidate funding.
CARME FORCADELL LLUÍS Former Speaker of the Catalan Parliament
Parlamentarianism sits in the dock
We have seen how some courts are looking to turn the Parliamentary Board into a censoring body and we can’t allow that
" On Tuesday this week another case that should have never made it this far will actually go to court. The MPs who served with me on the Board of the Catalan Parliament [in 2017] will be tried in a court of law. The Board —the body tasked with preserving the sovereignty of the chamber, upholding the right of MPs to table initiatives, protecting the free exercise of political thought and the freedom of expression— will sit in the dock with them. It will be an unfair trial that will expose, once again, how basic rights, such as free speech and the right to political representation, are trampled on in Spain. We have seen judges decide what may and may not be debated and what the Catalan Parliament may and may not vote on. We have even seen them decide who gets to take up a seat in parliament and who doesn’t. We have seen how some courts are looking to turn the Parliamentary Board into a censoring body and we can’t allow that. As democratic citizens, we cannot allow censorship to enter the Catalan Parliament. [ ... ] "
We have lost any expectations about changing this corrupt kingdom whose Head of State was imposed by Franco. #WeWantDemocracy and we'll build the Republic of Catalonia.
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Former Spanish king rules out dropping title as tension grows over corruption scandal
Spain;s former monarch has been embroiled in scandal over his finances
Juan Carlos will not give up his title of King Emeritus in order to salvage the royal family's reputation, according to sources close to the disgraced former king of Spain.
King Felipe VI of Spain is facing growing calls from within the
government to distance his father from the monarchy after a mounting
scandal about Juan Carlos' financial affairs.
The sources say he is willing to make a gesture of goodwill, but wants to retain his title.
In 2018 a Swiss prosecutor opened an investigation into Juan Carlos’s
ex-lover and the former king’s lawyer and financial advisor, both based
in Geneva. [...]
The Guardian and El Pais reported NSO Group's malware was used to target prominent politicians in Spain. Now a former employee says that Spain has been an NSO Group customer.
" On Monday, the media outlets revealed that someone tried to hack the cellphone of Roger Torrent, the President of the Parliament of Catalonia, using a flaw in WhatsApp, which was discovered last year. Torrent is the president of the Parliament of Catalonia, which governs Barcelona and the surrounding region that has recently attempted to become independent from Spain.
Carles Puigdemont, a member of the European Parliament and the former president of Catalonia, condemned the hacking attempt, and implied that the Spanish government targeted Torrenthim. If that's the case, this would be the first known case of a European government using this type of technology against politicians inside Europe. "
The phones of Catalan parliament speaker Roger Torrent and
two other pro-independence activists were targeted using spyware that
experts say is only sold to governments to track criminals and
terrorists, as revealed by The Guardian and El País.
According to the joint investigation, the spyware
exploited a vulnerability in Whatsapp software that would give potential
access to everything on the targeted mobile phone, from emails and text
messages to the camera and recorder—thus opening the possibility of
turning the phone into a spying device.
A member of the left-wing Esquerra (ERC) party and
one of the most senior politicians in Catalonia, Torrent believes Spain
is behind the attack and says he will take "legal and political action"
to make sure this case serves to put an end to the "dirty war against
the independence movement".
CBC: WhatsApp Attributes Hack of 1,400 Users to NSO Group Technology
Citizen Lab senior researcher John Scott-Railton discusses why WhatsApp is suing NSO Group after discovering their spyware was used to target 1,400 users—100 of whom were members of civil society—and why this is a significant bellwether.
Phone of top Catalan politician 'targeted by government-grade spyware'
Exclusive: Guardian and El País find regional speaker was targeted in ‘possible domestic political espionage’
One of Catalonia’s most senior politicians has been warned his mobile phone was targeted using spyware its makers say is only sold to governments to track criminals and terrorists.
A joint investigation by the Guardian and El País has revealed that the speaker of the Catalan regional parliament, Roger Torrent and at least two other pro-independence supporters were told they were targeted last year in what experts said was a “possible case of domestic political espionage” in Europe.
According to a US lawsuit, the spyware exploited a previous vulnerability in WhatsApp software that would have given the operator potential access to everything on the target’s mobile phone – including emails, text messages and photographs. It could also have turned on the phone’s recorder and camera, turning it into a listening device.
Torrent, who was warned about the targeting by researchers working with WhatsApp, said it seemed clear the “Spanish state” was behind the alleged attack on his phone, and that he believed it had most likely occurred without any judicial authority.
Roger Torrent said ‘any democrat should feel very uncomfortable’ over the alleged attack.
Photograph: Quique García/EPA
Juan Carlos et son épouse, Sophie de Grèce, à Ceuta, le 5 novembre 2007. JOSE LUIS ROCA / AFP
Spain’s King Felipe and his father, Juan Carlos, in 2014.
