Crisis in Barcelona

[Colo Cruiser]

If are in Barcelona you might like to try gràcies, or gracias, unless you suspect your waiter is Italian....................

 

I will adjust accordingly.

Frank and I like Italian. ;)

[Astro Flyer]

I will adjust accordingly.

Frank and I like Italian. ;)

Yes, and being of Italian heritage it's in my blood. ;p

 

Hopefully this won't generate a correction for not using Spanish or Catalonian...Buon Viaggio! :D

 

You're embarking in Civitavecchia so hopefully saying it in Italian won't result in another admonishment. ;)

[Vacationdreamer<><]

Not reading past #37 I'm just chiming in to say I can appreciate the OP assessing the informed opinions of other cruisers.

 

I'm 1998 we traveled to Kenya during a period of political unrest. Being busy, newly married grad students, and not having the internet connectivity available now, DH and I knew nothing of the situation in Kenya.

 

After we'd gotten there and started to absorb what we'd walked into, we were astonished.

 

I'm. It saying Nairobi is Barcelona... but it was very real when our driver had to stop the vehicle to answer the questions of a weapons-wielding mob surrounding our car.

 

We have never traveled blindly again. I understand your desire to inform yourself, OP.

 

 

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[stevenr597]

Update from Saturday's Wall Street Journal of the situtation in Barcelona:

 

Catalan Separatists Face Deadline to Leave Schools They Planned to Use as Polling Stations

 

Conflict with central Spanish government shows both sides are staying their course ahead of vote that has triggered a political crisis

 

 

 

 

A batucada group play drums as parents gather outside a school at the Gracia neighborhood in Barcelona on Saturday. PHOTO: JOSEP LAGO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

 

 

 

By Jeannette Neumann

Sept. 30, 2017 12:14 p.m. ET5 COMMENTS

 

 

BARCELONA—Thousands of supporters of Catalonia’s rebel referendum hunkered down in around 160 schools they planned to use as polling stations on Sunday faced a deadline from police to leave, in a sign that both sides are staying their course the day before a vote that has triggered a political crisis in Spain.

By early afternoon Saturday in Spain, police had registered roughly half of the 2,315 polling stations that officials in Catalonia’s regional government had announced would be used for voting in an independence referendum that the central government in Madrid says is illegal because it violates the Spanish constitution’s promise of “indissoluble unity.”

In the continuing game of cat-and-mouse between Spanish authorities and Catalan officials, police set to work on Saturday morning to seal off most of those polling stations across Catalonia—except 163 schools, where parents and children had already moved in Friday night to prevent their closure. Police told the temporary inhabitants, who had organized sporting activities, lectures and film screenings throughout the weekend, that they needed to leave the schools by 6 a.m. on Sunday, the day Catalan officials have pledged to hold the vote on independence.

Head of the Pack

Catalonia has been an economically strong area when compared with the rest of Spain.

 

GDP per capita in 2016

 

GDP per capita

 

$20,000

 

$24,000

 

$28,000

 

€30,000

 

Catalonia

 

CANTABRIA

 

BASQUE

COUNTRY

 

25,000

 

ASTURIAS

 

NAVARRE

 

Spain

 

GALICIA

 

20,000

 

LA RIOJA

 

CATALONIA

 

CASTILE

AND LEON

 

ARAGON

 

15,000

 

MADRID

 

BALEARIC

ISLANDS

 

10,000

 

VALENCIA

 

CASTILLA LA

MANCHA

 

EXTREMADURA

 

5,000

 

MURCIA

 

CANARY ISLANDS

 

ANDALUSIA

 

CUETA

 

0

 

MELILLA

 

’16

 

2010

 

2007

 

Note: €1 = $1.18

Source: Spain’s National Statistics Institute

 

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Circumstances have become increasingly surreal in recent days. On Friday, Catalan officials spelled out in detail for the first time the number and opening hours of polling stations, which they said would be staffed by 7,325 volunteers. “This is not about independence,” Raul Romeva, the Catalan official in charge of the region’s foreign affairs, said during a press conference in Barcelona. “This is about democracy.”

Shortly afterward, the central government’s spokesman in Madrid reiterated the pledge of conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy that there would be no referendum because it is illegal and Spanish authorities have dismantled much of the formal framework of a vote—seizing ballots and shutting down websites instructing Catalans where to vote.

If there is a makeshift ballot on Sunday, though, with people voting informally in plazas, for instance, a vote in favor of independence is likely to emerge because many of those opposed to independence and the way the referendum has been organized have promised to boycott the vote.

The fact that thousands of people moved into schools around Catalonia on Friday night shows that many are doubling down on their bid to cast a ballot—regardless of what Madrid says.

Good Job

Catalonia's unemployment rate is among the lowest in Spain.

 

Unemployment rate

 

Unemployment in 2016

 

30

 

%

 

16

 

24%

 

20

 

BASQUE

COUNTRY

 

CANTABRIA

 

25

 

ASTURIAS

 

NAVARRE

 

GALICIA

 

20

 

LA RIOJA

 

CATALONIA

 

CASTILE

AND LEON

 

Spain

 

ARAGON

 

15

 

MADRID

 

Catalonia

 

BALEARIC

ISLANDS

 

10

 

VALENCIA

 

CASTILLA LA

MANCHA

 

EXTREMADURA

 

5

 

MURCIA

 

CANARY ISLANDS

 

ANDALUSIA

 

0

 

CUETA

 

2008

 

2010

 

’17

 

MELILLA

 

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

 

Source: Spain’s National Statistics Institute

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whether those who have settled in temporarily at the schools-cum-polling stations will leave is unclear, but Enric Millo, the central government’s representative in Catalonia, said police had orders from a judge to vacate the premises and prevent the referendum from taking place.

“We trust that citizens understand and will follow those instructions,” Mr. Millo said in a press conference Saturday in Barcelona. He said police would continue to work Saturday afternoon to seal off the roughly 1,000 other polling stations that had been designated by Catalan government officials. Mr. Millo said he expected the number of schools with people inside to increase as police made their rounds, but declined to say by how much.

On Saturday, “after 6 a.m., if there are a certain percentage of people and a certain percentage of schools where people are meaningfully impeding [police from] following the court order, in an act of civil disobedience, police will act according to what’s decided” by a security steering committee that has been set up to oversee police during and after the referendum, Mr. Millo said.

The orders given to police are likely to set the tone for the rest of the day. If police are ordered to physically remove people, it will likely heighten tensions on a day that is already full of uncertainty. Catalan authorities have said polls will open at 9 a.m.

A Split from Spain?

Support for an independent Catalonia has fallen as Spain's economy has improved.

 

Catalonia should be an independent state

 

GDP, change from previous year*

 

50

 

% of Catalans

 

4

 

%

 

3

 

40

 

Q2 2017

3.1%

 

2

 

1

 

30

 

July 2017

34.7% agree

 

0

 

20

 

–1

 

–2

 

10

 

–3

 

0

 

–4

 

2017

 

2015

 

2013

 

2013

 

2014

 

2016

 

2016

 

2015

 

2017

 

2014

 

*Seasonally adjusted

Sources: Spain's National Statistics Institute (GDP); Catalonia's Center for Opinion Studies in-person polls, most recent of 1,500 residents in Catalonia conducted June 26-July 11; margin of error: +/-2.53 percentage points

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Millo tried to convey a sense of calm ahead of Sunday’s referendum, saying the central government was expecting mass crowds to demonstrate throughout Catalonia and welcomed that democratic expression.

What they won’t be able to do, he said, is vote in a referendum that has been suspended by a top Spanish court while it reviews the legality of the ballot. The court has previously said Spain’s regions can’t hold a unilateral referendum on secession because the country’s constitution doesn’t allow it. “There will be no referendum,” Mr. Millo said. An independence vote could only be held if Spain’s constitution were amended and those changes were put to all Spaniards in a referendum, he added.

In a bid to scuttle the referendum, Spanish authorities have seized millions of paper ballots and other voting materials, and arrested around a dozen Catalan officials who allegedly helped organize the vote. They have since been released amid the ongoing investigation.

RELATED

 

• President Puigdemont Gambles on Secession
  
• Catalonia’s Place in Spain: A Brief History
  
• How Is Referendum Likely to Play Out?
  
• Vote Tests Catalonia’s Police Force
  

 

Catalan authorities responded by launching an application on Google Play that provided potential voters with information on their polling stations. A court on Friday ordered Google to delete that application, which it did. “We only remove content from our platforms to comply with a valid court order or when it violates our policies,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

Catalan authorities were working on a plan b: an online-voting application instead of an in-person ballot. Police on Saturday raided the Catalan government’s telecommunications and information technology agency and shut down those operations, Mr. Millo said.

“It’s one more sign of the unreasonableness on the part of the state to try to repress,” a spokesman for the Catalan government said Saturday. The referendum, he added, “is already unstoppable.”

Write to Jeannette Neumann at jeannette.neumann@wsj.com

 

 

 

[Host Hattie]

The Guardian has a live news page today

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2017/oct/01/catalan-independence-referendum-spain-catalonia-vote-live