Window on Eurasia

A “Catalonian Recipe” in Russia’s Future?

Paul Goble

Vienna, June 19, 2006 – By overwhelmingly approving a new charter
identifying themselves as a country within Spain and their language as
the preferential one in their region, the Catalans have shown the way
for European countries to avoid two interrelated problems that could
threaten many of them: hypercentralization and disintegration.

But this “Catalonian recipe,” Moscow commentator Vitaliy Portnikov
argues in an essay posted online today, is possible only in those
countries which are already part of a larger and more attractive
alliance, one that makes it possible for regions to pursue greater
autonomy but not independence
[http://www.politcom.ru/print.php?id=2919].

Indeed, using an expression of Russian slang, Portnikov says that the
European Union is “’a roof’, the very existence of which as it
were convinces the residents of regions who are seeking greater
independence that there is no necessity to exit from the country in
which they find themselves.”

“It is sufficient simply to gain greater regional autonomy. And all
the rest will follow,” he suggests.

The idea of Catalonia as “a country in Spain” has a long history.
At the time of the Barcelona Olympic games, to give but one example, the
Catalan authorities took out large advertisements in various
international publications featuring two full-page maps of Europe
without any borders at all.

Under the first, which showed no borders in Europe, appeared the
question: “What country is Barcelona in?” And under the second,
which marked the region around that Olympic venue in black, was the
answer: “In Catalonia, of course. Catalonia is a country in Spain.”

Like most European commentaries today, Russian reaction to the vote in
Catalonia yesterday has focused on the implications of that vote for
Madrid’s plans to open negotiations with the Basque separatists, a
group that hitherto has openly sought independence.

Some writers suggest that the Catalonian example may provide a way out
for the impasse between those two sdies, but others suggest that the
vote in Barcelona may have the effect of re-energizing the Basque
movement, leading some of its members to conclude that “the
Catalonian recipe” should be their next step toward independence.

What makes Portnikov’s essay so intriguing is that he has opened up
the question as to why some countries can escape the problems that
plague those that try to solve regional challenges by recentralizing
control and why other countries appear to lack that possibility.

He suggests that those countries that do not have “a roof over their
heads” – that is, are not part of a larger and more attractive
unity – are the ones that are driven “however paradoxically” to pursue
a centralist agenda, one that will not solve but only postpone regional
challenges.

Some of Portnikov’s readers might be inclined to think that he is
talking about the possibility, even desirability of transforming the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) into such “a roof.” But
his words make it clear that he is in fact focusing on the problems of
individual countries like his own instead.

“It is no accident,” Portnikov writes, “that the idea of
strengthening central power is strong above all in countries which have
not been able to jointly work out an attractive integrative model and
do not yet have the possibility of joining one that might already be in
existence.”

Among such countries – although the Moscow commentator does not
explicitly say so – is the Russian Federation of President Vladimir
Putin. And Portnikov concludes his essay with a sentence that at least
some in Moscow and more on the periphery of that state are likely to
see as a genuine warning:

"Until some sort of attractive ‘common roof’ appears over all the
problem regions, the actions [of states that are not members of some
broader unity and that seek to resolve regional problems by building a
stronger center] will turn out to be at best only half-measures …”