Opinion The pantomime republic
Spains fall from heady promise to Celtic gloom tells a story of democratic expectation gone sour
Spains fall from heady promise to Celtic gloom tells a story of democratic expectation gone sour
One Spaniard recently put it this way: We are being told to tighten our belts and drop our drawers at the same time. Unemployment is higher in Spain than anywhere else in the eurozone,and the economy has been starved back into recession. Yet the very Spanish politicians who wax stern on the imperatives of austerity have nothing to offer citizens to alleviate the pain. Even as the eurozone lumbers away from the precipice of a continent-wide recession,Spain is stuck in a fateful holding pattern. According to a European Commission forecast,Spain will be the only country among the currency unions cast of 17 to remain in recession in 2013. The governments plans to recapitalise Bankia,Spains fourth-largest bank,have reinforced concerns about a generalised banking crisis and costly bailouts. Spaniards,meanwhile,will have to endure the effects of $34 billion worth of cuts slated for the rest of the year. All of this adds up to the inevitability of future hurt,and it is embittering Spaniards taste for the democracy they craved just a generation ago.
Spains fall from heady promise to Celtic gloom tells a story of democratic expectation gone sour. This tale is a profound blow to the EU itself a symbol of the continents shifting political prospects. Spain was not only one of the chief protagonists of 20th century Europe,it also tilled the bloody soil from which the union later sprang. The Spanish Civil War was the staging ground for the defining existential drama of the century: a gory crucible of democracy,fascism and communism in conflict. Its fate entwined with Germanys,Spain was at the centre of Europe. When Spain joined the European Community in 1986,euphoria reigned. Finally,the country was gaining its rightful place intellectually,culturally and economically in the social democratic mainstream of Western Europe. The future looked secure; Spains renewed surety was wrapped up in its sense of belonging to a free and optimistic Europe. Then came plans for the adoption of the euro,and again the prospect of an ascendant Europe offered a gilded opportunity for Spain.
Spanish banks were relatively well protected against the initial collapse of the American financial sector in 2008. But the global recession that followed,coupled with the bursting of the real estate bubble at home,soon devastated Spains economy,which had longstanding vulnerabilities that were no secret but had been overlooked in the boom years.
These days,a raft of illicit practices,crafted from old excesses,have become a rickety means of sliding by. Many desperate Spaniards still work under the table in some cases supplementing unemployment relief with money from ad hoc jobs. This explains why Spains deep despair has not exploded in quite the rage felt on the streets of Athens.
The salvation that Europe promised 26 years ago increasingly resembles a charade. As the Yale historian Timothy Snyder has noted,Spain and its kin in Southern Europe have effectively become pantomime republics: elected national officials defer to the unelected supranational EU. In policy terms,this means subscribing to the pro-austerity agenda from Germany. Because Spains economic fate no longer seems to be in Spains own hands,the crucial intermediary space between what the state needs and what the people want the ground on which politicians are normally held to account has shrunk. Sometimes it seems that the closer Spain has moved to Europe,the more democracy eludes its grasp.
Blitzer is a journalist and translator based in Madrid
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