Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will start by quoting a statement from the Catalonian President with which I profoundly agree. Carles Puigdemont told his parliament on 10 October:

The current moment is serious enough for everyone to assume their corresponding responsibility, and for the necessity to de-escalate tension and not to contribute to it, neither through word nor gesture...

[T]he way forward can be none other than through democracy and peace. That means respecting those who think differently, and finding a way to make possible collective aspirations, with the realisation that that requires a large dose of dialogue and empathy.

There was little enough dialogue or empathy shown by the Madrid authorities ten days previously, when they resorted to unacceptable tactics in their efforts to prevent the independence referendum. To those of us who live by the principles and practices of electoral politics, to see uniformed men smashing their way into polling stations and carrying away ballot boxes and polling papers is to see a form of secular sacrilege. Madrid’s tactics have made Madrid’s police force the natural enemy of many Catalonians. This was avoidable. It was, at best, heavy-handed and ham-fisted. I said at the time, and I repeat, that any violence against voters and polling station officials is unacceptable and unjustifiable. The subsequent escalation, which involved the use of plastic bullets and physical intimidation by the Spanish police, must also be condemned.

The Madrid authorities seem to be going out of their way to make the pro-independence parties more acceptable to their own people. They are creating support for independence at home and abroad. If they stick to this heavy-handed approach, then the police and the Spanish Government will only further inflame the dispute and strengthen the independence movement.

It is not good enough for the European Commission, looking only to the constitutional issue, to describe the crisis as an internal matter for the Spanish. All of us, as member states of the European Union, have an obligation to observe democratic principles in our dealings with all our citizens.

All that said, I also agree with those in this House and elsewhere who have called for dialogue and rapprochement. Life is more complicated than simply making a declaration. Touting simple solutions to complex issues can do real harm to real people. Apart from anything else, should a Catalonian universal declaration of independence include the administrative area of Aran? This small valley is in Catalonia but it is home to a separate Aranese population with its own history, its own capital and autonomous government, its own language, and even, because of its location, its own microclimate. Should the Aranese, all 10,000 of them, be allowed to secede from both Catalonia and from Spain, and set up their own state?

This debate has a particular resonance for us in this House. We are coming up to the centenary of the first meeting of Dáil Éireann, when our forebears addressed their message to the free nations of the world. We wanted our case on the agenda at the Versailles treaty talks. We insisted:

Nationally, the race, the language, the customs and traditions of Ireland are radically distinct from the English. Ireland is one of the most ancient nations in Europe, and she has preserved her national integrity, vigorous and intact, through seven centuries of foreign oppression: she has never relinquished her national rights, and throughout the long era of English usurpation she has in every generation defiantly proclaimed her inalienable right of nationhood down to her last glorious resort to arms in 1916.

The Catalonian separatists could repeat this language, almost word for word, perhaps citing fewer examples of resort to arms.

In the 1916 Proclamation, the existence of a significant unionist population on this island, with its own culture, tradition and religion, was only fleetingly and grudgingly referenced. It was described as "differences carefully fostered by an alien Government", which had divided a minority from the majority in the past, and to which we, the majority, should be oblivious. We were indeed oblivious to those differences for many decades, and the result was bloodshed and mayhem. As Senator McDowell commented at the weekend, no one was more strongly opposed to the unionists’ claim of entitlement to opt out of Ireland than those Irish nationalists who proclaimed the right to opt out of the United Kingdom.

Self-determination as a principle is unwieldy and can produce wildly unexpected results. When, for example, the European Union cobbled together principles for the international recognition as states of the various component parts of the collapsing Yugoslavia, it might have thought it was doing a good day's work.

However, the same principles were applied by Russia and the Government of Crimea to assert the latter's right to opt out of Ukraine and become part of Russia once again. To be clear, there was a referendum to determine the future status of Crimea in March 2014. It was organised by the Legislature of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and by the local government of Sevastopol, both of which were subdivisions of Ukraine. The referendum requested local populations to decide whether they wanted Crimea to join Russia as a federal state. It was declared unlawful by the Ukrainian Government and the official result, as people will recall, was that more than 95% voted for integration of the region into the Russian Federation. The turnout was 80%. I do not believe that is the precedent Catalonians would want to follow. To this day, only Russia and ten other states recognise Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. Ukraine continues to claim Crimea as an integral part of its territory and is supported by most of the rest of the world, including in the form of UN General Assembly Resolution 68/262.

Before the Berlin Wall fell and when the Cold War was still being waged, the Helsinki Final Act, signed by the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in 1975, was a major step forward towards normal and peaceful relations. Thirty five states, including the USA, the USSR and most of Europe signed a declaration in an attempt to improve relations between the then communist bloc and the West. The Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations between Participating States enumerated ten fundamental principles. All the principles are important, notwithstanding the fact that some of them may well, in practice, be in conflict. For example, the states of Europe are committed to non-intervention in each other's internal affairs as well as respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the equal rights and self-determination of peoples. Ireland signed the Helsinki Final Act even though at that time we had our own issues about recognising the inviolability of national frontiers. The Helsinki Accords significantly reduced Cold War tensions by recognising the frontiers in Europe and that they should be stable and could only change by peaceful internal means.

When we look at a country like Spain, many of us expect that all disputes can be settled by internal peaceful dialogue. Looking back on our own history, many would have expected no less of us. A commitment to self-determination - pure and simple - seems so right but to quote Orwell' Homage to Catalonia, "Hitherto, the rights and wrongs had seemed so beautifully simple." Real life is not so pure and never so simple. If this country has anything to teach the rest of Europe about these matters, it is that there is nothing inevitable about peace, there is nothing more important than dialogue and empathy and nothing so life-saving as negotiation and compromise.

We should not be taking sides in this dispute. I say that not because it is simply an internal Spanish matter but rather because we have a far greater interest in seeing this dispute peacefully resolved than we have in seeing one side victorious over the other. It is not international law that will settle this matter, although that is important. The legal rules about self-determination and the recognition of new states are still uncertain. Practice changed in 1991 and, as I have said, the change in practice produced at least one result that surprised most people.

Peaceful settlement is the only principle that matters. All other principles are subordinate. What is needed now is a commitment from both sides to mediation, dialogue and negotiation. I echo the words of Kofi Annan and The Elders, which include our own Mary Robinson, to the effect that the progress that Spain has made since its democratic transition in 1975 should not be put at risk. The potential political, economic and social repercussions of a protracted crisis should not be underestimated. Both sides must refrain from any more divisive and inflammatory language or actions. I join Kofi Annan, and I hope other Members will do so too, in urging the Spanish Government and the regional government of Catalonia to renew their commitment to a resolution of this conflict through dialogue and find a peaceful route out of this crisis.

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