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Catalonia
Posted: Mon 30 Oct 2017 22:19
by martyn94
Maybe Gus has been right all along
It seems that the leading figures in the former Catalan administration have “fled†to Belgium, and may or may not be in the process of seeking asylum there.
You really couldn’t make it up. There’s a famous quote from Karl Marx that says that every famous personality or event in history comes round twice: the first time as tragedy, and the second time as farce.
Posted: Mon 30 Oct 2017 23:53
by Webdoc
I do feel sorry for them. So utterly convinced are they that their cause is just and their argument 100% correct that they think one EU country will offer them asylum from another. That seems highly improbable to me.
They wanted to break away from Spain and will end up breaking Catalonia in two. As I suggested to a Catalan acquaintance in Girona, it's a lot better to hate Madrid than your neighbour next door.
Posted: Tue 31 Oct 2017 01:10
by martyn94
Webdoc wrote:I do feel sorry for them. So utterly convinced are they that their cause is just and their argument 100% correct that they think one EU country will offer them asylum from another. That seems highly improbable to me.
They wanted to break away from Spain and will end up breaking Catalonia in two. As I suggested to a Catalan acquaintance in Girona, it's a lot better to hate Madrid than your neighbour next door.
I don’t suppose they would eventually get asylum, but if they choose to ask for it their claims would have to be processed with due formality. I know because a young Australian friend came here a year or so ago and claimed asylum because of his persecution by the Australian authorities (a well-founded fear of persecution in your home state is what gives you an asylum claim)
His fear was entirely imaginary: he suffers from schizophrenia and his story was obviously nonsense. But the French, among others, have had a sufficient kicking from the ECHR over the years over mishandling asylum claims, that they now treat even the most flimsy claims with due seriousness and absolutely no short-cuts. And I guess it would be the same in Belgium.
Eventually he just went home, but it’s entirely possible that his claim is still grinding through the system, and his €350 a month of dole money is still being paid into the bank account which was set up for him.
Oddly enough, the Catalan politicians might have quite a good case for asylum: they might argue that plenty of people in Spain now hate them enough to kill them or cause them serious harm, and that the Spanish state could not sufficiently secure their safety.