Catalonia Granted 'Nation' Status
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Original source: The Independent (UK)
Via: The New Zealand Herald
24.01.06

Spain-The Spanish government reached a historic agreement with Catalonia yesterday that accepts Catalans' demand to be called a nation and extends their powers of self-rule.

Jose Montilla, Spain's Industry Minister and a senior figure in the Catalan Socialist Party, hailed the achievement as "a great day for Catalans and Spaniards."

Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, backed by the region's ruling left-wing coalition, clinched a long-awaited deal with Catalonia's Conervative Nationalist Convergence and Union Party, a breakthrough that Madrid described as a "global agreement."

The accord, if ratified as expected by Parliament in coming days, resolves the most serious political problem that has dogged the Spanish government for a year.

The revised statute of autonomy updates the one agreed in 1979 and pushes the limits of the country's post-Franco Constitution.

The charter recognises Catalans' desire to be considered a nation, and gives them equal powers with Madrid over taxation.

The statute could form the basis of the solution to the Basque conflict. If Zapatero can pull that off, he will be remembered as the man who ended West Europe's last armed struggle for national identity.

Source:
http://nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10365029