Spain went to the right, and I never noticed. This is a country that none of us keep up with.
SPAIN
Aznar's success does not ensure bright future
BY CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
www.firmaspress.com
Without doubt, Aznar leaves Spain in a better position than it was when he attained power.
Politicians don't often abandon power voluntarily at the pinnacle of their careers. Yet that is exactly what Spaniard José María Aznar will do in a few weeks.
Barely 51 years old and after eight years of successful government, he will retire. Why? A possible answer is that he promised to do just that during his 1996 campaign, when he first was elected prime minister.
At the time, socialist Felipe González had spent 13 years as head of the government, and Aznar, from the opposition Popular Party, accused him of becoming a bureaucrat bereft of imagination and novel projects. If he managed to defeat González, Aznar pledged to limit his mandate to two consecutive terms.
Aznar is keeping his promise. But he performed another miracle rarer still in political life: He achieved practically everything he had set out to do. He balanced the budget, slammed the brakes on corruption, ended the fiscal deficit, privatized state holdings, modernized and streamlined public administration, lowered taxes, kept inflation below minimum levels and reduced unemployment from 23 percent to 9 percent, while the country's GDP grew, year after year, to levels above the European average.
Simultaneously, he vigorously fought ETA -- Basque separatists with a communist ideology -- extraditing and jailing dozens of murderers, kidnappers and extortionists. This weakened the terrorist gang to the point that it lost almost all of its deadly efficacy.
Strong legacy
Without doubt, Aznar leaves Spain in a better position than it was when he attained power. Though the country experienced a notable improvement during the long period of socialist government (1982-1996), it was during Aznar's eight years that Spain consolidated its position as a First World nation endowed with an enviable quality of life and per-capita annual income of more than $21,000.
Of course, not everything moves in the direction of tranquillity and peace. In the Basque and Catalonian regions, there has been an increase in nationalist fervor and in the number of people who cherish the idea of independence. Twenty-five years ago, when the democratic era began, it was said that Spain's fragmentation and the conversion of these regions into independent states were ``impossible.''
A decade ago, the general opinion was that Basque and Catalonian nationalists did not really want secession but instead desired growing quotas of autonomy and power. By comparison, today many people warn, with great fear, that the internal dynamics of nationalism inexorably lead to separatism.
Why is it that, during the period of greatest prosperity and political stability in Spain's modern history, the phenomenon of secessionism intensifies? A paradoxical explanation might be found precisely in the success of its economic model, in the opportunities permitted by the democratic system and in the consolidation of the European Union.
A substantial number of the people living in the Basque and Catalonian regions, Spain's richest and most developed areas, are beginning to think that it is affordable, possible and desirable to set up separate quarters and associate with Europe in an independent fashion. If Europe has a currency, a parliament and transnational tribunals, and if it moves toward the creation of joint armed forces, what real authority and power are left to the Spanish state that cannot be exercised by regional governments turned into independent nations?
Of course, that sweet vision held by the separatists does not match reality. If someday they were to achieve their objective, even through peaceful methods, the economic cost of that cleavage would be very high, and there is no guarantee that the European Union would open its doors to them. Quite the opposite; member nations would raise all kinds of obstacles to prevent a dangerous contagion.
Domino effect
If Basques and Catalonians were to separate from Spain and join the European Union with ease, it is probable that many Scots, northern Italians and Corsicans would feel encouraged to explore the same road in their respective nations.
On Feb. 21 in Cartagena, Colombia, I attended with Aznar a seminar on democracy and development hosted by Mario Vargas Llosa in his capacity as president of the International Foundation for Freedom. Aznar wanted to bid good-bye to the Americas and to a handful of friends, including former presidents Julio María Sanguinetti of Uruguay and Jorge Quiroga of Bolivia, writers Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Marcos Aguinis and Enrique Krauze and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, one of the most qualified and respected leaders in Latin America today.
The seminar was a success, and Aznar's address was excellent. But as he recounted his government's work and described the Spain he leaves behind, we could notice an enormous preoccupation with the future. Spain had made an astounding leap to modernity and progress, Yes, but none of that spared the nation from possible disasters in the future.
Sometimes, after societies have satisfied all their basic needs, they begin to do crazy things. Sometimes, they die of prosperity.
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