Spain Tightens Its European Ties

...With the appetite of a Walt Disney ostrich, Communism, contraceptives and Corn Flakes have been digested...

...Spain holds the rotating presidency of the European Economic Community (EEC) during the first half of this year and its attachment to the Continent has never been as strong as it is now...

...Gonzalez' recent use of this national system of ticks and crosses cannot have flattered his Latin American friends...

...When the talks leading to EC membership were gummed up in olive oil and other agricultural surpluses, several Socialists close to Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez suggested forgetting about Europe and setting up an Ibero-American Economic Community...

...But to Spaniards the relationship means much more than physical proximity...

...There has been no general strike in Europe for two decades, he explained, whereas 13 have paralyzed Argentina alone in the past five years...

...Napoleon's invasion caused Spain to collapse inwards on itself...

...That Spain belongs to Europe may seem geographically obvious...

...Propriety has survived the swirl of change as well...

...Universal suffrage was written into the short-lived Constitution of 1869...

...But now Gonzalez wants to modernize the Spanish railways and switch to the European gauge...

...European" canmean modern, open-minded, alluring, orunadulterated, depending on whether it describes microwaves, ministers, miniskirts or mincemeat...

...The Catholic Church, having already witnessed the separation of state from church and the acceptance of divorce, has had to bow before the legalization of abortion...

...The Prime Minister then charged the unions responsible for organizing the strike with being more "irresponsible' than their counterparts in Europe...

...He has consequently offered Latin America's fragile democracies little more than rhetorical support and more recently, escapism from their acute problems by inviting them to help prepare the 1992 celebrations to mark the Fifth Centenary of Columbus' discovery of America...

...Socialist trade unionists were aghast at this added dimension to the concept of "European...

...Following a brief turbulent reign Joseph Bonaparte declared, " Spain is not a country like other countries...

...For Napoleon, Spaniards were not Europeans: Europe, in his view, ended at the Pyrenees...

...So are rotten eggs, nepotism and the way personalities are rewarded with top jobs upon shifting party allegiance— as happened in January when a covey of Christian Democrats, including some former ministers, flocked to the rightof-center Popular Alliance, now rebaptized the Popular Party...

...Even after the death of Franco and his dictatorship, Spain seemed adrift in the mid-Atlantic, with some of its officials knocking on the EC's door for admission and others paying lip service to their country's "Latin American" connection...

...Exasperated by 20 per cent unemployment, a pay squeeze and inadequate Social Security coverage that leaves 70 per cent of Spain's jobless unprovided for, 8 million people—twothirds of the working population—decided to be Latin American and brought the country to a standstill for a day...

...Mistakes have of course been made, and there have been attempts to correct them...

...BEYOND THE PYRENEES Spain Tightens Its European Ties By Janice Valls-Russell Madrid On March 8, King Juan Carlos paid his first official visit to the European Community (EC) institutions in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg...

...And the word "European" holds such a wealth of political, social, historical, and ethical connotations here that individuals still disagree on how it applies in their particular case...

...Indeed, when railways reached Spain the authorities adopted a wider gauge track than the European standard—as Russia did—to prevent some future Napoleon from steaming in unchecked...

...His attempt to push the Continent's border further south by invading Iberia and placing his brother on the Spanish throne ended in disaster...

...And most Spaniards would agree that making sure the Spanish coach is well hitched to the European train is what matters...

...Girls have rebelled against the impeccable grooming of their mothers by squeezing into jeans and tousling up their hair...

...They also bathe topless on beaches (no longer an offense since areform of the penal code on March 16), graduate in business studies and train husbands (or boyfriends) to scrub dishes and to baby-sit...

...The Socialist government had to backtrack on its permitting the use of supposedly "soft" dope after drug-related crime spiraled alarmingly...

...Somehow, the family has survived: Spain has one of the EC's lowest divorce rates...

...Franco's "Dia de la Raza"— day of the (Hispanic) race— became democracy's "Dia de la Hispanidad, " also celebrated on October 14, which focuses on cultural and linguistic ties with the rest of the Spanish-speaking world while trying to overlook an unedifying colonial past...

...Spaniards concede that not everything in their country is as European as they would like...

...In a sense the unions have remained loyal to the old Spanish starry-eyed vision of Europe, imported through the works of Voltaire and Locke that were read in secret, for fear of the Inquisition, and continued to be banned in Catholic schools until recently...

...The Armed Forces have been brought under the civilian baton...

...Official interest in Latin America has wilted since an international report, published in January, revealed that 90 per cent of drugs entering the EC are smuggled in through Spain by Latins, who can come here without the visa they require to visit the other member countries...

...Personally fascinated by Latin American politics, Gonzalez nonetheless realized that democratic socialism should be anchored in thedemocratic West, and that restoring Spain's economic health was possible only by joining other prosperous nations...

...Admission to the Western European Union, looked upon here as a military counterpart to the EC, was welcomed by Communists and conservatives alike...

...On the eve of a general strike last December, he urged Spaniards to choose between European and Latin American behavior...

...Spanish history shows that some European ideas briefly bubbled into rights that were soon pricked by repression...

...the decline of values that Franco's propagandists associated with Europe has been resisted...

...Slow postal services and trains are tercermundista...

...His propagandists encouraged Spaniards to believe that their closest brothers-in-politics were Latin Americans, whose Hispanic genes made them equally unfit for democracy...

...Janice Valls-Russell writes about French and Spanish affairs for the NL...

...Union leaders have rejected as "still too stingy" a government plan announced March 22 that would extend benefits to another lOper cent of the unemployed, bringing to 40 per cent the number of jobless covered by Social Security...

...Because we have wished it to be so, the futures of Europe and of Spain are firmly united,' he said...

...It implies a choice, as the King's statement indicated...

...Cold-shouldered by democratic Europe, he cultivated dictators across the Atlantic...

...When talks with Gonzalez' government broke down in February, the Socialist and Communist unions said that they would continue to campaign for European standards in social benefits, schooling and medical care...

...Throughout the 19th century pronunciamentos, coups, plots, andrevolts played a grim counterpoint to widespread mistrust of anyone and anything crossing the mountains from France...

...Many still remember how, during the worst years of the Franco dictatorship, Socialists kept up their spirits by talking about a European utopia, where workers were respected, free to strike and to demonstrate, and invited to help formulate government policies...

...the Second Republic gave women the right to vote 15 years before they won it in France...

...Generalissimo Francisco Franco twisted that conclusion into an arrogant syllogism: Because Spaniards were "different" from other Europeans they could not be trusted to govern themselves, therefore they needed him to decide what was good for them...

...The King recalled how EC membership—Spain was admitted in 1986—has enhanced democracy in his country and stimulated modernization of the economy...

...Conversely, too much in Spain still smacks of tercermundismo (thirdworldism)—that is to say, of petty corruption, inefficiency, intolerance, and general backwardness...

...Not everything that came across the Pyrenees was good...

...Prostitution and pornography are available on street corners and newsstands, but society has not slid into the kind of permissive morass that Right-wing moralists loved to predict and Hieronymus Bosch's triptychs, on display in Madrid's Prado Museum, depict...

...Europe's traditions, in fact, are seen as the model for the Western democracy that Spaniards have embraced on the political and the individual level...

...Opinion polls have steadily shown that the Spanish people favor EC membership—in contrast with their doubts about NATO, whichSpain joined in 1982...