Andorra Loses Its Innocence
VALLS-RUSSELL, JANICE
POPPING OUT OF THE PYRENEES Andorra Loses Its Innocence by janice valls-russell Andorra la Vella On March 14, one of Europe's tiniest countries decided to grow up and join the ranks of...
...Speculation has in fact sent property prices soaring to Parisian levels...
...They get around Andorra's ban on foreigners owning businesses by taking locals as partners...
...A seventh key was added when a new parish was created in June 1978, bringing the Cornell to 28, to account for the expanding population of the capital, Andorra la Vella (literally, Old Andorra...
...During the past three decades the canker of modernity has set in, bringing more wealth than the country has known what to do with...
...Consumer taxes were introduced when Andorra joined the European Community customs union...
...In the past, the main source of employment for young graduates was teaching in primary and secondary schools...
...This trade angered Spanish officials, who briefly closed the frontier...
...The Sindic was dispatched to Madrid to settle what was really an asinine row...
...When I noted that Andorra's Constitution is probably the first in the world to state the need to defend the environment and the cultural heritage, he shrugged, "What's left of it...
...The 28-member Parliament will continue to meet in the Casa de la Vall, now dwarfed by office buildings for an administration of 1,000 or so, many in their 20s and stylishly dressed...
...Voters in Andorra massively ratified their first-ever Constitution, thus opting for parliamentary democracy and the risks of attendant red tape over a carefree feudal tradition...
...We can't afford to marry and set up house," a young couple told me...
...Success has left scars...
...Today, its affluent youth is peering into the mists of the future with a mixture of ambition and apprehension...
...telephones, electricity and small businesses are also taxed...
...Andorrans alone were allowed to take part in the March 14 referendum—including women, granted the right to vote in 1970...
...Andorra, after all, did not wish to rebel outright against its parent figures...
...In Andorra itself, routine matters were handled by the elders of each of the six parishes, whose 24 representatives met on the eve of the main religious festivities at the Casa de la Vall (the House of the Valley in Catalan, the official language), a squat stone building with corner turrets and machicolations for pouring burning oil over unwelcome visitors...
...Farras and his colleagues are considering allowing "offshore financial services" into Andorra, provided that will mean good jobs for the generation coming of age...
...Legend has it that the place stumbled into self-awareness in 806, when Charlemagne freed the valley from the rule of Saracens who somehow got stuck here while sweeping northward...
...They don't want to run daddy's store, but they accuse their elders of "having sold the country to foreigners...
...Until the 1930s, virtually nothing had happened to jolt the country out of its placid rural life...
...They face the same dilemma: How to have your environmental cake and eat it...
...Foreign labor has provided masons, waiters, shop attendants...
...But rates are kept low enough for Andorra to retain a competitive edge...
...Gasoline fumes lace the crisp mountain air, and the police force has been increased from four men in the 1950s to 150 to deal with all the traffic...
...True, in the 1860s some enterprising Andorrans found they could make money by buying young mules in France, fattening them up on lush pastureland, and selling them at a handsome profit in Spain...
...The need for a constitution grew out of clashes between the government and Parliament that left the country without a budget for a year...
...In criticizing the way their parents have shaped the world, despite having enjoyed the education and lifestyle this brought them, today's young Andorrans resemble the other spoiled brats of the West, beyond the snowcapped peaks...
...Andorra's treasury and charters were kept in a massive chest with six keys, one for each parish...
...One in two never returns...
...POPPING OUT OF THE PYRENEES Andorra Loses Its Innocence by janice valls-russell Andorra la Vella On March 14, one of Europe's tiniest countries decided to grow up and join the ranks of independent states beyond the ring of mountains that had long sheltered it from the march of time...
...Young Andorrans pursuing a higher education have to "go down the valley," as they say, to Barcelona or Toulouse...
...Most important, they exempted Andorrans from all taxes, except for a token dime paid to the Bishop until the middle of the 19th century...
...In the 13th century its inhabitants can-nily ensured that they would be left alone by their constantly feuding neighbors by giving themselves two overlords: to the south the powerful Bishop of Urgel, over the border in what is now Spanish Catalonia...
...It remains a shopper's mecca, offering cheap drinks, cigarettes and dairy produce, as well as designer goods and electronic equipment...
...Sindic Jordi Farras hinted to me that the coprinces bucked when informed that their role would be reduced to that of a symbolic, bicephalous head of state for an independent Andorra...
...It says nothing about divorce (although young Andorrans say that is bound to come...
...instead the "right to life" is guaranteed (the private clinics of Montpel-lier and Toulouse, however, are not far...
...Andorrans exclaim...
...Neither does it mention abortion...
...The development now of a judiciary system should mean still more opportunities for university graduates...
...The capital has a ring-road...
...There is no documentary evidence for Charlemagne's crusade, but ever since the valley's inhabitants have remembered him in their national anthem...
...Yet independence seemed just as remote a few years back, and the creation of a cap del govern (head of government) under a Political Reform Law in 1981 was perceived as little short of revolutionary...
...The new Constitution allows Andor-rans to become Jehovah's Witnesses or Muslims if they choose, but stresses the Catholic Church's privileged position...
...Prosperity has brought an influx of wealth-seeking immigrants...
...Eventually they may press for a say in decision making, especially if Parliament should introduce an income tax...
...Mules climbed the nearly 8,000-foot En valira Pass and descended into France, returning laden with basic necessities that were sold to Spaniards...
...The valley is cluttered with six-story apartment blocks...
...Janice Valls-Russell writes about French and Spanish affairs for the NL...
...to the north the Count of Foix, whose sovereignty rights later shifted to the kings, then the presidents, of France...
...Spain's 1936-39 Civil War revived the lust for trade...
...The task of running the country, including the handling of foreign affairs, is entrusted to the Prime Minister and his team (Farras told me that Andorra was thinking of applying for a seat on the Council of Europe...
...This has been a serious problem...
...From 1940 onward, mules took the loads the other way (not that there was much to be had in Spain), into occupied France...
...It housed a chapel, the 24-member Parliament or Cornell, the office of its Chairman, the Sindic (the most important person in the country), and a one-cell prison in the dungeon...
...Young people I have talked to are happy with the new Constitution and the jobs that previously resulted from setting up a governing apparatus...
...Never...
...Property has been snapped up by the expatriates...
...The members of this group are conflicted...
...Village streets are long strings of shops, restaurants and cafes...
...And they have been devout Catholics...
...Helped by French and Spanish jurists, Andorra's leaders hammered out the adopted document...
...Andorra is a 180-square-mile buttonhole in the Pyrenees, between France and Spain...
...The young are also critical of the way many naturally beautiful spots have been disfigured...
...Inside the country, the most prominent figure remains the Sindic...
...The Constitution is cagey about the status of immigrants...
...The result is a total population of 59,000, with Andorrans (10,400) heavily outnumbered by outsiders: Spaniards (28,000), Portuguese (6,000), French (4,400), English (1,000), and an assortment of Americans, Australians, Filipinos, Moroccans, and Indians (perhaps the United Nations should move its headquarters there...
...One pointed to a hideous apartment block built right against a Romanesque church...
...The path to prosperity was open—and soon macadamized, bringing crowds of visitors (currently some 12 million annually), especially during the summer and the ski season...
...In return for an annual gift of capons, cheeses, hams, and a little gold, the coprinces jointly defended Andorra from the outside world and brought wrongdoers before their courts...
...So far foreigners are content to earn money or enjoy it virtually tax-free...
...By that time things had already picked up steam...
...It merely says that anyone born in Andorra has the right to An-dorran citizenship...
...Others may want to go into politics: The Constitution allows the formation of parties and of trade unions...
...Andorrans may soon discover that a state is expensive to run...
Vol. 76 • May 1993 • No. 5
