I FELT a strong sense of deja vu listening to the representative of each of the European independence movements who spoke at Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh on Saturday afternoon.
From Greenland, the Faroes, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Northumbria, Galicia, Flanders, the Veneto, Sardinia, Sicily, South Tyrol, Catalonia and the Basque Country – they were all gathered at the Owning Our Futures conference organised by the Scottish Independence Convention and the International Commission of European Citizens.
The first speaker, Basque indy figure, linguist and teacher Begotxu Olaizola Elordi, spoke of the language used by Unionist parties in Spain to silence their independence movement.
“Now is not the moment,” she said - as an example. Now, where have I heard that before?
On the same panel, Anthony Graziano from the Sicilian grassroots independence movement Trinacria, talked about how central the idea of the future economic potential of Sicily plays in theirs.
A bit closer to home – Welsh indy campaigner Gwern Gwynfil spoke about Westminster “shafting” Wales when it comes to energy policy.
Bjort Samuelsen, a former journalist and now the speaker of the Faroese Parliament, complained about the media in the Faroe Islands being too biased towards the Unionist argument.
I really could go on and on – such were the enormous amount of parallels between the struggles felt by Europe’s independence movements and Scotland’s.
That isn’t enormously surprising in some ways. Afterall, as Paul Decarli from South Tirol put it: “The struggle, at the end of the day, is the same.”
In between two of the panels, Anna Arqué i Solsona – a Catalan independence activist and journalist – told The National that the importance of gathering such as these is that it represents the “will of millions and millions of people if we actually come to add up all of our movement”.
“We have a common flag of democracy, and I think it's really important that we make ourselves aware of how powerful we are,” she said – adding that there is always something new to learn, including how indy activists from other countries navigate their respective hurdles.
Closing the conference, organiser Robin McAlpine struck another chord which was mentioned by many – that it’s a shame international indy movements don’t do this more often, that discussing progress, making contacts and planning for the future is crucial.
“We need to internationalise. We are too inward looking, we are not outward looking enough,” he told attendees.
“It’s hopeful that this may be replicated in Wales next year. I’ll certainly be going and I would love it if we can turn this into an annual event.”
Earlier in the day, the group representing 14 different indy movements across Europe gathered at the Scottish Parliament and signed a declaration which looked to send the message “that Europe is too centralised and there are many nations and regions which want either more autonomous power or full independence”.
The full text of the Edinburgh Declaration is below.
We are 15 nations and regions of Europe seeking either independence or greater autonomy. We believe that in the 2020s Europe faces a crisis of democracy and this view is increasingly widely held. There are three visions for the future of the continent.
One is for greater centralisation across Europe, with domestic governments losing power in favour of a more powerful Brussels, moving towards a United States of Europe. One is for greater centralisation within nations through increasingly autocratic leadership, drawing democratic power away from collective decisionmaking and into powerful and increasingly unaccountable domestic governments. Both of these visions project a Europe with less democracy and more elite control. The third is a vision of a Europe of greater autonomy, greater citizen participation and more responsive government. It is a vision of autonomous nations and regions in a decentralised continent, working collegiately with each other where it makes sense but able to accept continental asymmetry with nations and regions comfortable in making their own decisions based on their own conditions of life and the will of their populations.
It is a vision of greater participatory democracy and a vision of a Europe not of centralised control but of independent peoples working together for a better future for all of us. Ours is the only vision of Europe’s future which is based on more democracy, not less. It is the hopeful vision for our continent.
