Once in a country: Spain 1983-1990




Once in a country:
Spain 1983-1990


***


I have a déjà vu...

Hiya...

You again?

YES!

I see... well... what's this about?

Well...like the other TL, you know...

Yes...like a TLIAW but longer....

Yes!

After making Carrero to survive the assasination attempt, turning the 23F into a bewildering revolution (which, by the way, sent the Football Cup 1982 to any one place) and making poor Suárez president over and over... what do you have now in mind?

Something even funnier!

My gosh... what are you planning to do?

In short: to blow Spain into pieces and then put it all not only in place but also in perfect working order

Oh my...

I'm a genius, I know...
 
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1. The beginning of a new age: November 11th, 1982 - March 1st, 1983

The first coalition government CDS-PSOE lasted from November 11th, 1982, to May 14th, 1983. Both Suárez and Tierno Galván aimed to modernize Spain, but they differed in the ways to do it.

In spite of the fears of the conservatives and its press, the presence of the PSOE in the cabinet was not followed by a "Socialist takeover" and a massive nationalization of the industry did not took place, even if there was some reasons for the conservatives to worry, as the nationalisation of Rumasa en February 23th, 1983. Both parties agreed on creating more jobs, improving and modernizing the industrial structure, the eternal problem that was plaging Spain since 1975.

Tierno Galván was specially interested in securing an universal and free educational system, university education was reformed and to expand the social security system, plus a partial legalisation of abortion, that was to become bone of contention with the Catholic Church. As previously said, Suárez agreed with Tierno, but differed not just on the ways, but also on the tempo.

The economical situation was slowly recovering, even if unemployment was still high (16%) and the inflation process did not stop (15%). Amidst this situation and pressed by Washington and London to fulfill the London Ultimatum, an angered Suárez fired back at Thatcher "I begin to suspect that you want to make the requirements so impossible to meet in order to ensure our failure". It was a clear show of the stress that Suárez was to deal with. This was made more painful when AP launched a strong criticism against the government on the Parliament (December 2, 1982), which was hotly replied by Pérez-Llorca, the Foreign Minister.

Nobody in his right sense could deny that the internal situation of Spain had become so explosive that any action in any direction was to have dire consequences. This was seen a few days after the confrontation in the Parliament, when, on December 9th, Carlos García (1950-1982) (1), Group Chairman of the PSUC, was murdered in Barcelona. Despite strong suspicions against Oscar Villar (2), a former member of the "Cuerpos Libres", the investigation carried out by the police could not find any clue about the murderers. This murder caused that the British send, two days later, an additional batallion to Barcelona to increase the security measures there.


(1) A fictional character bearing no resemblance with any politician living in those days in OTL.
 
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Spain in this particular situation.

Interesting start, even though I have to say that you've proposed to yourself some very ambitious goals for Spain in this TL... but on the basis of their previous TL... I must give a confidence vote to their objectives for this TL.

A Spain that is going through a particular situation... semi militarily occupied by the international coalition, with its with an Sovereignty that has been seen substantially curtailed and with the Spanish government under pressure economics and politics ... both internal and external.

Yet I still think that it is very feasible that late or early may
happen any incident or attack involving members of the force
international occupation...

A question... in TTL happened as in OTL, the Falklands/Malvinas war?
 
Interesting start, even though I have to say that you've proposed to yourself some very ambitious goals for Spain in this TL... but on the basis of their previous TL... I must give a confidence vote to their objectives for this TL.

A Spain that is going through a particular situation... semi militarily occupied by the international coalition, with its with an Sovereignty that has been seen substantially curtailed and with the Spanish government under pressure economics and politics ... both internal and external.

Yet I still think that it is very feasible that late or early may happen any incident or attack involving members of the force international occupation...

A question... in TTL happened as in OTL, the Falklands/Malvinas war?

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you here. I have the outline of the story to explain more or less finished in my mind and it's quite feasible. With some luck and a few tricks and twists I think I'll be capable of doing it. ;)

Thanks for the confidence :D

Indeed. Spain is facing a hard situation and worse to come. The Blue Helmets will withdraw "soon" (After all, this is Spain, not the Lebanon). The problem now, as you say, it's that the government has its hands tied by its international agreements ande pressured from inside, but I'm hopeful that the former will be dealt and solved soon. The latter... well...

Abopt an incident with the international peace force (not occupation force)... yes, something may happen...

Yes, the Falklands War has taken place, and it will have some effect on the international force.

Subscribed, Kurt!:)

Migthy glad to have you on board, old chap!

Good start! Can't wait to see what you come up with, yet again. :cool:

Time will tell... :D

Thank you all for reading!
 


2. Just Like Starting Over : March 1st - May 14th, 1983

Two distant wars, the Falklands War and the Lebanese Civil War, had an unforeseen effect upon Spain.

To form the Task Force that was to recover the Falklands and defeat the Argentine armed forces (April-June 1982), Margaret Thatcher withdraw some of the British units that were part of the Multinational Force deployed in Catalonia. By that time, even the UN was already thinking about ending their commitent to Spain, as the situation had calmed down since the arrival of the UN troops two years back. Then, when the Lebanese Civil War take a new and darker path after the United States embassy bombing (April 1983), the UN's attention drifted completely towards the quagmire that Lebanon had become. Thus, in order to focus on the other side of the Mediterranean seam the withdrawal of the UN forces from Catalonia began on July 1983 (and would be over by November 1983).

Meanwhile, the Spanish government was moving forwards with their reforms. The PSOE kept its inner bickering and Carlos Solchaga, Javier Solana and José María Maravall joined the criticism of Tierno Galván, accusing him of allowing the "Leninist" faction to take over the party.

From March on, the autonomical process went on at the pace established by Suárez even if the PSOE presured the government to speed the process. Suárez's refusal would be one of the constant points of friction between the members of the Coalition.

In any case the government was able to reform the Penal Code (March 1982), that became one of the great failures of Suarez, as this reform, aimed to improve the situation in the crowded Spanish prisons, not only failed to achieve its main goal but also caused an increase of the number of crimes in Spain, doubling the number of crimes between 1982-1984, forcing the government to reform, again, the Penal Code in 1985 (1).

Then began the "carnival" of the Autonomic Process, as the press labelled it. On March 1983, the Estatuto de Autonomía (Autonomy Statute) of Extremadura, Cantabria, Canarias and Castilla-La Mancha were approved by the Parliament with the vicious opposition of AP. Then, when on April came the time to pass the Autonomy Statute of Valencia, Aragón and the Baleares, it was the PCE who voted against it, while AP supported the governent. Finally, on May the Autonomy Statues of Asturias and Castilla y León (the last statutes to be sent to the Parliament) were passed in a most curious fashion, as AP vote against the first one and in favour of the second one and the PCE opposed the second but not the first. A puzzled Suárez would state, later on, in his memories that he began to wonder wether the leades of the the two parties had lost their minds.

It was no wonder, then, that during this messy situation nobody noticed that José Luis Garci and his film Volver a Empezar (Begin the Beguine) won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and became the first Spanish film to do so.

Then, on May 14, 1983, as the Parliament went to vote the reform of the unemployment benefit for the farmers, the coalition government collapsed. It began when the deputy prime minister, Enrique Tierno Galván, accused the PPE of trying to bring down the reform (2) and demanded Suárez to force the PPE out of the coalition, something that was opposed by both the CDS and the PDE. As a result of this, the Socialist ministers resigned and had to be replaced.

A new government coalition was formed with CDS, PPE, PDE and CiU, something that caused the anger of many rightish voters and forced Vestrynge to say that Suárez "had sold Spain to Catalonia".

On May 14, 1983, John Lennon, who after recovering for an assassination attempt on December 1980 had spent some time away from the cameras and the medias, announced to the world that, along with George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr, were to meet again. The result would be the "Little Wonder" album that included new renditions of “A Hard Day's Night”, “Something”, “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Hey Jude”.



(1) In fact, the Spanish Penal Code was to become a bone of contention between the political parties and was to be reformed in 1985, 1989 and 1991, and would remain a "pending" cuestion after that last reform.
(2) Even if he was right and the PPE was dead set against the reform Tierno Galván chosed the wrong way to express his opinion as Suárez did not like at all to knew the opinion of his vice prime minister through the press.
 
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So far, so good. One minor quibble (which is perfectly understandable): unless you're using the full acronym from Spanish/French/Portuguese/et. al. <ONU>, the acronym <UN> would make more sense to English speakers. But I can easily overlook it, so it's no pressure. And I know people that would be delighted if John Lennon survived and helped to reform the Beatles - unfortunately, I don't know if it will be enough to save Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime".
 
My mistake. I wanted to write UN but I ended up writing NU...

About Lennon and the Beatles... basicall is a temporary come back, just to remember old times and nothing else. And I'm afraid that the butterflies have been unable to avoid "Wonderful Christmastime" from happening...:(
 
My mistake. I wanted to write UN but I ended up writing NU...

That's OK - I was hoping for the other shoe to drop and the acronym coming out instead as "ONO" or the "NO". :D

About Lennon and the Beatles... basicall is a temporary come back, just to remember old times and nothing else.

Still, better than nothing. After all, if New Kids on the Block managed to get together several years ago, despite all of them being middle-aged men by now, . . .

And I'm afraid that the butterflies have been unable to avoid "Wonderful Christmastime" from happening...:(

That's OK - I like it and it's inoffensive enough, but I can see how people find it annoying.
 


3. Spiralling debt, rising inflaction, decreased hope : May 14th - September 1st, 1983

When the president, the socialist Sánchez Albornoz, asked again Suárez to form a new government, he tried to put together a broad coalition of parties stretching from the newly re-unified PSOE, that had just received back into its ranks the PIS, to the Partido Popular Español (Spanish People's Party, PPE). However, a majority of members of the PSOE opposed both Suárez and Sánchez Albornoz while refusing, at the same time, to be part of a coalition including the PPE. Suárez's attempts to convince other party leaders to join his cabinet also mostly failed.

After prolonged negotiations Suárez was appointed Prime Minister on May 15 1982 by presidential decree and without a vote in the Parliament. Politically, the government included some economists - Julio Pascual y Vicente, Julio Alcaide Inchausti and Fernando José Martínez Roda - in the cabinet. The balance of power in the cabinet was made up of members of the PPE (4 ministers), the PDE (4 ministers), the CDS (5 ministers) and CiU (two ministers). Suárez also tried to win the informal collaboration of the PSOE and the AP, and, initially, both parties were neutral or slightly supportive. However, Suárez 's closeness between to AP during this tenure became a handicap for his cooperation with the PSOE, the strongest party in the Parliament. Then, these small troubles were quickly rendered secondary by foreign policy events brought on a national emergency.

Dealing with the pressing matter of the loans had been a priority for the new government, as it had been previously, and Suárez continued to follow his previous policies on this issue. The goal was to convince the foreign creditors to accept an extended payment moratorium for three to four years that would allow Spain to stabilize its economy and currency. However, France refused to compromise on this. The French government of Pierre Mauroy was convinced that Spain was unwilling rather than unable to make the loans. A debt moratorium was considered possible only if France would be able to obtain "productive collateral" (such as direct control over some industries). Thus, when on On May 26 the international commission formally found that Spain had failed to comply with its obligations, against the vote of the British commissioner. The outrage among the Spanish public, media and political circles were huge. All the return of the loans to France were stopped. The trade unions, claiming that France wanted to enslave Spain, called for a strike and, in two das, the Spanish economy came almost to a complete stop.

As a result, inflation spiked and the peseta went into free fall on the currency markets. Concerns rose that the supply of imported food would dry up due to a lack of foreign currency that was draining away fast due to the Banco de España's ultimately futile attempts to stabilize the peseta. In the end, On september 1st, you needed 147 pesetas to buy an US dollar and, on October 1st, the change was 290 pesetas for one dollar.

Reagan and Thatcher berated Mauroy for his hard stance, that was yielding to Spain some international sympathy and the French were soon becoming isolated on this issue - on June 1st, the British government sent a memorandum to the French which explicitly endorsed the Spanish position. Meanwhile, popular discontent inside Spain against the spiralling rate of inflation was rising fast. A wave of strikes against the government began in July 1983. Then, on 11 July, the PSOE brought a motion of no confidence against the government and announced their willingness to cooperate in a possible future "Grand Coalition". However, before the motion could be brought to a vote in the Parliament, Suárez and his cabinet resigned. A day later, after asking Tierno-Galván and being rebuked, Sánchez-Albornoz asked Suárez, again, to form a government. Suárez, in spite of himself, did it, but also announced that new elections were to be held on September 11st, 1983.

Meanwhile, the outrage among the Public opinion led to a blacklash of violence. On 26 July, Juan Antonio García Díez, the Finance Minister, was murdered in Madrid by Enrique Gómez and Enrique Aguirre, former army officers and members of the Cuerpos Voluntarios and members of the radical right-wing organization Alerta. García Diez mas murdered because of his policy of "appeasement to foreign powers and betrayal of the Fatherland". Gómez and Aguirre were smuggled to Itally and were prosecuted only in 1999.

On July 29, as a reaction to the murder, Sánchez-Albornez, declared an state of exception in application of the article 98 of the constitution. This was followed by strong national agitation in several cities. Five days later, Jorge Vestrynge, the leader of AP, asked Suárez the lifting of the state of emergency and complained about the "shameful agitation against the right". In the end, the state of exception was not to be lifted until September. By that time, the change peseta-dollar was fixed at 475 pesetas to one dollar.
 
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