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.