Spanish province passes historic motion to split from 'fictitious region'

A historic motion has been passed in Spain by the city council in León demanding the separation of the province from the region of Castilla y León, which was formed in 1983 shortly after Spain returned to democracy after the death of General Franco.

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تاریخ: ۰۹ دی ۱۳۹۸ - ۰۹:۲۸

“We’ve never felt ourselves to be part of Castilla y León. It’s a fictitious region; León has nothing to do with Castile,” said the Leonese mayor, José Antonio Díez.

After Friday’s vote in León city hall, several other towns across the province followed suit, demanding that what they consider a historic region comprising León, Salamanca and Zamora split away from Castilla y León.

“We have started on the path,” Luis Mariano, a member of the regional parliament for the Leonese People’s Union (UPL) party, told The Telegraph.

Mr Mariano says that six town and city halls now support the creation of new region out of León’s 200 municipalities. “If we can get to the point where we have a majority of the population represented by these motions, we would at least oblige the main political parties to sit down and debate our demands,” Mr Mariano said.

León Mayor Díez said the next step would be to form a “table for dialogue” over the future of the embryonic region, using the same language as the Catalan Republican Left party, which has demanded the launch of a negotiation process over Catalonia’s future as its condition for supporting a government in Madrid led by Pedro Sanchez.

Mr Mariano was adamant, however, that the drive for a new Leonese region was not a question of separatism.

“We feel Spanish. We want to continue being Spanish. This has absolutely nothing in common with the Catalan issue.” Nine provinces make up the Castilla y León region, whose capital is Valladolid. The population is just under half a million. Mr Mariano pointed out that there was no referendum on the formation of the Castilla y León region, as took place in others including the Basque Country, Catalonia and Andalucia, and complained that Valladolid takes a lion’s share of investment into the region.

“All we have done is to swap one overwhelming centralisation in Madrid for another one in Valladolid,” Mr Mariano said of the formation of the region almost four decades ago.