Last month, Wales celebrated the 20th anniversary of devolution, shifting powers from Westminster to Cardiff. While studying in France, I had some fascinating lectures on the Scottish independence referendum, but weirdly, very little on Welsh devolution. Just a few lines in a notebook:
"18 Sept 1997 referendum : Wales was divided, only 50,3% voted yes among the 50,1% who voted. Southern anglophone urbanised wealthier population voted rather against the project. Northern, Center, Western voted rather in favour of the project. Led to the 1998 Government of Wales Act , and to the creation of the Welsh Assembly Government : first proof that Wales politically exists. Same powers as Scottish Parliament, except for the police, justice and fiscal matters.
1999 first elections of the 60 AM (Assembly Members) : Labour won (without an outright majority), Plaid Cymru did well. 1999-2003 : coalition Labour-Lib Dems. 2003-2007 : coalition Labour-Plaid Cymru. 2011 : Labour back to being the first Welsh party, governs alone. Confidence in Welsh identity slowly progressing. Moving towards a Parliament like in Scotland ? In 1999 the Assembly had limited powers and could not vote its own laws. 2006 Government of Wales Act + 2011 referendum > gained legislative powers. 1st voted law designates Welsh as the official language (21% of population speaks Welsh).
2013 Cameron accepted the transfer of fiscal powers to the Assembly."
It's unfortunate that Welsh devolution gets so little attention overseas - I found this French article on "Welsh politics 10 years after devolution", but that's about it. Perhaps this simply means that the devolved government has a lot left to prove. Afterall, the Welsh economy is still highly suffering from the end of the mining era and the Valleys and North Wales remain deprived areas.
When police officer Rhino asks people having a fire in the street if they're 'burning all their speeding tickets'
from BBC documentary series Valley Cops
South Wales, and Cardiff in particular, have been experiencing a remarkable economic resurgence in the last 20 years, in great part thanks to devolution. The Welsh capital is regularly put forward as one of the greatest place to live in Europe for the quality of life, green spaces, educational facilities and new cultural dynamism.
Some argue that this boom has been at the expense of other regions of Wales. But without an attractive capital region, how could Wales attract investments in the first place? The main challenge for the next 20 years of Welsh devolution is to expand the repercussions of this boom to the rest of the country and its industrial heartlands.
This calls for major infrastructure projects, such as the M4 relief road and the South Wales Metro (the proposed integration of heavy rail, development of light rail and bus-based public transport services and systems in South East Wales around the hub of Cardiff Central), and for more regional strategies, such as the city deals for Cardiff and Swansea.
France, for its part, has traditionally been one of Europe's most politically centralised countries: the opening paragraph of the constitution describes the country as "a single and indivisible republic".
In 1982-1983, in a limited move towards decentralisation, the socialist government set up twenty-two regions, but left the 96 existing "départements" (counties) untouched. Regions were given a strategic role, covering areas such as transport planning, economic development and environmental matters. These laws followed the first failed attempt at decentralisation by General De Gaulle, in 1969.
In 2002, when the government announced plans to give new tax-raising and administrative powers to regional assemblies, a constitutional change was required to declare France a "decentralised" state.
This amend to the Constitution put in place the financial autonomy of the three levels of local government (commune, department and Region), and transferred to the regions considerable power over infrastructure and operational spending in education, tourism, public transit, universities and research, unemployment, and assistance to businesses. But unlike in Wales, these regions don't have any legislative authority.
More recently, the French parliament passed a law reducing the number of metropolitan regions from twenty-two to thirteen, effective since January 2016. But after quite a lot of turmoil over the new regions' names and breakdown, it's still not very clear who's really going to benefit from this reform!
Some regions, such as Corsica or Brittany (to a lesser degree), are still seeking greater autonomy from Paris.
Since the 1970s, the presence in Corsica of important and sometimes violent separatist movements led to the institutional development of the Mediterranean island, and to the creation of a territorial collectivity with specific competences.
Historically, Brittany has long been isolated from the rest of France. Breton is a Celtic language close to Cornish and Welsh and has recently undergone something of a revival, and efforts to assert a distinct Breton cultural identity enjoy much greater support than political nationalism.
Nationalist parties can also be found in the Basque Country, Northern Catalonia, Occitania, Provence and Savoy regions.