This Europe: Spanish flag flies in the face of dissent

Spain's ruling Popular Party has sparked a furious row by launching a monthly military ceremony to honour the scarlet-and-gold national flag.

A squad of marines is to run a 300-square metre flag, the biggest in Spain, up a 50-metre pole in Madrid's central Columbus Square, in the presence of the Defence Minister, Federico Trillo, and the military top brass, on the last Wednesday of each month.

The ceremony was inaugurated this week, but far from rallying patriotic pride the initiative offended nationalists in Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque country, where separatist sentiments are running high.

"Decadent Spanish imperialism," snorted Joxe Gonzalez de Txabarri, the MP for the Basque Nationalists Party, who reckoned such gestures "recalled military situations and symbols of the past, with a style and tradition redolent of the barracks".

Xavier Trias, a Catalan nationalist spokesman, said: "This is not the best way to make us all feel bound to the idea of a pluri-national state."

The press expressed outrage that Spain should adopt what the normally conservative El Mundo newspaper condemned as a "Third-Worldist" formality bearing "a very unfortunate martial bias".

No provocation was intended, said Mr Trillo. The minister said the ceremony had been planned months before the Basque regional government said it wanted a referendum on greater autonomy from Spain.

But in his patriotic speech, Mr Trillo said it was opportune "in these moments" to honour a flag "that represents the integrity of Spain ... and the guarantee that the armed forces of Spain are the custodians of its flag and its unity".