“Olivença é portuguesa, naturalmente"

September 16, 2024 1:34 AM

Portugal's Defense Minister Nuno Melo has reignited a long-standing territorial dispute, claiming that the Spanish town of Olivenza rightfully belongs to Portugal and asserting that the country will not relinquish its claim. [AA]

Located in Spain’s Badajoz province, about 60 kilometers (37.2 miles) from the Portuguese border, Olivenza has been a point of contention between the two nations for centuries.

Speaking to the reporters on Friday, Melo said: "Olivenza is Portuguese, naturally, and it is not a provocation at all."

Referring to the 1297 Treaty of Alcanices between the Kingdoms of Castile and Portugal, he said: "In fact, by treaty, Olivenza should be handed over to the Portuguese State," adding it is "not a question of yesterday, but of today."

Ministro da Defesa diz que Olivença “é portuguesa” e “por tratado, deverá ser entregue ao Estado português” [Público]

Olivenza: The Portuguese Town That’s in Spain [Portugalist]

The Olivença Issue [Friends of Olivença]

Ricardo Araújo Pereira: "Alguém tem de ir a Olivença dar as más notícias àquelas pessoas e dizer-lhes que são portuguesas" [SIC]

[Portuguese humorist Ricardo Araújo Pereira: "someone's got to go to Olivença and give those people the bad news that they're Portuguese"]

posted by chavenet (15 comments total)

Let’s just give it to a third country. I nominate Poland.
posted by The River Ivel at 2:14 AM on September 16 [4 favorites]

How did I know that this fucking idiot would be a conservative before even looking him up?
posted by flabdablet at 2:40 AM on September 16 [7 favorites]

How did I know that this fucking idiot would be a conservative before even looking him up?

Touché.

It's funnysad how the word "conservative" carries associations like "responsibility" and "pragmatic caution" and "tending towards stability, away from radical change".

According to the Portugalist article linked in the OP,

These days, disputes like this are generally handled through referendums. Scotland had one in 2014 and Gibraltar had sovereignty referendums in 1967 and 2002. If Olivenza was to have one, however, it’s unlikely that people would vote in favour of returning to Portuguese rule: less than 5% of its population consider themselves to be Portuguese.

posted by trig at 3:06 AM on September 16 [1 favorite]

It's funnysad how the word "conservative" carries associations like "responsibility" and "pragmatic caution" and "tending towards stability, away from radical change".

More disgusting than funny to me, though I'm something of an outlier in long having had zero respect for self-important, self-satisfied, self-aggrandizing hypocritical pricks and the propaganda industries that serve their interests.
posted by flabdablet at 3:36 AM on September 16 [5 favorites]

I don't know if this is the case or not, and perhaps obviously I am not a newly-minted internet expert on Spainish-Portuguese historical relations, but having been around the block a few times I can definitely say that "resigning over or loudly raising some obscure point of ancient geopolitical principle" is frequently shorthand for "this person is enjoying the benefit of a distraction while the much larger, much more immediately real and much more important screwup they're directly culpable for gets cleaned up quietly."
posted by mhoye at 3:44 AM on September 16 [11 favorites]

These days, disputes like this are generally handled through referendums.

Well, "handled" is doing a lot of work there. Plenty of people in Scotland don't accept the 2014 referendum as definitive, and have been trying to have another one since. Very definitive referendums in Gibraltar & the Falklands haven't damped down pressure to change their ownership centuries later either. The Falklands Islands voted 99.8% in 2013 to remain a British Overseas Territory (literally 3 voted against), but Argentina continues, for example.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 3:47 AM on September 16 [3 favorites]

Spain and Portugal are both democracies. Both are EU members and use the same currency. Both are in the Schengen zone so there's free movement across their border. Spanish and Portuguese are mutually intelligible languages. Who gives a fuck what colour their passport is except monster raving loony ultranationalist assholes?
posted by flabdablet at 4:20 AM on September 16 [7 favorites]

Have they considered a joint custody agreement like Andorra's? Give the town a Spanish bishop and Portuguese governor and have them alternate each year?
posted by ocschwar at 4:46 AM on September 16 [5 favorites]

Wouldn't that be a wild job title: Bishop of Olivença (during even years). Or Odd Year Bishop of Olivença.
posted by Mitheral at 5:19 AM on September 16 [3 favorites]

Maybe they can do what Canada and Denmark did with that pointless rock in the middle of the ocean whose name I can't recall. Every year on some significant day, one side "invades" with a dozen soldiers, takes down the other country's flag, puts up their own, and leaves some quality booze for next year's invaders from the other side. Make it a party and a tourist attraction.
posted by Naberius at 6:56 AM on September 16 [6 favorites]

Make it a party and a tourist attraction.

This sort of thing is good fun when there's no significant audience and no hypernationalist kooks involved, neither of which seem to be the case here.
posted by mhoye at 7:17 AM on September 16 [2 favorites]

Maybe they can do what Canada and Denmark did with that pointless rock in the middle of the ocean whose name I can't recall. Every year on some significant day, one side "invades" with a dozen soldiers, takes down the other country's flag, puts up their own, and leaves some quality booze for next year's invaders from the other side.

Not anymore. The Russian invasion of Ukraine encouraged an end to dicey sovereignty games, and a new land border for Canada on Hans Island.
posted by Popular Ethics at 7:44 AM on September 16 [2 favorites]

Sometimes these cross-border blips make people cross [Kirkenes and who owns the Red Army legacy] and sometimes allows a proliferation of crosses [Metaprev Baarle Hertog / Nassau BE/NL].

Badajoz? War? Cue Ben Battle:
'O Nelly Gray! O Nelly Gray!
For all your jeering speeches,
At duty's call I left my legs
In Badajos's breaches.'

'Why, then,' said she, 'you've lost the feet
Of legs in war's alarms,
And now you cannot wear your shoes
Upon your feats of arms!'
posted by BobTheScientist at 8:47 AM on September 16 [1 favorite]

In all seriousness, mhoye must be correct. He's gotta be trying to bury some bad news but I can't read enough Portuguese to tell -- anyone got any ideas?

(actual question)
posted by aramaic at 6:26 PM on September 16 [1 favorite]

>Spanish and Portuguese are mutually intelligible languages.

They're certainly very similar, and I think quite easy for one speaker to pick up the other one with dedicated effort. But mutually intelligible, eh, that's a stretch.

É difícil aceitar mas as diferenças são esquisitas e podes ficar embaraçada.

(It's hard to accept but the differences are weird and you might be embarrassed / It's hard to rub with olive oil but the differences are tasty and you might end up pregnant)
posted by pmv at 1:06 PM on September 17 [4 favorites]