# Prospects of Catalonian indepence **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 21, 2012, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380 "2012-09-21T11:28:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380/21 "2012-09-22T16:29:30Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I wouldn’t know if there’s a chance that Catalonia will become independent, but it never crossed my mind that it could result in massive civil unrest, government breakdown or civil war. I think some of the posters here are biased by American history (the civil war). I expect peaceful separations be it in Spain or in the UK, Belgium, etc.. (Naming only the ones with a significant chance of success, otherwise, the list would be endless in Europe. We have four Independence movements in France alone : Brittany, Basque Country, Corsica, Savoy, plus more essentially anecdotal. Or in Italy, the Northern League is politically very influent even though it has no expectation of actually forming an independent state). > Thinking of it, it occurs to me posters might have the Yugoslavian example or Ireland in mind rather than the US civil war. Anyway, Spain is already quite decentralized, the validity of claims of Spanish regions are acknowledged, and the possibility that someday Catalogne in particular could want to become independent known. > [@](#): > > A serving army officer, Colonel Francisco Alaman, has fuelled the flames by comparing the crisis with 1936 – when Gen Francisco Franco seized power – and by vowing to crush Catalan nationalists, described as “vultures”. > > “Independence for Catalunya? Over my dead body. Spain is not Yugoslavia or Belgium. Even if the lion is sleeping, don’t provoke the lion, because he will show the ferocity proven over centuries,” he said. > > Retired Lt-Gen Pedro Pitarch, a former army chief, said the words reflect “deeply-rooted thinking in large parts of the armed forces”. He also accused Madrid of bungling the Catalan drama disastrously. > **[Spain risks break-up as Mariano Rajoy stirs Catalan fury](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9556803/Spain-risks-break-up-as-Mariano-Rajoy-stirs-Catalan-fury.html)** > > The ruling parties of Catalonia have sought guidance from Brussels on the legality of secession from Spain, requesting a “route map” for membership of the European Union and the euro as an independent state. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380/22 "2012-09-22T19:33:32Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9556803/Spain-risks-break-up-as-Mariano-Rajoy-stirs-Catalan-fury.html](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9556803/Spain-risks-break-up-as-Mariano-Rajoy-stirs-Catalan-fury.html) Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is a world class penis. You would have to be in the UK to understand that. His many hobby horse is predicting disasters in the Eurozone\* \*Yes, there have been disasters. But he has predicted fifty or sixty of the last couple. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380/23 "2012-09-24T19:49:27Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > We have four Independence movements in France alone : Brittany, Basque Country, Corsica, Savoy, plus more essentially anecdotal. Wouldn’t it make more sense for Corsica and Savoy to be transferred to Italy? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380/24 "2012-09-25T07:45:55Z")
The Catalans love forgetting it, but their economy depends heavily on the rest of Spain. An anecdote that’s heavily representative, and a few brushes: back in the 1980s, my Barcelona cousin got more than 100.000 signatures backing Barcelona’s Olympic candidacy from my friends in Navarre, Aragon and Rioja. Years later, on the day the games had been assigned to Barcelona, I was waiting for the bus with her and several other people, all of them patting each other’s backs and congratulating themselves. Then my cousin raised her eyes and said “what the FUCK is that SHIT doing there?” That shit was a Spanish flag. That’s the attitude a certain kind of Catalans (Katalans from now on) have towards the rest of Spain: glad to have our backing, glad to spend our money, but ah, we’re their oppressors. Hundreds of thousands of people who were born and grew up in Barcelona’s metropolitan area do not consider themselves Catalans, having spend their whole life hearing from Katalans that they’re not Catalan enough - yet when it comes to claiming benefits, suddenly “we’re 6 millions”. Recently, Catalan politicians issued a formal complaint about the latest map of Aragon published by the Government of Aragon, because there is a part of Aragon where Catalan is spoken (less in recent years, due to Katalan colonial attitudes pissing the locals off) and the map did not name it by its Catalan name - how dare the Aragonese call it by its name in the only language that’s official in Aragon, the language spoken by 100% of Aragonese! The political use of soccer has been mentioned in these boards a few times. When Barça claims to be “more than a club”, it’s a reference to isolationist independentism - yet they sure don’t have a problem hiring “Espanyols” 😛 or having fan clubs in “the rest of the kingdom called Spain”. Personally, I’d say “oh, you want independence? Sure, now give us a plan including how will you pay for infrastructures being transferred, schools, hospitals…; remember to take into account that you won’t be able to join the EU until we get tired of pissing on you”. Or, in Spanish, _no hay güevos._ ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380/25 "2012-09-25T19:49:12Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > …Heck, Serbia in the late nineties has a solid claim to being more democatic than the Confederate States of America; Jeff Davis never had to run for re-election… The CSA constitution limited the president to one 6-year term. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380/26 "2012-09-27T09:25:49Z")
How rich is Catalonia really? Isn’t it similar to London in that the headquarters of every national chain, large business, banks and so on are situated there, so all the tax money gets reported there despite the real wealth being generated throughout the rest of the country, inflating its apparent wealth? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380/27 "2012-09-27T12:54:15Z")
That’s more the case for Madrid but yes, a lot of the taxes from Catalonia are linked to factories or stores in other locations. People tend to be surprised when they discover that the central office of a business is neither in Madrid nor in Barcelona. Catalonia is not the manufacturing desert (exaggerating only slightly) that Madrid is, though: there’s a lot of industry in the provinces of Barcelona and Tarragona, strong agriculture in general, a strong tourist industry. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380/28 "2012-09-27T13:46:52Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > back in the 1980s, my Barcelona cousin got more than 100.000 signatures backing Barcelona’s Olympic candidacy from my friends in Navarre, Aragon and Rioja. My god, Nava, you have a lot of friends. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380/29 "2012-09-27T17:33:22Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > My god, Nava, you have a lot of friends. or few friends willing to give their many time. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380/30 "2012-09-28T14:17:53Z")
I am also Spanish, have lived for many years in Barcelona (love the place). Personally I am “laissez-faire”. People want to go their own way? OK, let them… As long as they think long and hard before doing it, weighing very carefully the factors and probable consequences of that move. Somehow I have the feeling that quite a few of the people who are pushing for independence right now in Catalonia are acting out of passion and emotion, not careful thought. Also, there seems to be a feeling of “independence will be the magical potion that will cure everything that ails this place and will solve our economic problems”. If that feeling is widespread, I predict a very bitter disappointment for a lot of people. I have the impression that what has energized the demand for independence is the very serious economic crisis gripping Catalonia (the local government implemented _ **way** _ harsher budget cuts than the Spanish government, and earlier too). People seem to have ended up equating “the economy is shit” with “this is the fault of the central government taking away X% of our revenue” (where X can be anything from 8 to 12). Interestingly enough, the main party in Catalonia (and the one that currently holds the reins of government), CiU, has executed a fantastic 180 turn in the subject of independence – they campaigned under the concept of “independence is not for now”, and now they are all for “let’s organize a proper consultation about independence and let’s see if we can’t get it going on as soon as possible”. Whether this is something sincere or whether they decided to “go with the flow” because they feel that the movement in the street has overtaken them, that’s another question. At least they are semi-honest enough to realize that they cannot keep governing if they are going to go back in such an important aspect of the program under which they were elected; thus calling for elections in November. Elections which everybody is interpreting as being actually a referendum about independence. However, I don’t know… Given that, of the main parties taking part in the elections, two (ERC and CiU) are going to be pro-independence for sure, one (PSC-PSOE) has been caught with its pants down and doesn’t know what to say (it apparently is sharply divided internally about the question, with one of the main leaders of PSC saying that he is going to start his own party that will be favourable to independence – thus, I think, dooming both himself and PSC-PSOE because he will be dividing the vote) and the last one (PP) being overtly against independence, but being also seen with the outmost suspicion in Catalonia (and I don’t think that the people from the “red belts” of Barcelona and other cities, who are mostly from outside Catalonia and have traditionally voted mostly PSC-PSOE, will transfer their vote to the PP. Well, unless they become too scared about the prospect of “becoming foreigners in their own country”, that is). TL: DR – All of the main parties but one are favourable (or at least say nothing) about independence for Catalonia, and the one that is outright against it appears not to be well liked over there. I don’t think that you can take the results of the November election as a “referendum” on the question of independence. Anyway, this will be interesting, in the long term. I am already preparing the popcorn. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380/31 "2012-10-02T05:04:33Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > My god, Nava, you have a lot of friends. > [@Rune](#): > > or few friends willing to give their many time. No, my group of closest friends (about 20 of us who’d go out together every weekend) had many cousins, who also had friends, who also had cousins, who also… My cousin was surprised when, instead of just signing, one of my friends said “wait, let’s make photocopies of the form and each of us takes a bunch”. She was stunned when each person came back bringing a sheaf of signed pages. My BFF from kindergarten has 43 cousins who lived in 6 different towns and 3 provinces - she alone brought over 3K sigs. Every signature and ID number was different. Oh, and I’ll look for cites later since I heard it on the radio and I have to run, but apparently Mas has declared that “getting our own nation does not involve full independence”. OK, so you’re just being gits? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380/32 "2012-10-02T06:57:29Z")
All links to Spanish-language editions, El Periódico’s Catalan edition can be acessed from their webpage (first link at the top). [El Periódico](http://www.elperiodico.com/es/noticias/politica/artur-mas-adios-espana-2216487) (de Catalunya) [La Vanguardia](http://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20121001/54351453671/mas-estado-propio-independencia-estaremos-europa.html) [El País](http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2012/10/01/actualidad/1349125528_700343.html) [El Mundo](http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2012/10/01/barcelona/1349122879.html) I don’t think they have a plan. They have a long-standing policy of Pissing Off The Rest (where definitions of “the rest” vary), but they don’t really have a plan. Mind you, I’m sure that part of my issues with this whole thing is that I’m a lot closer to the trenches than most of The Rest, between my family and having worked in Catalonia recently; hearing the governments of Navarre and Euskadi get blamed for the economic situation in Catalonia is one of those things which get old the first time you hear it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prospects-of-catalonian-indepence/635380.md?page=1)