What's wrong with independence of small groups? The more governments - the more competition. Why are we against big monopolies in every area, except the state services?
The extinction
Being smaller is stupid when you need to compete with much bigger countries in the rest of the world. It doesn't work in the practise.
I mean, by the same argument, why not let someone annex Spain? If bigger is better...
I haven't heard of any new independent country asking to be part again of the former one.
Yeah, the tiresome "seduce us (with mo' fresh money)" argument again.
I have a better idea, why you don't try to seduce me instead to call me thief (Spain stole us) and abuser (Spain oppress us and do not let us be free) and hit me all the time with a new surrealist occurrence (don't buy spanish products, here are a list of the evil companies that you must avoid if you want to be a good citizen)?
In the last 60 years, you have been offered a lot of gifs and privileges (that by the way, I don't enjoy), and is never enough. You are never, ever, happy. Always creating drama around, like an old crazy theater lady past her prime, always demanding to be loved, but giving in return dry sarcasm and a single uncaring kiss by christmas (when there are cameras around).
So thanks, but not thanks. I will pass this time. You are not so irresistible as you think and not so beautiful as you were 20 years ago. I deserve something better.
> I haven't heard of any new independent country asking to be part again of the former one.
This does not bother me, but there is always a first time for everything.
Then you don't have to deal with them.
A vote is happening. There is nothing that the government can do to stop it unless they send in the tanks and start killing millions.
Beware and let us know if you spot any zombie
There has certainly been some disruption, but the people are mostly still forging ahead on all fronts.
The police have open fired on some of the pro independence people, sending a couple hundred to the hospital, but that is very minor in the vast scheme of things.
A couple hundred pro independence people in the hospital isn't that big of a barrier.
This is only the beginning. Every video of the Spanish military beating up an 80 year old lady with a ballot in hand is a propaganda Victor for the independence movement. They stop 1 person from voting, via their rubber bullets, and they create a hundred more pro independence people who were previously neutral.
Another possibility could be separatists thinking last week or yesterday "this is stupid, some people could be hurt!, for nothing!, why we don't stop this farce before... dunno... a 80yo lady is beaten or so?
I bet that the lady, or the child crying, would have appreciated that line of reasoning, but it seems that for separatists the more people hurt, the better. Curious if we think about it.
The people voting know what they are doing. Many people throughout history have died for their right to do that.
More than 800 wounded in hospital. I think it is not a fantasy.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/01/dozens-injured...
2 seriously injured == millions murdered?
If you want to bang your head repeatedly against the walls and trow chairs against policemen, please don't tell me that is my fault if you end the day with some scratches, a headache, a panic attack or something worst.
There is a great solution for this, avoid being deliberately (with your little kids not less!) in a place where something illegal is happening and was publicly announced. Avoid to participate in the scam and specially to mock and challenge the police in their faces (with the obvious goal to elicit a violent reaction for advertising purposes), and you will be OK. Take care of yourself and think twice before to act.
Independentists are irresponsably scalating their constant provocation and salivating since years with the idea of a militar intervention with shiny tanks and hundreds of people murdered (preferibly non-indepentendist people). Thus they could finally justify having their much dreamed war of secession, doing a little clean of the zone, and feeling like warfare heros in their neighborhood. This is not what happened yesterday, thanks to all deities.
And today the basques had also asked for a referendum to be recognised as nation. As expected. Great.
Name three "gifts/privileges" that Catalonia has been given/granted and you don't enjoy, please.
Just google it, spend a few hours reading legal documents and history of the country and will find the answer by yourself.
Should Catalonia accept independence from pockets where the majority wants to be Spanish?
Can your neighborhood struck trade deals with India? Then maybe your neighborhood wants to team up with others around to do that... See where I'm going?
It already meets all the requirements to be a member, EU law is ingrained in Catalan law, it has the ability to negotiate and state structures. It just needs to be an independent country.
It would be better to be in the EU, but meanwhile that happens some bilateral trade deals with the EU should be relatively easy to accomplish.
If you're referring to recognition as a country, that's a separate and huge discussion. If Catalonia is not recognised it can't take its part of Spanish debt with it (might be up to 20% of the total) while being a rebel region not paying taxes and maybe under military occupation. How is Spain, which is still in critical condition with a debt of the size of its GDP, going to fare? This month Spain had to get a loan to pay pensions. This month!
So if Spain loses 20% of its GDP while keeping all the debt, how is it going to survive? And if Spain can't pay and falls, what's going to happen to the EU? You thought Brexit was bad? This is much worse!
A situation were the outcome of a YES vote is negotiated and Catalonia pays his dues is a win-win for every stakeholder: Catalans, Catalonia, Spaniards, Spain and the EU. Striking trade deals after that is pure pragmatism.
Just go through old papers about Slovenia or even the Baltics. It's all about realpolitik at the end and Catalonia has to be able to show its value to the world.
But one of the requirements for entering the EU is unanimous approval from the other countries. That is not going to happen for Catalunya.
Which makes think about the ramifications for the future of the EU with a yes vote in the referendum.
A relatively prosperous region in on the European subcontinent that agrees to succeed will embroil the EU with more political and economic turmoil than it already has, and open the subcontinent up to more non EU influence.
Might be a boon for multinational corporations and some governments who have something to gain from a weaker EU.
At least something tells me that the recent former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the US State Dept words from a leaked phone conversation on the EU a couple years ago probably stands true today of the perspective some powerful people have in the world on the EU…