Continental drift: a slew of European breakaways


"Happy families are all alike: every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

- Leo Tolstoy, "Anna Karenina"

The opening to Tolstoy's great novel of love and tragedy could be a metaphor for Europe today, where "unhappy families" of Catalans, Scots, Belgians, Ukrainians, and Italians contemplate divorcing the countries they are currently a part of. And in a case where reality mirrors fiction, they are each unhappy in their own way.





The two most pressing - and the ones most likely to have a profound impact on the rest of Europe - are Scotland and Catalonia.

Both are unhappy in different ways.

Scotland always had a vocal, albeit marginal, nationalist party, but was traditionally dominated by the British Labour Party. The Conservatives hardly exist north of the Tweed. But Tony Blair's "New Labour" Party's record of spending cuts and privatization alienated many Scots, who spend more on their education and health services than the rest of Britain. University tuition, for instance, is still free in Scotland, as are prescription drugs and home health care.






If the vote were taken today, the Scots would probably vote to remain in Britain, but sentiment is shifting. The most recent poll indicates that 40 percent will vote for independence, a 3 percent increase. The "no" votes have declined by 2 percent to 45 percent, with 15 percent undecided. All Scottish residents over the age of 16 can vote. Given the formidable campaigning skills of Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, and leader of the SNP, those are chilling odds for the London government.

Catalonia, wedged up against France in Spain's northeast, has long been a powerful engine for the Spanish economy, and a region steeped in historical grievance. Conquered by the combined armies of France and Spain in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), it was also on the losing side of the 1936-'39 Spanish Civil War. In 1940, triumphant fascists suppressed the Catalan language and culture and executed its president, Lluis Companys, an act no Madrid government has ever made amends for.



Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's PP is pretty much an afterthought - 19 out of 135 seats - in Catalonia where several independence parties dominate the Catalan legislature. The largest of these is Province President Artur Mas's Convergencia i Unio (CiU), but the Esquerra Republicana de Cataluyna (ERC) doubled its representation in the legislature.

That doesn't mean they agree with one another. Mas's party tends to be centrist to conservative, while the ERC is leftist and opposed to the austerity program of the PP, some of which Mas has gone along with. The CiU's centrism is one of the reasons that Mas's party went from 62 seats to 50 in the 2012 election, while the ERC jumped from 10 to 21.

Unemployment in Spain is officially at 25 percent - but far higher among youth and in southern provinces - and the Left has thrown down the gauntlet. Over 100,000 people marched on Madrid last month demanding an end to austerity.



How would the EU react to an independent Catalan? And would the central government in Madrid do anything about it? It is hard to imagine the Spanish army getting involved, although a former minister in the Franco government started Rajoy's party, and the dislike between Madrid and Barcelona is palpable.

There are other fault lines on the continent.


In Italy, the South Tyrol Freedom Party (STFP) is gearing up for an independence referendum and pressing for a merger with Austria, although the tiny province - called Alto Adige in Italy - has little to complain about. It keeps 90 percent of its taxes, and its economy has dodged the worst of the 2008 meltdown. But some of its German-Austrian residents are resentful of any money going to Rome, and there is a deep prejudice against Italians - who make up 25 percent of South Tyrol - particularly among those in the south. In this way the STFP is not very different than the racist, elitist Northern League centered in Italy's Po Valley.


This article was originally posted at the author's blog, Dispatches From the Edge.

Photo: More than one million people (from Catalonia's total of 7 million inhabitants) demonstrated in Barcelona demanding national identity and independence from Spain, July 10, 2010. SBA 73/Flickr CC