An expat writer explains the Catalan secessionist quandary

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:15:00 +0000

Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief at the end of the ridiculously long, ridiculously costly election cycle in America, it came in the mail. Small and folded, it sat on my desk threateningly -- the card telling me my polling place for the upcoming elections here in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia. Only two years into his presidency of this autonomous region of Spain, Artur Mas called anticipated elections in an explicit bid to gain absolute majority of the Parliament, after negotiations stalled with Spanish leader Mariano Rajoy to ease Catalonia’s federal tax burden, following a huge, historic independence rally on Sept. 11: Catalunya’s National Holiday. Imagine if the Fourth of July was the celebration of a defeat. Suddenly, international eyes were on this stateless nation about the size of Maryland. Yesterday, Catalans went to the polls with the highest turnout ever, sounding the death knell for Mas’ megalomaniacal aspirations but increasing the independentist majority. Why should Americans care? Certainly in Europe the possible repercussions of the largest economy in Southern Europe fracturing off of the Kingdom of Spain are being looked at with much more than just morbid curiosity.

Salon.com > the economy

An expat writer explains the Catalan secessionist quandary