I have to agree with Angry Panda. Small nations can better serve their citizens, which is why Federal Government should be decentralized so smaller states and local governments have more control. A political government grows more inefficient and less able to address its people's needs as the population and size increases.

scottish indpencnede wopwop garlic :D

@Eklipse is right. I hope for a future stateless society, but the way to get it is not dividing, but merging. A pan-European has spoken.

And well, @JaiBharat, it's not the same. Scotland is a constituent Nation inside the UK, recognised as such. Their Kingdom is, actually, a personal union, if you see it. Spain used to be a personal union long ago, but around 1700 it became a single state. And if someone had that right to secede, it would be Aragon as a whole, not just Catalonia. Catalan independence would be like a Highlands independence, or the Scottish-speaking Scotland. Also, I think this is not a real feeling from the Catalans, but instead a form to express disagreement with some politicians in Spain. For example, separatists 10 years ago made about 15%. Now they are a 47%. I don't really think that is a true feeling, but a refusal to much from the political class in Spain, that happened everywhere, yes, but in this region expressed that way. Without an economical crisis, we wouldn't be in this situation. And also... What about the regions inside Catalonia that don't want independence? Would the Barcelona metro region, openly pro-Spain in a 75%, be allowed to stay? I don't think so. Or if separatists lost, don't you think they would try to set future referendums until they win? This is a lot more complex than just self-determination.

But anyway, note I'm not against a referendum, but against an unilateral secession. I have my opinion about that too, but I don't really oppose a referendum, if it is negotiated from both sides.

or the Scottish-speaking Scotland

looooooool. Scottishspeaking Scotlan d xD XD Theres like lses than 100k people in Scotandln that speakj GAELIC!!!!1 not scottihs. pretty mjch most of the coutnry speak "Scots" though. A dialect of English that is very unique. juq says he finds it hardh to read between Scots & Englush but I see little dsifference.

hIGHLANDS INDEPENDDNECE! Hah, that is ridiculous. like 4 people live there. sleepybear, and his alts. xD XD XD XD

and thats kinda sad Ox, the ancestral language of the Scottish people is the Scottish language (the Celtic one), not that 'dialect' as you are saying.

And Pablo I am also for a referendum and never said I was in favor of an undemocratic/violent method to achieve independence (see ETA). So yes I do hope Spain would let and respect a referendum amongst the Basques or the Catalans, as for now Spain still blocks any attempt of referendum (like France, but France is worse in that case), so the first step would be to let people democratically choose their destiny: Be independent or stay with Spain, but finally any choices and the final decision should be respected by both parties (pro Spain and pro Independentist sides).

Eklipse stop being ridiculous would you? if you know nothing about Basque history/culture then you better not argue here about it.

Admittedly I'm not an expert, but that doesn't invalidate me from discussing the issue. However, I'll keep this rhetoric in mind the next time you put your two cents into an American based topic.

Now, do you have any counter-points or is your only defense to call me ridiculous just because I'm not from Basque?

And wtf do you have against tiny states?

I have nothing against the ones who currently exist. I'm opposed to carving up the world into more of them, however. Letting every little secessionist movement have their way would be horrible for the entire planet. Said tiny states would have massive resource shortages, very little individual power or influence, and it's very likely the world would degenerate into mass wars as the ungodly amount of small countries fight each other for any number of reasons.

It always shocks me whenever a European brings up these kind of arguments. I always thought that most European ideologies were anti-nationalist and pro-unity. Seems to me that splitting Europe's major powers into a bunch of smaller nations would be a step backwards from the EU's goal of unification. (I'm no fan of the EU personally, but from an objective standpoint I think their vision of Europe is far better than a Balkanized nightmare)

Note: I'm not trying to over-generalize Europeans,I realize that every person is different, I'm referring more to recurring ideologies I've noticed in repeated discussions with people of Europe.

I would rather prefer a world composed of a confederation of peaceful tiny states rather than a world composed of suprematist superpowers wanting to possess, control and rule everyone and everything (i guess you know what im talking about, see Cold War US vs USSR, or soon US vs China).

A quagmire of small feuding states isn't much better. At-least the threat of mass destruction will keep larger nations in deadlock.

Where do you garner this assumption that a confederation of tiny states would make the world more peaceful? It's far more likely to have the opposite effect as you're unnecessarily separating people with additional artificial divides.

This is very complex topic and I disagree with Eklipse on this

I want to be able to choose my favourite country with best opportunities and place to live, and when all of continent is divided into few huge countries my choices are limited.

And wars will always be no matter if countries are big or not and no matter divided or not.

No century has ever been free of war. To theorize that smaller nations would have less or more wars is completely subjective and has no basis in fact.

Eklipse, this is your opinion, if people choose independence so be it, I would rather be in an united federal peaceful Europe composed of tiny states well representing each culture and people rather than some medium states like Spain, France, UK declining and struggling to maintain their supremacy. Eklipse you do not understand what is going on in Europe because you arent European. Do you think being the biggest one is that important? Europe has gone through this for millenias, endless wars where big kingdoms and great empires wanted to rule the entire continent. Build an empire has often proven to be more disastrous than anything. And yes I believe tiny states would solve and prevent wars, here i'm talking about big conflicts like during world wars when empires were struggling for supremacy, or nowadays with America building military bases everywhere and threatening the world peace each time they decide to invade a nation for greed and false reasons (see Irak). So no I definitely dont see superpowers as a good thing, and you would see through the History that the biggest warmongers werent those tiny states we were talking about.

If the Catalans, the Corsicans or the Basques choose to become independent, just respect their decision.

PS: Basque Country is the correct name of the territory you were talking about, Basque alone means nothing.

Eklipse, this is your opinion, if people choose independence so be it, I would rather be in an united federal peaceful Europe composed of tiny states well representing each culture and people rather than some medium states like Spain, France, UK declining and struggling to maintain their supremacy. Eklipse you do not understand what is going on in Europe because you arent European. Do you think being the biggest one is that important? Europe has gone through this for millenias, endless wars where big kingdoms and great empires wanted to rule the entire continent. Build an empire has often proven to be more disastrous than anything. And yes I believe tiny states would solve and prevent wars, here i'm talking about big conflicts like during world wars when empires were struggling for supremacy, or nowadays with America building military bases everywhere and threatening the world peace each time they decide to invade a nation for greed and false reasons (see Irak). So no I definitely dont see superpowers as a good thing, and you would see through the History that the biggest warmongers werent those tiny states we were talking about.

If the Catalans, the Corsicans or the Basques choose to become independent, just respect their decision.

PS: Basque Country is the correct name of the territory you were talking about, Basque alone means nothing.

Despite the UK decline(it has been going on for about 70 years) they still hold the title for the best special services and is still a major power in politics despite having that Bafoon Cameron in charge.

Eklipse you do not understand what is going on in Europe because you arent European.

"You must be European to discuss European issues." Surely you can tell how fallacious that is.

How would you react if the next time you criticize America I say "Angry Panda/Koala, you don't understand what's going on in the U.S because you aren't American"?

,I would rather be in an united federal peaceful Europe composed of tiny states well representing each culture

Tell me, where does it stop? Within every nation there are cultures and sub-cultures, and inside of those groups are even more sub-cultures. How many arbitrary lines do we draw? Do we continue this line of logic and allow ourselves to keep splitting into smaller and smaller groups? Within every structure there's always a group who feels like they're in the minority, or under-represented, but we can't let every little dissent group form their own country or soon any and all sense of unity between people is shattered.

endless wars where big kingdoms and great empires wanted to rule the entire continent.

Yes, and before then you had a bunch of tiny kingdoms and feudal warlords who struggled endlessly to become larger. Was that any better?

So no I definitely dont see superpowers as a good thing, and you would see through the History that the biggest warmongers werent those tiny states we were talking about.

That's generally because smaller states lack resources and have a harder time fielding a large military, so they often become neutral or sub-servant in the face of larger powers. However, anytime you have a large group of tiny states existing within a vacuum (See: Japan's Warring States period), they almost inevitably end up fighting at some point.

If the Catalans, the Corsicans or the Basques choose to become independent, just respect their decision.

I don't have to respect anything. If a group decides to succeed from their nation in a peaceful manner that is their choice, but I still find it sad how people are so quick to abandon the security and resources provided by a larger nation just so they have a bigger vote.

No century has ever been free of war. To theorize that smaller nations would have less or more wars is completely subjective and has no basis in fact.

So that means we should just casually abandon all attempts at unity? Just secede over every little roadblock that comes up until the world is a giant jigzaw puzzle?

Note: I should clarify something here. I believe that people do have a right to vote on secession through peaceful referendum, HOWEVER, I still believe that in general these independence movements are a bad thing. I don't question the right of Basque Country to leave Spain, but I do question the wisdom and fear the kind of precedent it would set.

Edited 11/9/2015 22:43:14

Eklipse that's why I told you you should first learn more about these topics before posting anything. You find sad that people leave a nation? You are talking about a hypothetic 'security' provided by greater states, but if you knew the Spanish economic situation you would at least be realistic and say that the Catalans and the Basques do have reasons to choose independence, not only because their culture is far different or unique but for economic reasons: Catalonia and Euskadi+Navarre [the Spanish Basque provinces] have far greater economic GDP compared to other Spanish communities even well above the European average. Actually there is also a controversy about the money which is sent to poorer Spanish communities (same thing for Flanders giving money to Wallonia in Belgium, or Scotland giving great ammount of its oil revenues to England). So 'abandon the security and resources provided by a larger nation'? I hope you are kidding.

Independence can be a bad thing depending on the situation, hence it's why I told you to learn more about this topic, because you would see the situation is more complex than just saying ' I do question the wisdom and fear the kind of precedent it would set. ' this has been wisely discussed among the Basques and the Catalans, so do not worry or be sad that much about them if they want to leave Spain.

@OxTheArtist Lol of course I meant Gaelic, I said Scottish to differenciate it from other gaelic languages.

@AngryPanda I have also said many times, that solidarity is a basis for the EU. That's how I completely don't understand why most of those separatists don't want to give money to Central Spain, but they want to receive money from the EU. That's a real hypocresy, I guess. If Sweden thought that also, they would leave EU and abandon Southern countries.

@IonAntonescu Wtf man, are you really saying what I think? Romanians are probably the lowest Romance people in a ranking, based on most stereotypes. So you messing with gypsies ir slavs doesn't make that muchos sense.

And @AngryPanda again, you say Catalonia + Basque lands have the highest GDP. But take into account that, as well as those regions are among the richest in Spain, inside them there are many differences. For example, Catalonian GDP is based that much on Barcelona area industries, and after that also in coastal tourism. Following your statement, Lleida province, the poorest of all them, might not be given money from the real rich parts. In Lleida they live from Barcelona's and beaches' money, they do not make anything. And the best of all: that is the most independentist province, although it is also caused because most independentism is located in rural areas like that.

I am from New Jersey in the US but I keep track of the politics of Russia, UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia, China, India, Canada, and Hungary.

In my opinion, your choice of countries that "you keep track of the politics of" is poor: you have Hungary and Canada but not Mexico?! My suggested list for you: China, America, EU, India, Japan, Brazil, EAU, Nigeria, Mexico, Canada. All important except really Canada, but neighbours America.

I have nothing against the ones who currently exist. I'm opposed to carving up the world into more of them, however. Letting every little secessionist movement have their way would be horrible for the entire planet. Said tiny states would have massive resource shortages, very little individual power or influence, and it's very likely the world would degenerate into mass wars as the ungodly amount of small countries fight each other for any number of reasons.

+2

It always shocks me whenever a European brings up these kind of arguments. I always thought that most European ideologies were anti-nationalist and pro-unity. Seems to me that splitting Europe's major powers into a bunch of smaller nations would be a step backwards from the EU's goal of unification. (I'm no fan of the EU personally, but from an objective standpoint I think their vision of Europe is far better than a Balkanized nightmare)

Have you never met an European? I don't meant this in offence, but where on Earth do you get idea that Europe has more unionists? Have you not seen the 90s, Nigel Farage, and East EU?

I want to be able to choose my favourite country with best opportunities and place to live, and when all of continent is divided into few huge countries my choices are limited.

A country is not a place to live. A country is very many places to live, and it depends on what kind government, but generally, there will be varying opportunities. Like Moravia in Czechia.

No century has ever been free of war. To theorize that smaller nations would have less or more wars is completely subjective and has no basis in fact.

It's more division, more nationalism, less pan-nationalism, and it'll lead to less power balance, and that is when big countries eat the little ones.

---

The more unification, the better. Less borders, bureaucracy, hatred to folk, taxes, so on.

Have you never met an European? I don't meant this in offence, but where on Earth do you get idea that Europe has more unionists? Have you not seen the 90s, Nigel Farage, and East EU?

Well, I'll admit, I've not met hardly any Europeans in person. Most of my interaction has been on forum such as this. Most of the ones I've seen tend to not like Nationalism (Especially of the American flavor) and are really supportive of things such as the EU.

So most likely I've allowed my perception to be colored too much by interactions over the internet, where pro-union Europeans are more in abundance.

I think you dont get something here: The thing is these possible future states that could become independent are not for division at all: that would be actually the contrary if we take the example of Scotland, Catalonia or the Basque Country. All of them are for an European Integration (currently for example some projects are launched to build a 'eurocity' encompassing and reaching out beyond France and Spain's national borders, of course France and Spain are not totally in favor of it, France for example blocks the process of building a public transport linking all the cities in between San Sebastian to Bayonne, this is just one example).

Actually when Scotland independence's referendum happened, the pro independence movement was in favor of being automatically integrated to the EU (the Scottish are usually way more in favor of Europe than the English), but England used all his strength to avoid this, and used his diplomatic relations to convince other European nations (particularly Spain and any other states that could possibly face an independence movement) to make pressure to the European Commission, hence Mr Barosso (the former president of the European Commission) warned Scotland that if they ever became independent they would not be allowed to join the EU (quite ironical seeing how much England is nowadays Eurosceptic), so this 'intimidation' partly worked, as you see the final referendum result, England massively used all the communication\media means possible to frighten the Scottish, consequently the independent movement lost by %1 of the votes, not far here, but I guess they choose to stay in the UK because they were quite afraid because of all the pressure from England and then Europe against Scotland. Whereas without this pressure Scotland could have done well, perhaps better seeing the massive revenues the Scottish Oil and North Sea industry is still gathering.

So I will ask you here: Who is for division? Scotland or England? the Basques or the French? The Spaniards or the Catalans? Now I hope you get the point of it, independentist movements frighten the old big European nations, and they would do anything to stop and to stifle legitimate debates about this topic.

Edited 11/10/2015 13:22:03

I also believe smaller states or at least Federal ones would be more efficient to manage their economy, territory and people. I will give you two clear examples: France and Germany.

France is the most centralized state of Europe by far, consequence of this: most of the wealth is actually accumulated in the capital, Paris, with a GDP far superior and a wealth almost 2 times superior to the 'provinces'.

Germany however is a federal state composed of lander, each lander has a great power and can manage independently their own affairs and finance. Wealth is well gathered in Germany (even if East Germany is still a little less developped but well billions of euros have been transfered for decades after the Iron Curtain was dismantled, but as you may know the economic gap between these 2 german entities were very very high, so it takes time to finally equalize West and East Germany, even if this is almost done, since Berlin is now a very rich city).
There is no big economic gaps between the German provinces, because the Federal State provides a well shared economy betwen all its citizen.

Now French politicians and Jacobinists you see what you have to do? You want to avoid independentist movements or regional uprisings? (like the Breton Bonnets Rouges Revolt 2 years ago), build a federal state at least and allow the 'Provinciaux' to also benefit more from the general wealth you gathered for centuries in PARIS...

But Panda! You just said centralism makes capitals richer? I don't think so, capitals are as rich in federal states and in unitary states. I will point you something. Catalonia made 25% of Spanish GDP during Franco, a well-known centralised regime. Now it makes a 18% in a decentralised state. It does not depend on centralism, but on investment companies and services make, for example.

I also knew about the Eurocity around coalstal Pyrenees, I don't know why should people ban it, Spain didn't protest if I'm not wrong. And about EU... Well, you can't tell them it will be good for them if they secede, otherwise they would. Although several countries would probably reject it anyway, like Spain, or England, even if they hadn't publicly supported it.

And one last thing... Many separatists state the right to choose, as a justification for referendums. I don't strongly oppose them, but I would not allow them without approval from most of the whole country. Sometimes there is not a right to choose. Would it be possible to vote whether paying taxes or not? Would it be possible to vote on sending the offspring to school or not?

Would it be possible to vote on independence? Judge by yourself. I know you will try to reject my post, but who knows? Maybe I made you think about it.

(And sorry for the delay for answering, I have been busy)

Pablo, "Sometimes there is not a right to choose", seriously? if nothing else, that is called a dictatorship, the right for self-determination and set up a vote are guaranteed by the UN charter and the International law, if Spain or France neglect them, then their governments are outlaws.

As for Centralism, I really believe this is the worst form of state, since politically and economically it is clearly less efficient: economically it creates huge gaps between territories and the capital, and politically the people no longer identify to their politicians as they 'rule' far away, they are seen as unreachable, and they selfishly keep their political power, as regions and local politicians have few means and power, this is perhaps why in France politic parties are so screwed (just see the number of nonvoters and people voting for far right parties in France...).