JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
That's why we're stuck with 7 million people. If they didn't, we'd be over China already.
Catalonia to vote on independence 9/11/2014
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That's why we're stuck with 7 million people. If they didn't, we'd be over China already.
ParkCungHee
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They can certainly build a case that they have legal continuity with the state the proceeded them in Catalonia, same as the Scots. If the Spanish try to argue against that, they run the risk of arguing themselves out of the EU.
strijder20
Wallowing in irony
I'm fully willing to believe you that Spain's functioning as a state is subpar, and my opposition against secession has more to do with ideology and my own interests than hate against Catalonia.
It also kinds of makes sense they don't want to let one of their only economically healthy regions secede
Wouldn't that argument rather require Navarra to have once been a member of some European organisation?
Besides which, I wouldn't take Alex Salmond's opinion on pretty much anything relating to Scottish independence. It's like a party manifesto utterly failing to match up to reality when the party gets into power and realises what a state the country is actually in.
ParkCungHee
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No, it'd just require Spain to necessarily include Catalonia. Catalonia has just as much claim of being a successor state to the current Kingdom as the other government.
I think it's a bit much to assume I'm arguing from whoever Alex Salmond is. The fact is that the Kingdom of Great Britain is formed legally by a Union of the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England. Any agreement entered into by the government in Westminster legally applies to Scotland.
Alex Salmond is the leader of the SNP, currently promising the sky to any Scot who votes for independence. Given that his current promises include apparently breaking NATO rules, compelling Westminster to enter a monetary union after independence and so on, I treat his proclamations with as much disdain as I do those of UKIP.
Besides, wouldn't the term "successor state" imply the existence failure of the kingdom in question?
Besides, wouldn't the term "successor state" imply the existence failure of the kingdom in question?
ParkCungHee
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I still don't see what that has to do with me.
Depends on your definition of "failure" I suppose. That doesn't really have any meaning in the context of international law.
Frozen In Ice
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I hope I hope their independence vote fails. If you're already in a functioning democracy, you should work within it instead of tearing it down because he didn't get everything you wanted. I am in no way very knowledgeable about Catalonia but a lot of common complaints I see from people of that area seem to be greatly exaggerated or entirely made up.
Moderator Action: Let's not go down this path please. Stay on topic and don't create problems where none exist. Thanks.
How different is this from NYC wanting to be its own state and keep its own wealth?
Is Quebec making any progress on independence?
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
How different is this from Portugal seceding in 1640? How different is this from Quebec or Scotland seceding? How different is this from South Sudan seceding from Sudan? How is this different from the US seceding from the British Empire?
In any case, as far as I know, NYC doesn't have a language of its own and New Yorkers aren't falsely accused or accused at all to be linguistic racists or insolidary or anti-American. I have already said that I would rather try to achieve a status of either more autonomy or just respect for Catalonia within Spain. But I repeat that this has been tried in this very same form for 150 years, from before the First Republic to our day. It has failed spectacularly. No more than a dozen years out of these 150 seemed to be close to it, plus the first years of democracy after Franco.
The problem is not just wealth (although there is a long history of overtaxing Catalonia, but one could argue that it is not like that any more), it is above all about being exhausted and fed up with the perceived treatment we get as a people. That said, Catalonia is one of the most heavily taxed regions in Europe, blablabla, Andalusia lowers taxes, blablabla... yes, the perception that our wealth covers the hole of Andalusian tax cuts and subventions for doing nothing fuels us too, although that is of course a biased view and not entirely accurate, in the sense that other communities are drained of more wealth and receive less relatively speaking. But the fact that Catalonia seems to be always object of comparison ("See how we can lower taxes, unlike those viciously selfish Catalans who don't give us a single penny!", liberally paraphrasing one Extremaduran or Andalusian President) can only alter matters for the worse. Yes, in fact the matter with wealth is not that it is taken from us and a large chunk never comes back, but that this drain is never acknowledged but stubbornly rejected by even the central government, and that we are called selfish and unsolidary, that we keep all of our wealth to ourselves. Is it because the redistribution of wealth hasn't done anything to change anything? Because the two Castilles continue to die, life being sucked by Madrid mostly, because the old economic engines are still the economic engines of the country and because the poor communities are as poor as they were?
In any case, as far as I know, NYC doesn't have a language of its own and New Yorkers aren't falsely accused or accused at all to be linguistic racists or insolidary or anti-American. I have already said that I would rather try to achieve a status of either more autonomy or just respect for Catalonia within Spain. But I repeat that this has been tried in this very same form for 150 years, from before the First Republic to our day. It has failed spectacularly. No more than a dozen years out of these 150 seemed to be close to it, plus the first years of democracy after Franco.
The problem is not just wealth (although there is a long history of overtaxing Catalonia, but one could argue that it is not like that any more), it is above all about being exhausted and fed up with the perceived treatment we get as a people. That said, Catalonia is one of the most heavily taxed regions in Europe, blablabla, Andalusia lowers taxes, blablabla... yes, the perception that our wealth covers the hole of Andalusian tax cuts and subventions for doing nothing fuels us too, although that is of course a biased view and not entirely accurate, in the sense that other communities are drained of more wealth and receive less relatively speaking. But the fact that Catalonia seems to be always object of comparison ("See how we can lower taxes, unlike those viciously selfish Catalans who don't give us a single penny!", liberally paraphrasing one Extremaduran or Andalusian President) can only alter matters for the worse. Yes, in fact the matter with wealth is not that it is taken from us and a large chunk never comes back, but that this drain is never acknowledged but stubbornly rejected by even the central government, and that we are called selfish and unsolidary, that we keep all of our wealth to ourselves. Is it because the redistribution of wealth hasn't done anything to change anything? Because the two Castilles continue to die, life being sucked by Madrid mostly, because the old economic engines are still the economic engines of the country and because the poor communities are as poor as they were?
On the plus side, Barcelona is coastal and coastal capitals seem to be better places 
(unless it is post-ww2 Athens, which is a farse by all standards and the ugliest city of this country).
I doubt Catalonia will become independent while things are still somewhat not entirely collapsed in the EU, and if they are collapsed, well, no one can say what will happen in the short-term anyway. I don't see why an independent Catalonia should seek to be a full member of the EU; some sort of general economic link (ala Switzerland and Norway) would be far more beneficial. Then again i doubt the EU will continue in this form for long, anyway.
(unless it is post-ww2 Athens, which is a farse by all standards and the ugliest city of this country).I doubt Catalonia will become independent while things are still somewhat not entirely collapsed in the EU, and if they are collapsed, well, no one can say what will happen in the short-term anyway. I don't see why an independent Catalonia should seek to be a full member of the EU; some sort of general economic link (ala Switzerland and Norway) would be far more beneficial. Then again i doubt the EU will continue in this form for long, anyway.
Winner
Diverse in Unity
EDIT: Never mind.
Hardly.
There is a difference between a state break up in which the original state and its institutions cease to exist (i.e. Czechoslovakia breaking up into Czech Republic and Slovakia, abolishing the federal government), and a situation when a province secedes from a country which then continues existing (such as if Texas seceded from the US or if Corsica left France; the act would hardly spell the end of the US or France, respectively).
Catalonia leaving Spain would be an example of the latter. They may claim continuity with the Spanish state (good luck in that, considering all their arguments for independence are based of being opposed to anything and all that is Spanish), but there would be no doubt about the status of Spain itself.
Every one of those situations is actually quite different.
Also just so everyone knows, the correct position here is to be amused at the way in which Catalan and Castillian nationalists are basically over-emotional mirror images of each other, each with really simplistic and reductionist views of history and how that history informs their contemporary identity claims.
Catalonia will either end up independent or it won't, ho-hum.
Catalonia will either end up independent or it won't, ho-hum.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
That is precisely my point.
Well, of course. You wouldn't expect a rational argument from human beings, would you?
The ideological orthodoxy underpinning the entire global economic system is based upon human beings being rational.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
That's why we're in crisis. People pretend to be rational, but they're not. Not all the time, never perfectly rational.
Tahuti
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More like 'irrational people will get punished'.
No one's irrational, just lazy.
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