Venetian Protesters Demand Independence From Rome; Polls Show 70% Favor Independence

[HiPointDem]

“The situation here is almost explosive, so today we have thousands of people who have gathered in front of the regional government and we’re going to present to them a resolution signed by thousands of participants to have a referendum for independence,” Chairman of the separatist Indipendenza Veneta Party, Lodovico Pizzati, told RT.

“The main reason is economic. We are in a situation worse than a colony because the tax rate in Italy is the highest the world and our services are extremely poor. We have 20 billion euros missing from our regional resources each year and that’s unbearable,” Pizzati said.

Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/10/venetian-protesters-demand-independence.html#ySPbzjclDuXljmxr.99

[dipsydoodle]

1. I don't really understand how Venice could sustain itself if made independent.

I appreciate that region isn't just the islands where the prinicipal income is from tourism and glass products. The mainland industrial area contributes greatly to the demise of the main island - do they want independence but expect Rome to still pay for the effects of sea level rise and general restorations to the main island ?

[HiPointDem]

2. finance.

[pampango]

3. Automatic membership in the EU makes Venice, Catalonia and other regions more

willing to push for separation and independence.

Europe’s Richer Regions Want Out

CATALONIA may be the catalyst for a renewed wave of separatism in the European Union, with Scotland and Flanders not far behind. The great paradox of the European Union, which is built on the concept of shared sovereignty, is that it lowers the stakes for regions to push for independence.

There are countless things that hold unhappy countries, like marriages, together — shared history, shared wars, shared children, shared enemies. While a post-national European Union may be emerging out of the euro zone crisis, with a drive for more fiscal union and more centralized control over national budgets and banks, the crisis has accelerated calls for independence from member countries’ richer regions, angry at having to finance poorer neighbors.

“The whole development of European integration has lowered the stakes for separation, because the entities that emerge know they don’t have to be fully autonomous and free-standing,” said Mark Leonard, the director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “They know they’ll have access to a market of 500 million people and some of the protections of the E.U.” Traditionally, the European Union has been popular with the leaders of these regions, said Josef Janning, director of studies at the European Policy Center. “They see strengthening the power of Brussels as diminishing and relativizing national governments, a process accelerated by the single market in Europe,” Mr. Janning said.

In Scotland, for example, there was an assumption that if independent, it would join the bloc (EU) without a lot of fuss, since Scots are already citizens of the European Union. (After all, some 20 million East Germans became members of the European Union overnight without even having to whistle the anthem.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/sunday-review/a-european-union-of-more-nations.html

I wonder if EU countries will put pressure on the EU to tell these separatist regions that continued membership in the EU is not automatic.

[dipsydoodle]

4. To the best of my knowledge

its far from automatic because the original parent could block the application. I'm not saying that would happen here in the case of Scotland, here in the UK, but could happen elsewhere. Aside from that EU membership and being part of the Euro are separate subjects.

[pampango]

5. Good point. I think any current EU country can block a potential new member. Is that right?

If so, the threat of blocking EU membership would be something that a country could hold over a separatist regions' head.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia emerged peacefully from Czechoslovakia in 1993 and both joined the EU in 2004, but neither of them had any interest in blocking (or could have done so since they joined simultaneously) the other's EU membership.

Of course Czechoslovakians were not in the EU at the time their country split, whereas Scots, Venetians, Flemish and Catalonians already are. If any of these separatist movements succeed in gaining independence for their regions, it will be interesting to see how the EU reacts and what procedures for membership apply to the new countries.

[dipsydoodle]

6. Yes

On the side issue of the Euro - when membership of the EU is granted its now conditional on that country becoming a member of the Euro WHEN QUALIFIED TO DO SO. I'm not 100% sure but I think there is a waiting list anyway for EU membership anyway - Turkey is on that list.

If the Belgium splits the population may become even more boring. If you don't know the background to that its a list of the world's thinnest books from the seventies : Italian war heroes, Interesting Belgians, etc etc.