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.
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