... Rajoys real aim is to stop Catalan independence. If that means blocking Scotland from rejoining the EU for a time, then so be it. Just as Brussels wants the UK to be worse off after leaving the EU, as a warning to others tempted to follow the Brexit path, so Madrid would want Scotland to be worse off if it set the precedent of EU members states (which the UK still is) breaking up internally. That might help dissuade Catalans, Basques and others from trying to follow the same path.
For Scots, then, the current choice is between the Spanish devil and the Brexit deep blue sea. They can belong to a depressed post-Brexit UK, or a marginalised but independent Scotland.
For Catalans the choice is both starker and simpler. With Madrid refusing to contemplate a referendum, independence is simply not on the cards. A mock referendum, or consultation, held by the regional government in 2014 has seen the then president of Catalonia, Artur Mas, banned from holding office for two years. A second referendum pledged for later this year could end up with even more dramatic punishments for those who organise it. And a threatened unilateral declaration of independence looks very much like a bluff which, were it to happen, could see Madrid suspend Catalonias current self-government. The EU will not intervene.
Rajoy would welcome a chance to demonstrate to Catalans that, were independence to happen, they would end up outside the EU and be sent to the back of the queue of countries applying for entry. That is his strongest card in trying to dampen separatist sentiment which has grown hugely since the countrys constitutional court reversed parts of a self-government statute that had already been approved at referendum...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/15/scottish-nationalists-spanish-independent-scotland-brexit-snp