What the commentators said

The Catalan separatist cause does not necessarily occupy “the moral high ground”, said Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times. Catalonia is not East Timor in 2002 or Estonia in 1989 – a region victimised by a powerful state. In the 40 years since democracy was restored, it “has become one of the most prosperous and envied parts of Europe”, with considerable autonomy from Madrid. But modern states should “only be held together by consent”. As we learnt with Scotland, and Canada learnt with Québec, “democratic countries that want to stay united have to accept the possibility of divorce”. Madrid should allow a referendum, but make the difficulties of independence very clear: Catalonia would have to leave the EU; it might not be recognised abroad; Barcelona’s football team might even have to leave the Spanish league.

The prospect of Catalan independence is viewed with “sadness and dismay” in the rest of Spain, said William Cook in The Spectator. In Extremadura, on the Portuguese border, more Spanish flags have been sold in recent weeks than when Spain won the World Cup. Extremadura is poor, and many of its young have moved to Catalonia to work. Where rich Catalans resent the drain of taxes to poorer regions, Extremadurans resent the “drain of manpower to Catalonia”, and the special privileges it extracts from Madrid. “Locals liken Catalonia to a selfish relative who has struck it rich and now wants to abandon his old family.” But Rajoy’s government is largely responsible for the “separatist upswing”, said Giles Tremlett in The Guardian. His right-wing People’s Party went to court to reverse a 2010 constitutional amendment that would have increased Catalonian autonomy, and has blocked any reform that “might produce a halfway solution”; allowing Catalan control of local taxes would “probably have stopped the rot years ago”. Politicians “with an ability to compromise are needed”. And unfortunately, with Rajoy and Puigdemont in charge, such leaders “are thin on the ground”.