Careless in Catalonia

The powers are right to resist a secession

Catalonia’s referendum on Sunday on independence from Spain has sent shivers through the European Union. The turnout among its population of 7.5 million showed 42.3 percent voting in the poll. Advocates of independence claim that 90 percent voted in favor of separation, though advocates for remaining with Spain said many voters on their side boycotted the election. The official tally has not yet been announced, in part because the Spanish government and King Felipe VI considered the referendum strictly illegal.

The Spanish government sent in thousands of troops to try to prevent the vote from taking place. Police seized ballots and raided Catalonian news outlets to search for voting paper and shut down websites disseminating information about the election. In demonstrations that accompanied Sunday’s poll, some 844 people were injured, including 33 police. Carlos Puigdemont, the president of the regional Catalan government, has declared that shortly after the results of the poll are announced, Catalonia will declare independence.

The American parallel would be if California held a referendum and sought independence from the United States. Catalonia, with its capital Barcelona, is the most prosperous part of Spain, including 16 percent of the population.

The European Union is certainly opposed to Catalan independence. It sees it as weakening Spain, an important member of the EU, and a bad follow-on to the United Kingdom venture, based also on a referendum, to withdraw from the EU. Ironically enough, a successful Catalan bid for independence could encourage one by Scotland and even Northern Ireland, which voted against Brexit, to secede from the United Kingdom. The notorious Belgian split between the Flemish and the Walloons is also waiting out there to erupt.

It is hard to see how any fragmentation of Europe is to America’s advantage, weakening, as it inevitably would, countries that suffer extractions such as Catalonia’s from Spain, if it occurs.

It is also difficult to see how secession from Spain does not damage Catalonia itself, which becomes a new mini-state in Europe, politically and economically. The question becomes increasingly difficult for the Madrid government: Is it easier to have Catalonia in the fold, with some of its population considering itself aggrieved and actively agitating? Or is it easier just to let Catalonia walk away and revert to a situation more like what it was in Spain before Ferdinand and Isabella united it in 1492?

It is probably better for the Madrid government to grit its teeth and hold onto Catalonia at this point, perhaps granting it more regional autonomy.