Separatist tendencies in Europe

Centrifugal tendencies have been affecting Europes unity

Bogdan Matei, 23.10.2017, 13:14

The results of the referendums staged in northern Italy on Sunday leave no room for optimism. Initiated last year with the Brexit referendum, and continued this fall with the Catalan secessionist fever, centrifugal tendencies have been affecting Europe’s unity.

Also, Scotland seems to be rather attracted by the idea of separating from London. In Belgium, the Flemish majority is being less attached to the French-speaking regions of Wallonia and Brussels. Also, out of the 12 million Italians invited to go to the polls, over 60% cast their ballots in Veneto and over 32% in Lombardia. Over 90% of them opted for increased autonomy of the two provinces.

The vote in Italy is strictly consultative and, according to the Radio Romania correspondent in Rome, was held in keeping with the law. However, its result might lead to negotiations with the Italian government, in an attempt to get better financial deals. In the analysts’ opinion, northern Italy cannot keep to itself more of the money it produces because it risks affecting the poorer regions in the south. And this is exactly what the referendum’s initiators, the Northern League Party, want. Seen as an extremist party, the Northern League has been arguing, for more than twenty years, that the people of Milan, Turin and Genoa, who are efficient and rich, must also provide for the people of Naples and Sicily, who are poor and lazy.

Sociologists refer to this fracture within societies that are ethnically homogenous as “welfare chauvinism”. Doubled by the ego of a special identity, welfare chauvinism is also felt in Catalonia, the most prosperous and also heavily indebted region of Spain. Over 40% of the country’s exports of electronics and cars are produced in Catalonia, which also contributes 12 of the country’s 60 million euros revenues from tourism every year. Catalonia, however, would have to pay its public debt of 44 billion euros had it be left without Madrid’s guarantee.

Moreover, analysts say, a hypothetically independent Catalonia would be forced out of the Eurozone, given that it does not even have a central bank of its own. The region would also be excluded from the EU and its citizens would need passports to travel to Madrid or Paris. On behalf of Romania, Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu reiterated the country’s firm support for Spain’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Any unilateral declaration of independence, irrespective of how it is presented, would lack legal grounds so it could not have legal effects, Melescanu has also said. Moreover, no EU member state has the intention to recognize an independent Catalonia, while Brussels sees it as Spain’s domestic policy problem.