> I'm interested in the mass psychology behind it, why Spain and their politicians think that it's a good idea to point out that the constitution of Spain and their unitarian aspects are untouchable.
I can give you my point of view as a Spanish person. I am not part of the goverment by any means. Just a normal citizen living in the middle of the country.
The infrastructure of catalunya (high speed trains, ports, highways, etc...) have been paid by all spaniards during many, many years. Like ways, may people from all over Spain live and work in catalunya and viceversa.
The goverment of Spain has a responsability to protect all citizens. Independece creates problems for all those people. It also costs the country millions of euros that have been invested in the region. It will have an impact on people across the country if the economy slows down, not only there. Therefore it is a decision that needs to be taken by the whole country, not only people in that region. Suggesting anything else is ludicrous.
Spain is a country, catalonya doesn't have the power to raise its middle finger to everyone else in the country whenever they please just like any other region in the country. We are one, period.
I understand that but I think that the economic objection doesn't carry much weight: I guess that Catalonya paid its own share of the infrastructure of the other regions of Spain. Same thing with Brexit: the EU benefited from having the UK in the Union (money and not only that) and viceversa. Then the UK voted to go and they go (well, maybe, the way they're handling it is so weird.)
I think it ends up to what people living in a part of a country / union want to do, if they want to be one or not. My impression from far away was that the last time they had a kind of vote in Catalonya it was like about half of the people living there wanted to secede and half didn't. Probably not enough given the circumstances but I'd like to live in a place with clear procedures for secessions. I'm not (most of us don't) even if the EU has them for its member countries.
Sorry but you are comparing apples to oranges. The EU is not a country, it is a club of countries. The EU doesn't and never will have the power to choose whether a member state can leave or not. That's how it is. So it is wrong to compare a region of a country seceding than comparing a country leaving the EU. Which is more similar to a country leaving NATO for example.
You don't need to go that far back before you could have replaced EU with USA and the statement would have sounded equally plausible. Then it stopped being plausible. The EU is more tightly integrated in many ways than the US was during the period of the Articles of Confederation.
> The infrastructure of catalunya (high speed trains, ports, highways, etc...) have been paid by all spaniards during many, many years. Like ways, may people from all over Spain live and work in catalunya and viceversa.
That is not true. Most of the investment in trains, port, highways in Catalonia started as private investment, mostly because it was one of the first places where they were being built (roads and train are the best examples).
And in the more recent years, and considering public investment, Catalonia is clearly under invested (specially Rodalies, according to most news and friends in the area). The budget for transportation is lower than the GDP and population in average, and most years less than half the budget is executed [1][2]
In terms of airports, 1/2 of the revenue of the airports in Spain come from Barcelona's airport [3].
The more I look at the numbers, the more clear it is that Spain's interest in Catalonia is $$$.
Are you kidding me? The connection between madrid and barcelona came after madrid and sevilla (very logical in an economical sense). The highways are payed by us (by tolls) thanks to president Pujol and his friends (irony). Only tolls in rich regions. Our trains (renfe) lack a total need of investment for years. Catalunya gives more money to the rest of Spain than it receives, because it’s one of the economic motors of Spain. We are self sufficient.
Yes I see the problem as you point out, we pay too many things, Spain cannot afford losing us. That’s the only reason you want to keep us, economic matters. At least talk about other reasons to keep us united, not just money. It’s not just about money! It’s culture, it’s many years of oppresion, of not letting a nation decide it’s laws... like the ‘estatut’. it’s not reconizing dictatorships that have hurt so much Catalan culture... a lot of people don’t feel any attachment to Spain, we do not share the government attitude, culture, language... Spain has to learn it’s a multicultural country, Spanish is not the only language...
Also, what do you plan to do with the half of catalans who don't support independence? Oppress them perhaps? Neglect their culture and language? It's turtles all the way down
How does Spain oppress people who speak another language exactly? I thought it was totally legal to speak catalan everywhere in catalunya including schools. Am I missing something?
> The infrastructure of catalunya (high speed trains, ports, highways, etc...) have been paid by all spaniards during many, many years. Like ways, may people from all over Spain live and work in catalunya and viceversa.
It's not like it was paid only by people from outside Catalonia. In fact, the catalan people, pay taxes as well, and that money was used to fund developments outside Catalonia too. And this not only happens at a country level, there are for example funds from the European Union like the ERDF. Does that mean that Scotland should never leave the UK (and therefore the EU) because their roads -for example- have been paid by the european people for many, many years?
No, that's just one of the reasons. Again EU and Scotland aren't a country. I don't know why people just keep comparing different things like they are the same?
Do you want to propose a solution to people who live in catalunya and don't want independence? A referendum is a stupid idea frankly, it divides sociaties between those who want to leave and those who want to say.
People in catalunya only want independence because they are richer. What happened to solidarity?
They just want to kick Spanish people out (by the way they are spanish too in spite of all their bullshit), becuase they see them as the Nazis saw the Jews.
Let's call things by what they are. We aren't going to stand by and abandon half if catalan people who don't want to lose their rights to live and work in Spain.
I can give you my point of view as a Spanish person. I am not part of the goverment by any means. Just a normal citizen living in the middle of the country.
The infrastructure of catalunya (high speed trains, ports, highways, etc...) have been paid by all spaniards during many, many years. Like ways, may people from all over Spain live and work in catalunya and viceversa.
The goverment of Spain has a responsability to protect all citizens. Independece creates problems for all those people. It also costs the country millions of euros that have been invested in the region. It will have an impact on people across the country if the economy slows down, not only there. Therefore it is a decision that needs to be taken by the whole country, not only people in that region. Suggesting anything else is ludicrous.
Spain is a country, catalonya doesn't have the power to raise its middle finger to everyone else in the country whenever they please just like any other region in the country. We are one, period.