Catalans to form 400km ‘independence’ human chain
While it’s true that each nation should have the right to self-determination and independence, where do we draw the limits? Is a nation defined by its language? Every dialect can claim to be a language (about 19 of them just in Italy, with local variations, just to mention one country I know.) Or is it history? Or more prosaically, the ambition of minor local politicians who want to carve up a stage for themselves? If we think that a 27 member Europe is hard to manage, wait until we have 200 or 300 statelets vying to have full recognition, with their own members of parliament, commissioners and languages officially recognised – with all that it entails for interpretation at meetings and the translation of official EU documents. If we think that European countries are small in comparison with global players like the USA, Russia, China, India or even just huge countries like Canada, Brasil or Australia, we are busy chopping up our smallish countries, to become pygmies on the world stage. In a United Europe, with open borders and democracies, it’s immaterial what do you call a country or a region. On the plus side for the wannabe new caciques, additional layers of local administrations will escalate administrative costs with juicy opportunities for additional local corruption.