Nationalism or Regionalism: The Impacts of the Catalan secession on the Spanish region.

Abstract

The Catalan region is one of 17 autonomous regions in the Spanish mainland. Recently they had an independence referendum to declare themselves as a sovereign nation. But Spain's Constitutional Court has ruled illegal the ousted Catalan parliament's recent vote to declare the region independent from Spain and used violence against Catalan voters. Since then, there is an increased amount of interest across the globe about international relations between regions, particularly in the Catalonian/Spanish coalition. But there is limited access to collect precise information about the impacts of Catalan secession on the Spanish region. To fill that gap, I conducted a study by adopting a qualitative research method and used secondary sources to gather data. The objective of this study is to create a better understanding of the Catalonian/Spanish coalition and the impacts of the Catalan secession on the Spanish region. From the findings and discussion point of view, this study indicates that the origins of modern Catalan nationalism roots back to the era of Franco’s dictatorship and the subsequent transition to democracy. Moreover, my findings indicate from an economic point of view, secession would have extremely negative consequences for Spain, because Catalonia accounts for nearly a fifth of Spain's economy and leads all regions in producing 25% of the country's exports. Catalan is Spain’s engine of growth, accounting for 19 percent of its GDP, it contributes much more in taxes (21% of the country's total) than it gets back from the government. Furthermore, these findings reflect that Spain without Catalan would continue to be part of all the institutions to which it now belongs, although not necessarily in the same conditions. For example, in the European Union, Spain would have to renegotiate its weight in the Council, the number of MEPs, and so forth. To conclude, according to this study, the impact of the Catalan secession on the Spanish region is more negative, and Spanish economic crisis is considered as a threat to the spirit of the European Union as well.