[GeronL]

You have to wonder what the point of “independence” is when you imediately join the EUSSR upon getting it?

[HiTech RedNeck]

I guess an irony... they don’t want to be owned by big bad ole Spain. They want to be owned by the whole bloomin’ EU.

[Cronos]

Quite frankly for regions like Catalonia, Basque country, Brittany etc., the fact of belonging to a supra-national union is better -- just like it was better for little princedoms etc. in the larger Holy Roman empire -- more freedom by in name submission to a far-off higher authority

They won't be "owned" by anyone -- and quite frankly as I said above, they are not "owned" by Spain in the sense that Spain has a very decentralized state

Being part of the European community with its common market had advantages -- the EU bureaucracy is another thing.. the EU would do well to stay as just a commercial union allowing free movement of goods and ideas and having the Schengen. The Euro was a mistake to be added so quickly to so many countries - but then that was a French idea to keep the Germans in check (and one of the conditions of Mitterand's ok to allow German reunification)

[Cronos]

Geron -- you do know that Aldous Huxley wrote "Brave New World" was written because he feared the Americanization of Europe? The ideas of sex as recreational, incredible consumption, state-created "social clubs" and Henry Ford's assembly line is there in the EU's bureaucratic genome and also in the Democrat's plans, but the EU's is bound to fail for the same reason we see Catalan's "independence" -- the EU is too diverse. There is no melting pot as we have, which is the same reason why European workers are not as mobile as America -- in the USA, one can shift from NY to Atlanta a lot easier than from Athens to Hamburg -- language, cultural differences, even laws are too different.

And the funny thing is that the Euro, which was meant to unite, has succeeded in creating disunity -- yay :)