Catalonia’s declaration of independence on Friday looks to be an uphill battle for them, with no one in the region endorsing the effort, and both NATO and the European Union saying they consider what Spain decides to do a purely “internal” matter.
NATO says they consider the breakaway Republic a “domestic” issue, while the EU insists they will only deal with Spain’s government, and have no intention of changing their policy to accommodate the Catalans.
That level of indifference is a better result for Catalonia, however, than the US State Department’s position, as they’ve announced that they are totally opposed to Catalan independence and support anything Spain does to keep their kingdom “strong and united.”
Most of the nations in Europe are concerned that a successful Catalonia secession would lead to more secession around the continent. There are dozens of active secession movements across Europe, which could grow substantially if Catalonia proves it is possible to do so.
In related news, the US State Dept announces that the United States of America is surrendering to the United Kingdom resolving its long-running dispute over the UK colonies on the American continent illegally announcing their independence.
In related news, the Trump administration is now distributing recordings of God Save The Queen to be played prior to all sporting events in the American colonies. Snipers will be deployed to make sure that everyone in the stadium maintains proper posture while the anthem is played.
That American government endorsement is really going to help Spain’s aura of legitimacy to Catalans and observers abroad.
It may not be so much an endorsement for Spain itself as it is an opportunity for a supposed “western democracy” to test drive aggressive censorship and information control measures in response to a crisis situation supposedly fomented and assisted by inappropriate coverage from “fake news purveyors” and “Russian propaganda”.
If the measures are carried out as described, and it passes without worldwide outrage, we can expect other G7 nations float their own trial balloons for tighter news & message control in response to some event blamed on rogue media or Russia.
Agreed, but neither can that line of thinking rule out retesting colour revolution techniques using Catalan, and, Soros is usually a driver of colour revs but is on the outs with the White House for supporting Hilary.
The U.S. government may simply be supporting Spain against Catalan the way it supported the United Kingdom against Scotland. They can always kiss and make up later if independence succeeds.
Colour revs haven’t worked out well lately; Spain offers a reasonably safe laboratory.
NATO is funny they bombed Serbia for 78 days to seperate Kosovo from Serbia but they want Catalonia to stay in Spain ,and Russia’s Crimea to go back to Ukraine ..The North American terrorist organization no longer has enough credibility to say anything about anybody .
The US has no credentials to speak on the Catalonian independence issue.
But they support Taiwan and Tibet independence
The U.S. government also supported United Kingdom unity against Scottish independence and Ukrainian unity against Crimean reunification with Russia.
U.S. support is tied to geopolitical gamesmanship, not pure humanitarian reasons, and the examples of Taiwan and Tibet are misleading.
Taiwan prevents China from re-uniting and securing its coastline. Officially the U.S. supports the two China policy, but only as a transition to eventual peaceful reunification under a democratic pro-Western and particularly pro-U.S. China. Taiwan independence may have popular currency but that’s hardly official.
Tibet controls the flow of water to the two major Chinese rivers, the Yangtze and Yellow. The U.S. supports Tibetan autonomy as part of a united China, and Tibetan independence only has currency with California new-agey Hollywood types.
If the U.S. supported Catalan, Spain would and should become very paranoid as to what geopolitical advantage is given the U.S. by the breakup of Spain.
The U.S. saves itself a lot of diplomatic trouble by backing Spain publicly, and its kind of expected not to publicly endorse the breakup of a close longstanding ally whatever the calculus behind closed doors really says.