The District Council of Catalonia Autonomous Region unilaterally declared independence on October 27.

Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic?

The Central Government of Spain subsequently announced the full takeover of local government power in Catalonia.

Narcis Termes, 68, an electrician attending the separatist protest with his wife said he was no longer hopeful about the prospects of Catalonia gaining independence.

Public support for independence in Scotland and Catalonia shows that this is not always the case. Bentham, of course, would have accepted that he might be mistaken.

On the 2nd, Lamela, the Chief Justice of the Spanish National Court, announced the decision to temporarily imprison nine independent high ranking officials of the Catalonia Autonomous Region for inciting rebellion, treason, and misappropriation of public funds.

In Spain, independence movements, especially in Catalonia, have revived, while neo Nazism is on the march in Greece. The euro, created for the avowed purpose of fostering the integration of a democratic Europe, is having precisely the opposite effect.

Noting the convening of the second session of the World Urban Forum, organized by UN Habitat in cooperation with the Government of Spain, the Autonomous Government of Catalonia and the Municipality of Barcelona, in Barcelona, from 13 to 17 September 2004,

In Spain, there is a national debate about independence for Catalonia, where national identity is strengthened by the fact that the majority of the region s residents speak Catalan as well as Spanish. By contrast, only about 1 of Scots can speak Scottish Gaelic.

At the same time, regional separatist movements such as those in Catalonia and Scotland challenge the legitimacy of nation states as they are currently configured and seek their breakup. Whether they do too much or too little, many national governments face a crisis of representation.

Taken to its logical extreme, member countries would demand recalculations to reflect the different ways they measure income and wealth, thereby pitting potential beneficiary countries against contributors. Such a fiscal set up has already threatened to break up member states consider Scotland or Catalonia.

That was the case when Bangladesh seceded from Pakistan, and it was also allegedly the case when NATO supported Kosovo s independence from Serbia. But this is not true of Scotland or Catalonia nor, despite Russian propaganda, does it appear to be the case for those regions of Ukraine with ethnic Russian majorities.

Moreover, the Greeks and Spaniards are unlikely to be able to bear the strain of economic austerity much longer, with youth unemployment inching toward 60 . The independence movement in Catalonia has gathered so much momentum that a leading Spanish general has vowed to send troops into Barcelona should the province hold a referendum on secession.

The Scots would almost certainly want to break away from England and rejoin the EU as an independent member, giving further encouragement (as if that were needed) to separatists in Catalonia and other frustrated European regions. England would be left to wave its flag of St. George over Wales and Northern Ireland, a rather sour prospect.

But if the RUK, the EU, and NATO respond vindictively to a Yes vote whether to teach Scotland a lesson or to deter others (such as Catalonia) matters could become very ugly and very costly. Suppose that a newly independent Scotland is thrown out of the EU and NATO, and told that it will remain outside for years to come.

The UK and Spain do not need to fear that independence for Scotland and Catalonia would expose them to such threats. Nonetheless, the secession of Scotland would deprive the UK of significant North Sea oil revenues, on which the economics of Scottish independence largely relies, and Spain could also suffer from the loss of Catalonia s disproportionately large contribution to the Spanish economy.

Indeed, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has said that the EU may reject Scotland and Catalonia s applications, or at least delay them considerably, even if the UK and Spain do accept their independence. And, without EU membership, it is hard to imagine that a majority of people in Scotland or Catalonia would take the plunge into economic uncertainty that independence would bring.

From Scotland and Catalonia to the borders of Ukraine, the politics of nationality flared, while Europe s economy stagnated hostage to a German inflation phobia that dates back to 1923. And, as the year unfolded, a new geopolitical tug of war between the continent s two early twentieth century giants, Germany and Russia, became apparent, while Europe s amnesiac political elite seemed to be fumbling on one front after another.

If Scotland and Catalonia ever become independent countries, it will only be because the UK and Spain permit it. All states have an interest in stability, so it is hard to imagine that, in the absence of widespread, grave, and undeniable human rights violations, other states would recognize a region that, after being part of a state for many centuries, declared itself independent without the acquiescence of the country from which it secedes.

In preparing his report on the defamation of religions and global efforts to combat racism, the Special Rapporteur relied heavily on the inputs and conclusions of the seminar of high level experts held in Barcelona, Spain, from 11 to 14 November 2004 under the auspices of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Centre for Catalonia and analysed each of the phobias and identified the underlying causes of their growth.