SEPARATISM

MIROSŁAW PIOTROWSKI

Scotland dreamt about separation. After 307 years of relation with England, there was a referendum. However, the majority, because over 55 per cent of the Scots, opted against leaving the United Kingdom, but nearly 45 per cent of them wanted independence. This event shocked not only the supreme EU bodies, but also other European nations and regions, wanting the national independence for years. Organizing the referendum in Scotland was carried out against the policy launched by the European Union, still aiming at the centralization of the authority of 28 member countries within one super-country. The Scots were frightened that independence means falling overboard of EU. For, it is not known whether Scotland would have to apply for membership in the Union again, although it was and is in it as a part of Great Britain. This doubt decision makers address as a fright towards other European regions which are also aiming at separation. It concerns, among the others, Belgium, where the Flemings have been struggling for a long time with the division of the country and creating an independent country, Spain, from which the Catalans and Basques was to get separated, Italy, where Northern League demands independent from Padania, France in which dreams about independence appear in Saubadia, Brittany and on Corsica and Germany, where economically strong Bavaria is articulating threats of separation more and more. The common denominator of separatist tendencies is economy and independent identity. The Scots thought that they would have a financial profit through independence, gaining benefits from oil shafts arranged on their territory. The Flemings are fed up with keeping the Walloons and EU clerks. The Bavarians do not want to pay solidarity taxes any more for the sake of Berlin, in the amount of a few milliards euro annually. They also estimated that independent Bavaria would take the seventh place in the European Union according to economic power. Time will show if in other EU countries the Scottish syndrome will reappear. One thing is certain, the lost referendum may bring profit not only to Scotland. Facing the existing situation, the prime minister David Cameron agrees to allowances, announcing ‘granting wider competences’ both to Scotland and Wales as well as Northern Ireland. Doesn’t it arouse separatisms in this way?

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„Niedziela” 40/2014

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl