Latest threat to the Eurozone: Catalonia independence quest

[bemildred]

Just when it seemed stability was on the horizon for the tumultuous Eurozone, with Spain getting a grip on its debt financing and a plan to bail out insolvent banks, a fresh threat to the common currency has emerged with Catalonia's reignited drive to secede from the Spanish kingdom.

More than a million residents of the country's most prosperous region rallied for independence in a protest of historic proportions on Sept. 11, Catalonia's National Day. Some estimates put the crowd as high as 2 million, or more than a quarter of the 7.5 million who live in the northeast region including Barcelona. This week, after Madrid rebuffed Catalonia leader Artur Mas’ demand for more control over his region’s tax revenues, the regional parliament set a Nov. 25 date for polling Catalans on "self-determination."

Spain’s constitution doesn’t empower the regions to call votes on sovereignty and questions of national integrity. But Mas has said his region will go ahead with a referendum without the central authorities’ approval to address what Catalans consider a grave injustice: They pay as much as $20 billion more into national coffers each year than they get back in public services.

The prospect of a national breakup, no matter how remote and fraught with procedural complications, spurred Spanish King Juan Carlos into rare action on a political matter.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/09/spain-latest-economic-woe-catalonia-threatening-secession.html

[dkf]

1. If they can't get the rich part of Soain to pay for the poor part of Spain how do they

expect they will get the Germans to pay for the Greeks and the Spanish and Italians?