The Spanish constitution is not exceptional in guaranteeing national sovereignty and territorial integrity of its borders, and is, in fact, in line with other Western democratic nations such as the United States, France, Italy and Germany. In a recent ruling on the hypothetical secession of Bavaria, for example, the German Constitutional Court indicated that the federal states are not sovereign but fall within the Federal Republic of Germany where questions of national sovereignty lie with all German people. [...]
It is bad enough that nationalist leaders have managed to normalise a disdain for the rules of our democratic, constitutional system. But what is worse is that they have managed to do it from within the very institutions of the system that they so scorn. To those who would constantly try to caricature Spain as being a nation of "low democratic quality", it is worth pointing to The Economist's Democracy Index, which in 2016 grouped Spain once again among "full democracies", akin to Germany or the United Kingdom. [...]
They face the problem that, as the former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon has explained, the case of Catalonia does not fall within any of the circumstances provided by the UN for this right to apply. This right is limited to decolonisation processes and undemocratic regimes that do not respect the rule of law, subject to conditions established by the UN that have nothing to do with the situation in Catalonia. [...]
With good reason, the rise in support for independence coincided at the time with the worst point of the economic crisis, which hit Spain particularly hard. Instead of recognising that their electoral growth had much to do with the uncertainty and social unrest resulting from the crisis, the separatists endeavoured to prove that this progress was because the Catalan people had finally understood their "manifest destiny": separation, because "Spain doesn't care about us", "They're robbing us", "They're treating us badly", "They don't let us vote". This is the creed the nationalists have been preaching for years, notwithstanding the ominous consequences of their discourse for coexistence between Catalans, and between them and the rest of the Spanish people.
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