Jake's View | Why the nation state has had its day in Europe
The re-emergence of old regional loyalties in Europe is a natural evolution – and the EU should learn to accommodate it
For Europe, Catalonia’s preposterous quest for independence … opens an awful Pandora’s box. The European continent, painstakingly riveted together over the past five decades into a multi-ethnic community of 28 rule-based states, faces the danger of degeneration into a Babel of mini-states as separatist and autonomous movements are unleashed.
David Dodwell, Inside Out
October 9
I take a different view from my colleague, David Dodwell, here. I think the re-emergence of old regional loyalties in Europe is a natural evolution that was to be expected with the rise of the European Union – and the EU should learn to accommodate it.
Let’s also accept that it is already well under way. Britain wants out of Europe, much of Scotland wants out of Britain, Belgium has already effectively split into Flanders and Wallonia, and Germany is an uncomfortable 19th century concoction, as is Italy.
The unnatural thing here is actually the large nation state, a comparatively modern creation spawned by the great expense of modern military technology
In France I recall visiting Carcassonne a few years ago and seeing the Catalan red and yellow everywhere, no French tricolour in sight. Even in the Netherlands I recall my grandmother’s scorn of The Hague as the home of lofty, impoverished loudmouths.
