The Scottish National Party’s (SNP) plan to hold an independence referendum in 2014 puts Scotland at the head of Europe’s separatist pack. While public opinion polls suggest the “no” campaign would prevail were a vote held today, attitudes may change as the referendum draws closer.
Much of the SNP leader Alex Salmond’s efforts to date have been devoted to persuading Scots that there are few risks in breaking away from the UK and that much would remain the same. His strategy was torpedoed last week from an unexpected quarter when Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, said an independent Scotland would not automatically qualify for EU membership and would have to apply like any other candidate country — a view with implications for those Catalans and others who wish for greater autonomy.
As in Catalonia, fiscal and financial considerations would play a large part in Scotland’s decision, given current high levels of public spending and the importance of public-sector jobs. Former British prime minister Gordon Brown, a Scot, said last week that breaking up the UK would lead to a “race to the bottom” on tax and public spending that would hurt ordinary people.
Like Catalonia, Spain’s Basque areas already enjoy significant levels of autonomy. Years of violent attacks and assassinations carried out by the armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), meaning “Basque homeland and freedom,” gave prominence to separatist sentiment. Violence, though, was repudiated by most Basques and in October last year ETA announced a “definitive cessation of its armed struggle.” Spain’s Basques have their own president and parliament, its own police force and control of their own budget. However, if the Catalan movement gains traction, a knock-on effect is likely.
Elsewhere in the EU, Italy’s Northern League (Lega Nord) is nominally committed to the independence of “Padania,” its term for the country’s northern regions, but in practice it pursues a federalist agenda. At one time it advocated secession, but in recent years has been drawn into national politics and joined the last government of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Bavaria, in southern Germany, has an even less vigorous separatist tradition dating back to the days of the pre-war Bavarian People’s party.
At the heart of the EU, though, in Belgium, the separatist tendencies of the French-speaking Walloons and Dutch-speaking Flemish are frequently aired.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not