A bandwagon with a purpose: The independence of Catalonia

The recent events in Catalonia have sparked an intense and often constructive discussion on the reasons that underpin Catalonia’s claim for independence, and Europe’s need to seriously discuss the need to regulate ‘internal enlargement’. Yet, the complexity of the situation has sometimes given way to inaccurate interpretations of what is happening and, especially, of why a majority of Catalans have gradually embraced the option of independence to the detriment of other options that were more popular some years ago. Last week Jose Javier Olivas posted an article on the LSE Blog Euro Crisis in the Press which provides, in my view, one of these inaccurate interpretations that nurture the increasing lack of commonality of ideas, preferences and values that nations such as the Spanish one are expected to have (see Alesina and Reich, 2013).