The referendum held in Catalonia and the relevant developments despite opposition from both Madrid and the EU are essentially the last circle of a process that has been directly produced by economic and political problems in Europe.
The racist party entered the German parliament 50 years later and central German politics have been sharply divided into the right and the left - which points to a collapse and has the same root as Spain's crisis: The deep systemic crisis that broke out as the financial crisis in the U.S. in 2008 has turned into a total economic and political turmoil in the entire West.
Catalonia is a region that produces wealth and welfare in Spain. The Catalans make more contributions to the overall economy than they get. This region produces 19 percent of total gross domestic product, and transfers about 10 billion euros in net resources. In other words, the taxes the Catalans pay exceed the investments and service they receive in their region by 10 billion euros. For the people living in Barcelona, Madrid is the county.
From an economic perspective, this is a regional difference in many nation states in the world. However, one wealthy nation state's desire to secede from the nation-state clusters consisting of historically and geographically different ethnic structures emerges as its wealth is taken by the central government in increasingly rising proportions and its concerns for common impoverishment rise. In this sense, the issue of secession in Spain cannot be assessed separately from the EU and from the overall economic crisis in the Western world. In other words, the EU is in the midst of a period heading toward common impoverishment from common enrichment and the nation-states that make up the EU are disintegrating with the EU itself.
In fact, this crisis started with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and West Germany's annexation of East Germany, however, it was postponed through the transfer of cheap labor and resources to the West from eastern countries. This process, which continued with the disintegration of Yugoslavia, brought the end of the current EU. The EU was created as a new commonwealth project beyond nation states. However, it is continuing as a process of literal common impoverishment and disintegration.
The United Kingdom was also shaped as a commonwealth commitment. As the nation state that formed the roof of the U.K., Britain brought together historically powerful nations such as Ireland and Scotland with this common welfare commitment and up until recently, it has kept it in unity without problems despite Ireland's objections. In fact, the United Kingdom was more of a model of empire than a model of a nation state, and Britain accordingly tried to maintain its "empire" adventure until recently. Britain continued its partnership with the EU as it kept some countries in the kingdom sweet through the EU. In other words, it assumed that the EU would contribute to the commonwealth. However, when it saw that this disappeared and the EU membership turned into transfer of increasingly growing amounts of resources to Germany, it raised Brexit. In this sense, Brexit is a well-calculated and planned step by Britain and is certainly not a road accident.
The EU project, in essence, emerged as a super union of nation-states and was a quest for a new union, apart from empire and nation-state models, which would equally distribute common welfare to all members and dissolve nation states in this way. Now, however, both Britain's U.K. model that pledged common welfare and the EU's common welfare state model that would transcend nation states have collapsed.
What has remained from this "civilization" paradigm is the U.S. which emerged as a state of war and security, rather than of welfare. Does the recent Las Vegas massacre not show that even the civilian aspect of the U.S. is based on weapons and wars? Despite this massacre, you will see that the arms lobby in the U.S. will not say stop to individual armament again, as it will go against the founding principles and reasons of the U.S. After all, individual armament is cited in the U.S.'s constitution.
The 200-year paradigm consisting of the welfare state (Europe - the U.K.) and the warfare state (the U.S.), which the West built as the stabilizer and complement of each other and tries to globalize, is collapsing. The system is rapidly liquidating the welfare state understanding that balances itself, and is heading toward the U.S.'s warfare state starting from Europe. And in this sense, the founders of this system have given up globalizing it and building micro nation state models that are easy to manager as "independence" movements or pave the way for such dynamics. However, they assume that these microstates will be dependent on the hegemonic warfare state at the top of hierarchy. The founders of this strategy are rapidly moving away from the idea of market-friendly globalization. For instance, protectionism is becoming the basis of economic policies.
On the other hand, emerging nation states, especially China (see the One Belt One Road project), are embracing globalization, open economies and new union projects and striving to develop them. In other words, the globalists and neoliberals of the past have turned into the supporters of introverted microstates.
The real players of globalization are the new leaders and their policies, which are boosting emerging economies with a new understanding. This understanding, which advocates further openness, markets, inclusive growth, rapid improvement of income distribution and innovation in all areas, and rejects protectionism and monopolies, is also the pioneer of the new industrial revolution.