The question is simple, if anyone had any doubts about how much Catalonia needs independence it has recently become clearer since the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain), the countries that lived days of splendour and high growth before the financial crisis are now in deep financial trouble and have become Europe’s main concern.
Seems like Greece will soon need to be bailed out to avoid bankruptcy and the countries part of the eurozone will force a strict set of financial measures. Qualified voices (see video below) have raised to …

One of the easiest ways to understand something is to have someone explain it to you from your point of view. That’s why I think the text “Life on the receiving end” by Matthew Tree is so good. It is based on a speech he gave on November 2008 at the London School of Economics.
Matthew Tree is an english writer who has lived in Catalonia for 25 years and speaks and writes in English and Catalan and he explains the Catalan situation in such a way that it is …

A poll published yesterday showed that 82.6% of Catalans want to democratically decide about the future of Catalonia and that 74% of the cast votes would go towards independence with the yes being chosen by 50.3% of the people. The poll was commissioned by the Generalitat and performed by UOC in a sample of 2600 people with a 2% error margin.
Independentism has been increasing in recent times in Catalonia, especially since the last Catalan Statute was negotiated. This law that defines Catalonia’s self government inside the Spanish State was heavily …

I believe that the most important reason that will bring Catalonia’s independence is not the desire to preserve its identity, its cultural heritage and history or even its language. What will bring the independence will be the realisation that it is not only economically viable but extremely important and desirable to achieve it as soon as possible to stop the financial choking that results from not being an independent state.
Xavier Sala-i-Martín is a respected catalan economist, one of the most quoted economists in the world and professor of economics at …