Catalonia
The situation: Carles Puigdemont, the president of Catalonia, has spent the last few months on a high-speed collision course with the Spanish state. He has said that “nothing will stop us” from holding an independence referendum on October 1 — a move the government in Madrid considers illegal.
Why it matters: One of Madrid’s responses to Catalan politicians calling for independence is to take them to court. Threatening people with jail time for asking for a vote is not a good look in a Continent that prides itself on its human rights record.
What could happen: Catalan officials are unlikely to back down — and neither is Madrid. Expect the war of words — and lawyers — to heat up as the mercury rises and the day of the vote gets closer, including mass street demonstrations of independence supporters and the possibility of armed forces on the streets.
The Brussels angle: The European Commission goes out of its way not to comment on the Catalonia issue, because any word it utters gets blown out of proportion by whichever of the two sides it offends. But what happens in Catalonia will be watched carefully across the bloc, including by the Flemish in Belgium, the Scots in the U.K. and Basques and other nationalists in Spain.
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