Paper Titles & Abstracts

Confederations usually constitute an intermediate phase towards either a federation or the total segregation of political communities which had been previously joined together. In this sense, the European Union is a confederation of the first type. However crisis highlights how states search for their own interests rather than striving after the construction of a federal Europe.Crisis has also led regions with a strong national awareness to think of secession as a way of improving their citizens' standard of living, particularly if the central government of the state in which they are located is conservative. Scotland and Catalonia represent two examples: both nations plan to hold a referendum on independence in 2014. The belief in the absurdity of breaking up current states, and the subsequent wisdom of building supranational entities might end.In this paper I am going to analyse how the attitude of the states involved, the United Kingdom and Spain, radically differ: whereas Cameron negotiated the conditions of the consultation process with Salmond, Rajoy has declared that any mechanisms available to prevent the referendum will be activated. I will also study the options these two regions have to become member states of the European Union, as there is no procedure to admit former EU regions which achieve statehood. Finally I am going to assess some of the consequences resulting from the independence of these regions for their former state, for the rest of the EU states, and for other regions with similar national problems.