Catalonians vow to leave Spain

Early this week I said:

As I have continued to talk about over this year, without a massive change in direction, the economic outcomes of Europe have already been decided. Attempts at supra-Eurozone fiscal consolidation all but guarantee a fall in economic output for the EZ, and the recession has really only just begun. In that regard it is the politics that will become increasingly important over the next 12 months as the economic fallout opens new fractures in the political systems of participating nations.

With over 23% unemployment and a continuously worsening economy, Spain, along with Greece and Italy, is certainly somewhere I have been watching, and I have commented more than once that I suspect Mariano Rajoy political career is going to be short lived. What has become apparent over last week is that the failing economy has once again stirred up the nationalist desires within the Spanish regions as resentment against the national government’s failure to fix the economy has risen.
Catalonia, the home of Barcelona and a traditionally prosperous region, has seen its wealth fall rapidly over the last few years while its annual deficit had grown 8% of GDP, in part, due to transfers to the Spanish state. The mediteranian coast has been hit excessively hard by the economic downturn with the latest Tinsa housing index report showing that the regions residential real estate prices have now fallen on average by nearly  40% from peak.

Read more: http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2012/09/catalonians-vow-to-leave-spain/