After the tension that surrounded Scotland’s recent independence referendum, the reaction in Brussels to the non-binding Catalan vote has been muted.<br /><br />Spain has already dismissed the meaning of the ballot.<br /><br />“It is not the Commission’s role to express an opinion on internal organisational matters linked to the constitutional arrangements of member states,” said European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas.<br /><br />Ian Duncan is Scottish and a British Conservative MEP; he told euronews that Madrid’s legalistic riposte to pro-independence Catalans is not the answer.<br /><br />“I don’t believe this issue can be resolved in a courtroom,” he said. I think that would be a discomforting place for a democrat to witness that resolution. I would like to believe this will be resolved at the ballot box, in a consensual way.” <br /><br />But some analysts question whether referenda can settle political disputes.<br /><br />For Fraser Cameron of the European Policy Centre, <br />such votes can split the public and they are often used to voice dissatisfaction with an unpopular government. <br /><br />“Referendums are rarely in recent history the mechanism to bind people together, there are quite often divisive in a way,” Cameron said. “So we have representative governments in all our European countries, and that is for me the best way to actually produce results which are agreed to by a majority.”<br /><br />The question now is what impact the Scotland and Catalonia votes will have on other separatist movements, such as in Spain’s Basque Country or Flanders in Belgium.
