PanAm Podcast: Yael Ossowski Suggests Greater Political Autonomy Might Avert Catalonia Crisis

Yael Ossowski of SFL discusses his recent op-ed in the Washington Examiner regarding this weekend's Catalonian independence referendum, which prompted a massive show of force from the Madrid government, leaving hundreds injured. Ossowski concludes that the independence question is not merely a political one, but a question of historical and cultural identity as well. The Catalonian people fiercely guard their own language and the memory of Francisco Franco's crackdown on Catalonian identity still looms large. But the road to political independence is fraught with peril, and somewhat quixotic given the prevailing trend of the past generation is political integration spearheaded by the EU, which does not look favorably on secessionist movements within the EU. Ultimately Ossowski concludes that some type of power-sharing or perhaps even rewriting the Spanish Constitution might avert what would certainly be a protracted and messy divorce.