I think it ends up to what people living in a part of a country / union want to do, if they want to be one or not. My impression from far away was that the last time they had a kind of vote in Catalonya it was like about half of the people living there wanted to secede and half didn't. Probably not enough given the circumstances but I'd like to live in a place with clear procedures for secessions. I'm not (most of us don't) even if the EU has them for its member countries.
That is not true. Most of the investment in trains, port, highways in Catalonia started as private investment, mostly because it was one of the first places where they were being built (roads and train are the best examples).
And in the more recent years, and considering public investment, Catalonia is clearly under invested (specially Rodalies, according to most news and friends in the area). The budget for transportation is lower than the GDP and population in average, and most years less than half the budget is executed [1][2]
In terms of airports, 1/2 of the revenue of the airports in Spain come from Barcelona's airport [3].
The more I look at the numbers, the more clear it is that Spain's interest in Catalonia is $$$.
[1] https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2018/10/02/companias/... [2] https://www.lavanguardia.com/economia/20190120/454182028060/... [3] https://www.elperiodico.com/es/economia/20150327/el-prat-aen...
Yes I see the problem as you point out, we pay too many things, Spain cannot afford losing us. That’s the only reason you want to keep us, economic matters. At least talk about other reasons to keep us united, not just money. It’s not just about money! It’s culture, it’s many years of oppresion, of not letting a nation decide it’s laws... like the ‘estatut’. it’s not reconizing dictatorships that have hurt so much Catalan culture... a lot of people don’t feel any attachment to Spain, we do not share the government attitude, culture, language... Spain has to learn it’s a multicultural country, Spanish is not the only language...
Spain can afford it
By the way, all the part about dictatorship, oppression and the rest is false.
It's not like it was paid only by people from outside Catalonia. In fact, the catalan people, pay taxes as well, and that money was used to fund developments outside Catalonia too. And this not only happens at a country level, there are for example funds from the European Union like the ERDF. Does that mean that Scotland should never leave the UK (and therefore the EU) because their roads -for example- have been paid by the european people for many, many years?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Regional_Development_...
Do you want to propose a solution to people who live in catalunya and don't want independence? A referendum is a stupid idea frankly, it divides sociaties between those who want to leave and those who want to say.
People in catalunya only want independence because they are richer. What happened to solidarity?
They just want to kick Spanish people out (by the way they are spanish too in spite of all their bullshit), becuase they see them as the Nazis saw the Jews.
Let's call things by what they are. We aren't going to stand by and abandon half if catalan people who don't want to lose their rights to live and work in Spain.
You can do that in other countries if you want.
I can give you my point of view as a Spanish person. I am not part of the goverment by any means. Just a normal citizen living in the middle of the country.
The infrastructure of catalunya (high speed trains, ports, highways, etc...) have been paid by all spaniards during many, many years. Like ways, may people from all over Spain live and work in catalunya and viceversa.
The goverment of Spain has a responsability to protect all citizens. Independece creates problems for all those people. It also costs the country millions of euros that have been invested in the region. It will have an impact on people across the country if the economy slows down, not only there. Therefore it is a decision that needs to be taken by the whole country, not only people in that region. Suggesting anything else is ludicrous.
Spain is a country, catalonya doesn't have the power to raise its middle finger to everyone else in the country whenever they please just like any other region in the country. We are one, period.