Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy in Brussels press conference at the end of an EU Summit. Wiktor Dabkowski/Press Association. All rights reserved.Consistency is a virtue. It demonstrates one’s principles, creates predictability, and insulates oneself from charges of hypocrisy. But as with any virtue, its excessive application can prove tedious, annoying, and boorish. “A foolish consistency,” the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us, “is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
Such hobgoblins clearly haunt the halls of power in Madrid. Spanish leaders have taken a firm line against separatism everywhere because of their home-grown separatists in the Basque Country and Catalonia. As a result, Spain is one of only five EU members that does not recognise Kosovo’s independence. The logic is clear: if Madrid accepts that Kosovo has a right to independence, wouldn’t consistency demand that it allow Catalonia the same option?
This is a clear case of foolish consistency. By sticking to such consistency, leaders in Madrid fail to highlight the essential distinctions between Kosovo and Catalonia. Worse, by failing to recognize those distinctions, the Madrid government establishes itself as unable to distinguish between legitimate aspirations for self-rule and destabilizing separatism. Even worse than that, Madrid inadvertently signals that Catalonia may have a case for independence. Worse, by failing to recognize those distinctions, the Madrid government establishes itself as unable to distinguish between legitimate aspirations for self-rule and destabilizing separatism.
