Demonstrators in Barcelona march in support of the unity of Spain. PAimages/Matthias Oesterle/Zuma Press. All rights reserved.The Catalan crisis highlighted the salience of questions over state sovereignty and self-determination throughout Europe. A noteworthy side effect has been the widespread tendency, among political analysts as well as journalists, in various conflict-ridden parts of central and eastern Europe, to trace, however tenuous, analogies between their own cases and the Catalan question.
Consequently, the ongoing crisis in Catalonia has been ‘translated’ into other hot button issues as diverse as the controversies over the ethnic Hungarian minorities in Slovakia and Romania or the annexation of Crimea and the turmoil in eastern Ukraine.
Within the former Yugoslav space, quite a few policy experts and journalists sought parallels with the precedents of Kosovo as well as Croatian independence. With specific regard to the Western Balkans, how comparable is the latest crisis in Catalonia to case-studies from the Yugoslav dissolution? Can Catalonia’s ‘brand name’ generate external soft power in favour of the pro-independence movement and up to what extent?
