

Why Scotland Won’t Be Europe’s Last Region to Seek Independence - kiliancs
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2014/09/16-toil-trouble-scotland-independence-hill-shapiro

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dalke
Of course not. Who with any knowledge of Europe thought it might be?

The thesis is that the presence of the EU, which can provide military and
economic support, makes independence more likely.

However, Ireland became independent without any infranational system, as did
Finland. More recently, Czechoslovakia also split up, into the Czech Republic
and Slovakia, and again without looking towards the EU or other larger
protective system, and without being a regional reaction to the main capital
city.

Then there's the independence of the former eastern bloc countries after the
fall of Soviet power, the independence of Malta from the UK in 1964, and of
Montenegro in 2006.

The thesis doesn't do a good job of explaining all of those historical
independence movements. Why should we expect it does a good job of explaining
future movements?

