The effect of the EU being on a federal trajectory, albeit increasingly contested, is interesting here. The independence movement in Scotland, and I expect this applies to Catalonia and Venice, paints a picture of independence within the EU. Scottish nationalists regularly talk about moving away from the UK model and towards a Scandinavian model, which is probably not what the average reader of mises.org has in mind when they think about secession.
Of course it's very complex as it seems the weight of legal opinion is that Scotland will have to leave the EU if they leave the UK. There are a few legal academics that dispute that legal point but their case doesn't sound very convincing to me and the EU institutions have more or less said they will have to reapply. However Scotland does have the advantage of having a fairly good faith partner in the rest of the UK if they do leave. If the current disputes over the pound and the debt don't turn vicious then a huge stack of treaties being signed all in one day to make it all legal becomes imaginable. I think Barcelona-Madrid and Venice-Rome relations might take a somewhat different path.
"Of course it's very complex as it seems the weight of legal opinion is that Scotland will have to leave the EU if they leave the UK"
Citation please. Please stop recycling UK Mainstream Media "fag packet legal opinion" about whether Scotland would or would not have to leave the EU before being re-admitted via a lengthy application process.
And before you cite Barossa, that was one man's incorrect personal opinion. Thus far the EU has not ruled in any sort of legal way as to whether Article 48 (method of treaty amendment) or Article 49 (applications to join the EU) of the Treaty of Union would apply to Scotland.
Thus far the Scottish Government would like to use Article 48 rather than Article 49. Because there as never been a precedent of a new state seceding from an existing member state within the EU the whole position is untried.
edit: Disclosure, I am campaigning for Scottish Independence.
In the mid 90s∗, right after the fall of the wall and a general loss of interest in the European Union, the idea of a Europe of the Regions was being pushed. The vision was to transform the EU from a organization of European nation states into a heterogeneous federation a autonomous regions. Nationalism being superseded by Regionalism under an European umbrella giving regions with a strong identity of their own independence from their respective nation states.
I also has it's weaknesses: the ‘Europe of the Regions’ project has the same dangers of underestimating the continuing economic importance of the state, overestimating the coherence of most regions, and conceding too much ground to the dominant neo-liberal ideology which would weaken the state's intervention and redistributive capabilities. Indeed, in some richer regions (for example, in northern Italy), regionalisms have been partly motivated by opposition to transfers from themselves to despised poorer regions, and nationalism has no monopoly on supremacist racist attitudes. Contrary to the benign vision, some regionalisms can be very parochial, even xenophobic, as well as progressive – they are not inherently either one or the other. [1]
In contrast to that the current political climate seems to like to challenge the very idea of a unified Europe; the future is very unclear in every aspect.
I think that process is ultimately self-defeating though. If ethnicities/cultures/regions balkanize under a larger EU umbrella eventually the cohesiveness at the high level will break down. People need to be able to figure out how to get along.
Of course it's very complex as it seems the weight of legal opinion is that Scotland will have to leave the EU if they leave the UK. There are a few legal academics that dispute that legal point but their case doesn't sound very convincing to me and the EU institutions have more or less said they will have to reapply. However Scotland does have the advantage of having a fairly good faith partner in the rest of the UK if they do leave. If the current disputes over the pound and the debt don't turn vicious then a huge stack of treaties being signed all in one day to make it all legal becomes imaginable. I think Barcelona-Madrid and Venice-Rome relations might take a somewhat different path.