The “Europeanization” of Secessionist Programs: A Study of Montenegro and Catalonia

Abstract

In 2006, the EU encouraged, facilitated and supervised the secession referendum of Montenegro. In 2014, the EU officials refused to facilitate a similar referendum in its member state Spain, and have so far denied any claims that Catalonia, when independent, would retain its membership of the EU. The paper argues that the EU policy towards secession referenda significantly affected the outcome of secessionist mobilization in these two cases.

In spite of these sharp differences in the EU response, secessionist programs in both countries were ‘Europeanised’ in a similar way: in Montenegro, secession was aiming to facilitate the EU accession, and in Catalonia, to increase the benefits of retained EU membership. This paper explores the political and demographic context of the Europeanisation of secessionist programs.

The majority of citizens in Catalonia and Montenegro do not identify as Catalan or Montenegrin only. The paper argues that the Europeanization of secessionist programs was, in part, an attempt to widen the appeal of secession to those who are not only Catalan or only Montenegrin.