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by kgwgk 2430 days ago
It’s a bit misleading to say that Catalonia (along with other regions) was “essentially annexed” by Spain three centuries ago when it had been already be part of Spain for two centuries already. Since the very creation of the Kingdom of Spain. (It’s true that it tried to secede in 1640-1652 but the result was the loss of its northern territories to France. By the way, Napoleon would actually annex Catalonia to France later.)

Anyway, they level of independence that Catalonia has had in the last decades is much higher that before that “annexion”.

1 comments

> Anyway, they level of independence that Catalonia has had in the last decades is much higher that before that “annexion”.

I am sorry to say, but this is the misleading part. You can't compare the situation hundreds of years ago with today's standards. Politically, Catalonia has less level of independence than 300 years ago. After all it had its own political institutions, courts, laws and coinage of money; all of them separated from the Kingdom of Castile.

The annex I was referring to was political, economical, legal and monetary unification after Catalonia defended a different candidate for the crown. And this is the level of autonomy that some Catalans wanted to regain.

> You can't compare the situation hundreds of years ago with today's standards.

That’s a very good point. But for some reason some people can’t leave 1714 behind!