Spanish Breakup?

Fire of Liberty

It seems that Spain has been going down the tubes ever since PM Jose Maria Aznar retired and his fellow MP's of the center-right Partido Popular lost the Parliament to Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and his fellow socialists of PSOE. According to this piece over at TCS Daily, the new PM has allowed the further decentralization of Spain and several regions like Catalonia to command great sovereignty over the current central government as a way to ensure that PSOE keeps the reigns of government. In fact this plan will only set a precedent for other groups and folks within the various regions within Spain and throughout Europe to argue for their own separate our autonomous region or zone. As Jose Maria Marco notes in his piece, this could snowball into the "Balkanization" of Europe into hundreds of groups based on ethnicity, race, religion, or any other way that you want to divide a nation or region. If you follow world politics and the history of Yugoslavia, then you know where this talk of autonomy or independence within a nation will get ya. This movement on behalf of Catalonia and the Basque Region might not erupt in a violent bloodbath like we saw in Bosnia or Kosovo in the 1990's but it could lead to something down the road. (Don't forget the Balkans problems has been rumbling for some 500 yrs ago who was pushed onward even more by the meddling of Wilson and the victors of WWI not to mention the horrific and brutal 35 year rule of Tito and the 10 years under Milosevic. I can still happen in Spain as well as Europe.) I just hope the PP of Spain will find some way to prevent this from occurring before the country of Spain falls apart. It makes me wonder what could Jose Maria Aznar could done if he ran and won a third term.