Visions from a newly-emerging state
following complicated negotiations and a process of ratification by all EU member states. Greenland only left the EU at the end of this lengthy process, and then immediately became associated to the EU as an ‘overseas territory’. The member states agreed that Greenland could leave the EEC, which lost 2 million km2 of its territory, in spite of the fact that the EU treaties did not cover this possibility. In the case of Catalonia, we are talking about a territory that has been in the EU for much longer, and in a period when Europe is much more integrated than it was in the 1980s when the Greenland case arose. More importantly, we are talking about a national community that does not want to leave the Union. How could an independent Catalonia be forced out? What implications would that have for the EU citizens in
Catalonia and the European companies with investments in Catalonia? It is difficult to say, since the treaties don’t cover the expulsion of a territory. But it is hard to imagine a situation whereby a member state requested an expulsion and that said request were approved by a qualified majority of states or even by a unanimous vote (of course we don’t know what kind of a vote would be required since the situation is not foreseen in the treaties). If we take expulsion as a given, it still seems more reasonable to assume the expulsion would not be automatic. The Lisbon amendments to the treaties (2007) for the first time introduced Article 50 to the EUT covering the voluntary departure of a member state. In that case it was established that the treaties would cease to be applied in the state in question Catalan International View
Part of the 400 kmlong Via Catalana as it passed through the city of Girona.
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