CATALONIA -- BBC News - Why pro-independence Catalans envy Scotland

BBC News - Why pro-independence Catalans envy Scotland:

The hilltop village of Sant Pere de Torello, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, north of Barcelona, is decked in the colours of Catalan statehood.

The red-blue-gold flag of the movement to win independence from Spain flies from windows, balconies and rooftops in every street.

The flag also rises above the town hall of this community of 2,500, whose mayor was the first local official in Catalonia to declare his area a free Catalan territory - electing to send local taxes to the Catalan capital Barcelona, instead of directly to Madrid. It is a symbolic repudiation of the town's Spanish heritage in favour of an explicit Catalan national identity.

"It is a small thing," says Griselda Castells, an adviser to the mayor, "but we have tried for years to explain to Spain that we need action - but nothing changes.

"Now the government of Spain can see that it is real, this feeling that we have. It's a small thing but an important thing for our ideology, for our dream, that Catalonia will be independent."

There has been a dramatic rise in support for Catalan independence in the last few years. A pro-independence demonstration in Barcelona in September 2012 attracted more than a million people. Opinion polls frequently put support for a break with Spain at more than 50%.

 

In September 2012 pro-independence Catalans thronged the streets of Barcelona