L’Europe en formation nº 379 Printemps 2016 - Spring 2016 Minority Nationalism and the European Union The Cases of Scotland and Catalonia Paul Anderson & Soeren Keil Paul Anderson is a PhD candidate in Politics and International Relations at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. He holds degrees from the University of Glasgow and the Uni- versity of Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. His main research focuses on territorial autonomy and secessionist movements in Western plurinational democracies. Dr Soeren Keil is Reader in Politics and International Relations at Canterbury Christ Church University in the UK. He has published, edited and co-edited six books, most recently “Under- standing Federalism and Federation” (co-edited with Alain Gagnon and Sean Mueller) and “State-Building and Democratization in Bosnia and Herzegovina” (co-edited with Valery Perry). His main research focuses on territorial autonomy as a tool of conlict resolution, the political systems of the Western Balkan states and EU enlargement policy. Introduction In recent years Scotland and Catalonia have taken centre stage in debates con- cerning secession. hey are paradigmatic cases of ‘stateless nations’ which seek to exercise their right to both internal and external self-determination. 1 In Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) has for many years campaigned for independ- ent statehood. his issue was brought to the fore of Scottish and British politics in 2011 when the SNP won a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament election, securing a mandate to pursue its longstanding policy of Scottish independence. 2 his referendum, granted after negotiations with the Conservative-led coalition government in Westminster, was held in September 2014; just over 55% of the voters rejected independence. Historically, the Catalan nationalist movement has supported a pro-autonomy, non-secessionist stance. 3 In recent years, however, support for Catalan independence has rapidly grown, although the Spanish Gov- 1. Montserrat Guibernau, Nations without States (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999). Michael Keating, Nations against the state, second edition (Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001). 2. Iain McLean, Jim Gallagher and Guy Lodge, Scotland’s Choices: he Referendum and What Happens Afterwards (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013). 3. Montserrat Guibernau, “Catalonia - A Non-Secessionist Nationalism” in he Fate of the Nation-State, ed. Michel Seymour (Montreal and Kingston: McGill and Queen’s University Press, 2004), 234-247.