The Economy of Catalonia

«This whole process, even in the event that no State opposes Catalonia’s
accession, is slow and laborious, taking no less than three or four years. If
any State wants to add additional conditions to the accession, as is often the
case, the process would draw out even longer [...] During this transition towards
the European Union, Catalan goods, services, companies and capital
would have to pay the same tariffs that are paid by Russian, Argentine and
Japanese products to be sold in any member State».
– Duran i Lleida stated the following on ABC Punto Radio on 30 October
2012:
«I know Catalonia has sufficient economic and demographic weight to subsist
[independently]; but not outside the European Union. I don’t want
Catalonia to be like Kosovo.»
Lastly, for the sake of brevity, it is important to point out that this would be
the only argument of the candidate Navarro and one of the two arguments
of the candidate Sánchez-Camacho (the other one would be that the referendum
should include the entire population of Spain) in reply to the insistent
question of the third participant in the electoral debate on 8tv (16 November
2012), Artur Mas, with respect to their positions on the so called
«right to decide». Specifically, both mentioned that Catalonia would be born
outside the European Union, that it would have to request admission and
that such admission would depend on its unanimous approval. Moreover,
both candidates explicitly mentioned Article 49 of the EU Treaty (Navarro
at minute 34 and Sánchez-Camacho at minutes 39 and 46).
The voice of the experts
Before listening to the economists, it would be useful to hear the voice
of some experts on EU enlargements.
To begin with, Francesc Granell. His first contribution comes from an
interview on the CatalanTV channel 3/24 on 25 September 2012 (just
before the period under consideration here). After making evident his
experience as director of negotiations on the accession of Finland, he
limited himself to pointing out the following:
I believe we would be left out of the EU and would have to request to be readmitted,
and that would be a problematic process [...] Agreement would have
to be reached on it».
72 The Economy of Catalonia