Madrid, Barcelona and the war of Spanish secession

On the day Germans will be celebrating reunification, Spaniards will be focused on whether their country is about to fall apart.

On Sunday, 9 November, Catalonia, Spain’s most prosperous region, will vote in a non-binding consultative referendum on whether to secede from the rest of the country.

Even though Artur Mas, president of the Catalan government in Barcelona, had promised a fully-fledged referendum, his plans were thwarted when the Spanish constitutional court ruled last...