Catalonia will vote on independence

Last month, Catalonian voters went to the polls in regional elections, handing a clear victory to secessionist parties. Now, the two major secessionist parties - Convergence and Union and the Republican Left of Catalonia - have reached a deal to form a minority government, with an independence referendum by 2014 as a key part of the platform.

Spain's central government bitterly opposes this, and it is apparently illegal. But its also simply infeasible for a modern democracy to attempt to retain by force a national minority who wishes to leave. But with Franco's heirs in charge at a national level, that's exactly what the Spanish government is likely to do. Things are likely to get "interesting" in Spain, and not in a good way.