Politics

Scottish independence: How are European papers covering the referendum?

September 18, 2014
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My colleague Jay Elwes is in Edinburgh today covering the Scottish independence referendum for Prospect. This morning, he tweeted:

Lots of Spanish journalists at the polling stations today in Edinburgh. Catalonia and Madrid are watching.

— JayElwes (@JayElwes) September 18, 2014


They certainly are. (So, it seems, are the Sardinian separatists—an irredentist movement of which I was previously unaware. Jay encountered a bedraggled chapter of activists from Sardigna Natzione Indipendentzia in the Old Town.)

You get a sense of just how closely the Spanish are watching Scotland from the website of El Pais, Spain's newspaper of record. The main story is about the final opinion poll of the campaign, which had No on 53 per cent and Yes on 47 (see screen grab below). There's also a special page on the site devoted to (very detailed) coverage of the referendum, including reporting of remarks made yesterday by the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy. Yesterday, in a speech in the Spanish parliament, and with secessionist sentiment in Catalonia very much on his mind, Rajoy said that referendums like the one taking place in Scotland are "a torpedo below the waterline for European integration."



In the spirit of pan-Europeanism, I thought I'd take an entirely unscientific and far from comprehensive look at how newspapers in some other EU countries are covering the momentous events in Scotland. Unsurprisingly, given France's historic "Auld Alliance" with Scotland, not to mention significant stirrings of regional self-assertion in Brittany and Corsica, Le Monde devotes the first five stories on its website to the referendum. The main story asks if the vote today will turn out to be a "Waterloo" for the opinion pollsters. There's also a very useful "décodeur" explaining exactly how the referendum works.



France's neighbour Belgium has, of course, been riven by linguistic and regional antagonisms between the Flemish and the Walloons for years. Le Soir, the country's leading French-language newspaper, gives prominence to the Scottish referendum, though a report from their Edinburgh correspondent was knocked off the top of its website this afternoon by a piece about the travails of the French president, François Hollande.

Even Die Welt in Germany, a highly successful and stable federation of regional states, unlike its neighbours, is taking Scotland very seriously indeed. "Tomorrow," the headline on its main story reads, "Scotland is another country."