Europe under strain: political extremism aspects

[Firn]

Things change over time which is a bit of a truism. While it seems that the No will prevail it is rather useful to look at the Velvet Divorce, the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The circumstances were quite different, of course, but is still of interest.

Many Czechs and Slovaks desired the continued existence of a federal Czechoslovakia. Some major Slovak parties, however, advocated a looser form of co-existence and the Slovak National Party complete independence and sovereignty. In the next years, political parties re-emerged, but Czech parties had little or no presence in Slovakia, and vice versa. In order to have a functional state, the government demanded continued control from Prague, while Slovaks continued to ask for decentralization.[1]

In 1992, the Czech Republic elected Vclav Klaus and others who demanded either an even tighter federation ("viable federation") or two independent states. Vladimr Mečiar and other leading Slovak politicians of the day wanted a kind of confederation. The two sides opened frequent and intense negotiations in June. On 17 July, the Slovak parliament adopted the Declaration of independence of the Slovak nation. Six days later, Klaus and Meciar agreed to dissolve Czechoslovakia at a meeting in Bratislava. Czechoslovak president Vclav Havel resigned rather than oversee the dissolution which he had opposed; in a September 1992 poll, only 37% of Slovaks and 36% of Czechs favoured dissolution.[2]

In many European cases more regional rights seem to be a fine enough long term solution but there are of course many variables. In Italy's case the minorities are all relatively small and a stronger autonomy with a somewhat higher public spending is rather affordable, even if some disagree.