I wouldn’t say it’s more or leas democratic to let Catalonia leave, since Spain as a whole would vote no. But with regards to integration, Soviet fell apart. S

I wouldn’t say it’s more or leas democratic to let Catalonia leave, since Spain as a whole would vote no. But with regards to integration, Soviet fell apart. So did Jugoslavia, and then Serbia fractured further. The UK almost fell apart, and they did vote to leave the EU. Many countries in Central Europe are very sceptical of Brussels, and I would say that decentralization is at least as strong a trend as “integration”. In any event it definitely wasn’t “we as Europeans” that demanded integration, enormous amounts of money were spent by governments to get their respective populaces to vote yes to EU. It’s very much a top down thing, and I’m not so as convinced as you that it will last. Especially a monetary union that includes both countries like Portugal and Greece on the one hand, and Finland and Germany on the other, seems pretty brittle.