Time to talk

THE Catalan administration is on a collision course with the administration in Madrid and it might be a good idea if they both stopped behaving like little spoilt children. The Catalan regional government in Barcelona is calling for a breakaway from Spain but the Spanish government will not allow their referendum on independence which is rather silly because the only thing that Madrid is doing is helping to stoke the fires of independence in Catalonia. Then TV3, the regional TVstation in Cataloñia, failed to show the King´s Christmas message for the first time. In his address to the nation King Juan Carlos called for unity across Spain, but the call fell on deaf ears in Catalonia. I think the best thing that Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy can do is to sit down with the Catalan government and negotiate a way forward. He may be opposed to a breakaway but the problem is not going to go away neither sooner or later he will have to negotiate a way forward. Opinion polls say that Catalans are  divided on independence with about 50 percent in favour of an breakaway from Spain. So there is plenty of work to do. I suspect that if a referendum did take place Catalans would vote to stay with the rest of Spain. Rajoy has no time to lose. If he wants a united Spain then he must fight for it. It is no good just trying to brush the issue under the carpet and hope that it will go away. In the meantime Ithink the Catalan government should start acting more responsibly.