Scot plebiscite may open Pandora’s box

London: Whatever the outcome of this week’s Scottish referendum on independence, the shape of Europe is changing as power ebbs away from old nation states, sparking a backlash in some places.

If Scots vote ‘Yes’ to splitting from England after 307 years of union, it will cause a political earthquake and whet appetites for self-rule from Catalonia to Flanders. If they vote ‘No’, the British government has promised to decentralise more powers to Edinburgh, with likely knock-on effects in Wales and Northern Ireland.

Either way, the precedent of a plebiscite on self-determination will reverberate around the continent. The Spanish government may find it hard to withstand public pressure in Catalonia to allow that prosperous northeastern region of 7.4 million people a vote on sovereignty.

Hundreds of thousands of Catalans packed the streets of Barcelona last week to demand the right to choose. What the Catalans do is bound to influence Spain’s Basques, who already have broader autonomy.

The Cold War froze the map of Europe for a generation. But since the fall of the Berlin Wall, new states have appeared, old ones have reappeared - bloodily in the Balkans, largely peacefully in the Baltics. In many European countries, regions have gained more power at the expense of Central government.

States that fought each other for centuries now share a currency, an area of passport-free travel, a single market with free movement of citizens, capital, goods and services, and a raft of jointly adopted norms and standards. Meanwhile, Scottish first minister Alex Salmond has invited Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling to join his “Team Scotland” group to negotiate the breakup of UK if the yes side prevails in Thursday’s referendum.