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"In the movie Braveheart, the 13th-century Scottish warrior William Wallace (in the form of Mel Gibson) gallops across the green Highlands exhorting people to fight the English and shouting in Gaelic, \u201CAlba gu br\u00E0th!\u201D or \u201CScotland forever!\u201D Seven hundred years after that conflict, passions are running high again, as about 5.2 million Scots prepare to make their most crucial political decision in memory on Sept. 18: whether to declare their independence from Britain. It\u2019s a vote that could rip apart Europe\u2019s third-biggest economy and jolt nations across the region. Much as in Wallace\u2019s time, the issue pits the dreamers against the doomsayers (minus the bloodshed) and threatens to end an alliance that has lasted for centuries. \u201CScotland has been a nation for a very long time,\u201D says Duncan Ross, a professor of economic history at the University of Glasgow. \u201CWe should have the right to decide how to rule ourselves.\u201D\nPerhaps so. Yet for Europe the question is, At what price? The intense nervousness over how the Scots might vote extends far beyond the territory\u2019s rugged mountains. Many in Europe fear that Scotland\u2019s independence fervor could ripple across the continent, where a number of separatist campaigns have simmered for years. The hotspots range from the mountainous Basque region at the border of Spain and France to the Mediterranean island of Corsica to the lowlands of Belgium, where many in the Flemish majority want to say tot ziens to their French-speaking countrymen. Some of these movements have a history of violence; several more seem merely rhetorical\u2014and, well, quixotic (independent Venice?). But taken together, the sovereignty pushes are yet another reminder of how tenuous the notion of one cohesive \u201CEuropean Union\u201D truly is (see graphic below).\nScots who favor splitting off from Britain \u201Care fighting for something they believe in,\u201D says one professor. \u201CThere is an asymmetry of passion.\u201D\nThe sense of Europe splintering at the edges has deepened with the soaring popularity of anti-EU parties like France\u2019s National Front and Britain\u2019s Independence Party, which want their countries out of the Union. And even if Scotland\u2019s independence vote fails, Britain could be forced to offer Scots far greater autonomy, including perhaps more control over their budget\u2014something that could further complicate the EU\u2019s already plodding economic policymaking. With each new voice at the table, says Steven Blockmans of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, \u201Cit becomes more and more difficult to align everyone\u2019s interests.\u201D\nWhen British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed in 2012 to a Scottish referendum on independence, the odds seemed remote that voters would choose to split from Britain after 300 years of albeit awkward union, abandoning the U.K.\u2019s modern military and its permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Yet as the vote has drawn nearer, Scots increasingly seem eager for far-reaching change, with recent polls putting the ditch-Britain vote at 40%. \u201CPeople on the yes [for independence] side are fighting for something they believe in passionately, while on the no side, the feeling is, \u2018Why change countries?\u2019\u201D says John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University. \u201CThere is an asymmetry of passion.\u201D\nGLASGOW, SCOTLAND &amp;#8211; AUGUST 05: (L-R) Alex Salmond First Minister of Scotland and Alistair Darling chairman of Better Together take part in a live television debate from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland on August 5, 2014 in Glasgow, Scotland.Jeff J Mitchell Getty Images\nThose in favor of independence say that Scotland should commit a portion of its North Sea oil earnings to funding public health, pensions, and education\u2014as oil-rich Norway does\u2014rather than let British lawmakers divvy it up. Supporters also say they\u2019d evict the Trident nuclear submarines stationed on the Clyde River should there be a split. Sure, a new Scotland would be small. But it would still dwarf several other EU countries, including Malta, Cyprus, and wealthy Luxembourg (pop. 530,000). \u201CThis notion that you have to be part of a big country is just not true in the EU,\u201D Ross says. \u201CSome of the most successful EU countries are small, like Denmark. And if some of our decisions turn out not to be right, we\u2019ll deal with it.\u201D\nWhatever the outcome of Scotland\u2019s vote, few places will feel its impact as strongly as Spain\u2019s autonomous Catalonia region 1,000 miles away. With 7.5 million Catalans speaking their own language and running a large economy in northeastern Spain, the separatist politicians in Barcelona command huge support. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has vowed to block Catalan plans for a Nov. 11 independence referendum and to ignore the results.\nSo far, Rajoy\u2019s tough talk has helped stoke separatist feelings in Barcelona, with pro-independence parties arguing that recession-hit Spain sucks away Catalan resources. \u201CCatalonia suffers fiscal drainage of \u20AC8 billion to \u20AC11 billion a year, if not more, from Spain,\u201D says Manuel Manonelles, director general for European and Multilateral Affairs in Catalonia\u2019s government. Like other Catalans, Manonelles sees answers to their political frustrations in one far-off place: Scotland. \u201CThe British people are giving a good example of democratic spirit\u201D in allowing Scotland\u2019s vote, he says. \u201CWe\u2019re watching the referendum closely.\u201D So, too, is the rest of Europe.\nGraphic by: POP Chart Lab/Analee Kasudia\u2014Fortune\nReporting by: Preetisha Sen and Robert Hackett\nThis story is from the September 1, 2014 issue of Fortune."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://fortune.com/2014/08/14/europe-separatism/>