Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am amazed at the minimalist approach to the question of what is happening in Catalonia. This is a crisis that potentially not only strips Spain of any kind of democratic legitimacy, but in the failure of the European Union to speak about it, as Deputy Martin pointed out, it potentially strips Europe very significantly of its legitimacy, or what is left of its legitimacy, as a champion of democracy and human rights. Europe has signed up to the principle of self-determination. I stress that in international law, self-determination is not something that can be denied by a bigger state. The whole point of self-determination is that it can be exercised by minority groups if they tick certain boxes. Catalonia ticks those boxes.

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