For the EU to give any ground at all to Catelonia would be seen as weakening their bargaining position on Brexit. I do not see how the issues can be separated. As I have asked before: How can creeping regional autonomy be reconciled with the galloping federalism of the EU? The entire edifice is unstable with regional disparities of economy, culture and history. It will need more than the stroke of a pen and a peripatetic Parliament to destroy allegiance to the nation state. It must also be unique in that it cannot initiate legislation, that is left to the EU commission that has such "stalwarts" as Kinnock and Mandelson.