Re: Realism
If the Spanish block out EU membership then they will not be respecting the UK constituation to allow a democratic vote, and that will give the Catalonians and Basques a big stick to beat them with.
As far as I know (and I may be wrong), there's never been a case of an EU member state splitting and there may not be any EU rules that cover such a case.
Essentially there are two possibilities in the event of independance:
1) Scotland is allowed to continue as an EU member because of it's previous membership as part of the UK.
2) Scotland is out of the EU, but may apply for membership as a new country.
Which one of those things happens is down to the EU, whatever the Yes camp say on the matter, it simply isn't up to Scotland (or England for that matter) on their own. Spain will form part of that debate, but it will (probably) only happen after a Yes vote, so Spain will not be interfering in the democratic vote for independance in any way, they will be debating the consequences along with all the other member states.
If there is a Yes vote and if the EU decides that they can't just continue as members that is when things could get tricky, but it's possible that it would all be sorted as part of any independance debates and discussions before the final break-up. It's not as if Scotland will actually be independant by the end of the year, it'll take years to get all of the infrastructure and financial stuff sorted out first.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
