A European Union of More Nations? CATALONIA may be the catalyst for a renewed wave of separatism in the European Union, with Scotland and Flanders not far behind. The great paradox of the European Union, which is built on the concept of shared sovereignty, is that it lowers the stakes for regions to push for independence. While a post-national European Union may be emerging out of the euro zone crisis, with a drive for more fiscal union and more centralized control over national budgets and banks, the crisis has accelerated calls for independence from member countries" richer regions, angry at having to finance poorer neighbors. Artur Mas, the Catalan president, recently shook Spain and the markets with a call for early regional elections and promised a referendum on independence from Spain, although Madrid considers it illegal. Scotland is planning an independence referendum for the autumn of 2014. The Flemish in Flanders have achieved nearly total autonomy, both administrative and linguistic, but still resent what they consider to be the holdover hegemony of the French-speakers of Wallonia and the Brussels elite, emotions that will be on display in provincial and communal elections Oct. 14. There are countless things that hold unhappy countries, like marriages, together - shared history, shared wars, shared children, shared enemies. But the economic crisis in the European Union is also highlighting old grievances. Many in Catalonia and Flanders, for example, argue that they pay significantly more into the national treasury than they receive, even as national governments cut public services. In this sense, the regional argument is the euro zone argument writ small, as richer northern countries like Germany, Finland and Austria complain that their comparative wealth and success are being drained to keep countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain afloat. The crisis has also produced a loss of confidence in traditional leadership, with voters punishing incumbents and mainstream political parties. That has helped more atavistic nationalist parties, like the National Front in France and Golden Dawn in Greece. But in separatist regions, the same disaffection tends to favor parties advocating independence. "The whole development of European integration has lowered the stakes for separation, because the entities that emerge know they don't have to be fully autonomous and free-standing," said Mark Leonard, the director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. They know they'll have access to a market of 500 million people and some of the protections of the E.U. Heather Grabbe, who worked for five years as a political adviser to the E.U."s commissioner for enlargement, agreed: "If you're a small country in the E.U., like Malta or Luxembourg, you're likely to be overrepresented in Brussels compared to your size, so go for it." Now the Brussels director for the Open Society Institute, Ms. Grabbe said the key variable for separatism is less a matter of money than of historical grievance and language. "A lot of the pressure is about revisiting old settlements and defeats and agreements about who commits what to central budgets," she said. "But when it comes to the crunch, it's not about money but national myths - what kind of people we are, meta-narratives and emotions: "Do we feel oppressed? Do we feel safe enough to leave? Ghosts of history return, and while economics plays a role, in the end people vote with their hearts. But the crisis has also presented a real conundrum for regional leaders, because it has undermined the attraction of the European Union. In Scotland, for example, there was an assumption that if independent, it would join the bloc without a lot of fuss, since Scots are already citizens of the European Union. After all, some 20 million East Germans became members of the European Union overnight without even having to whistle the anthem. But would Scotland inherit the British "opt out" from the euro, or, as a new E.U. state, would it have to commit to the euro? And if so, who would be responsible for bailing out the Bank of Scotland, if it came to that? Steven Erlanger is the Paris bureau chief of The New York Times.