K McIntyre,
  Fair comment. You offer the other side of the story here. My understanding is that the main reason Catalonia is focused on autonomy at this time is because Spain apparently did not honor their commitments to support the Catalan language and give them and their issues more representation in Government. Of course, this is a matter of opinion though, and could be argued either way. In any case, I think Canada, with its Clarity Act offered the best way for Spain to handle this situation. If you know a referendum is coming, you get ahead of it by setting reasonable conditions under which a referendum would be accepted. That way, if they aren't met, you can say the secessionist group is being unreasonable in an objective way and maintain sovereignty and justice. Spain may have no intention of ever seceding territory, but in the end, that won't be entirely up to them. They will have to deal with the UN and international community and Catalonia in the end.