Kosovo and Catalonia are no different - expert

Tibor Varadi thinks the stance that Kosovo and Catalonia are not comparable because Spain is an EU member does not have a foothold in international law.

"The fact that the EU is averse to Catalonia's secession is obvious - but that there is some international legal scheme, different when it comes to Kosovo, Crimea, or Scotland, that I really do not see," Varadi, an international law professor, told Tanjug.

"There is no clear position in international law as to how a unit could be separated from a state through self-determination, but I do not see the basis for differentiating between Kosovo and Catalonia, all the more so since there was actually no referendum in Kosovo," he added.

According to him, history has mostly shown, since the First World War, that gaining independence was possible "in a specific international situation and under a very specific balance of...

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