Writing in El Pais yesterday, Walter Oppenheimer opined that, whereas Europe is gradually Britanicising, the UK is not being Europeanised. The article repeated the hoary old chestnut that the Conservative party is anti-European. The truth, of course, is that it is no such thing. It certainly does favour the commercial model of a free-trade EU and opposes the political model of a new supranational state. But these are not the same thing, one would have thought. The ‘Smaller Case Option’ might, in fact, be the view of the majority of Europeans. But we will never know, as we plebs are virtually all being denied the chance to have a say on the subject. What we can say for certain is that the political model was favoured by the founding fathers and is very much endorsed by the elites now in power, both in Brussels and in all capital cities. But, then, it would be, wouldn’t it? And we eurosceptics are not stupid; we know that the behemoth can’t be stopped and that it will either succeed or implode under the weight of its own internal contradictions. Time will tell. Meanwhile, present-day Spain may be giving us some pointers as to what happens to artificial entities held together by top-down coercion once the fetters are cut and people allowed to choose their own destiny. Just a thought. Meanwhile, it would be a miracle if Brussels ever supported even the democratic aspirations of the Basque Country, Cataluña and Galicia. They’d be terrifying precedents to an emergent superstate with no time or place for national identities. Which makes the EU’s Kosovo strategy all the more ironic. If not illogical and even incomprehensible. Not only to the Russians.

I guess it’s generally accepted that all of us bridle when our country is criticised, even if we agree with the comments. And it’s possible the Spanish react more than most. Some attribute this to a long-standing inferiority complex and they may well be right. But, if so, you’d think the enormous progress of the last 30 years and the economic growth of the last 10 in particular would have done something to eradicate this feeling. After all, the government is regularly telling us that Spanish per capita income is now higher than Italy’s and will exceed that of Britain and France within ten years. And yet . . . my own impression is these are confusing and worrying times for the Spanish. Yes, Spain certainly is – or should be – a bigger player on the world stage; the Spanish language is gaining strength; and Hispanic voters may well swing the US elections. But it frustrates the Spanish that the rest of the world still seems to see the country as a larger version of Andalucia, at best, or a poor 70s country just emerging from dictatorship, at worst. And, truth, to tell, the bursting of the property bubble, the daily diet of bad economic news, the regular press reports of financial and political skulduggery and the knowledge, for example, that most young people earn a salary of not much more than 12,000 euros a year all combine to leave the Spanish with a concern not only that the ‘fat cow’ years are over but also that the woodwork is hiding long-established aspects of life here that didn’t mater much during a boom but certainly will now. I hope not but vamos a ver.

Meanwhile, here’s a good example of the critical external view of Spain that probably provides some evidence of the problem. Even if some of it is rather exaggerated. Including the title of Pirates of the Mediterranean.

Ultimately, of course, it's only the Spanish who can do anything about both their self-perception and the view which the rest of the world holds of them, rightly or wrongly.