ABSTRACT
This chapter explores secession in two different contexts: the exit of a member state from the European Union (EU) and the secession of a territorially concentrated group from a member state of the EU. The EU context can help decode and explain the fear of secession. The EU is not neutral on issues of secession: in fact, the term “withdrawal” was preferred when referring to the exit of a member state from the Union, while the term “secession” was used to refer to separationist movements in Scotland and Catalonia. Secession highlights the most conservative aspect of the community of states, the strenuous defence of the prerogatives of external sovereignty, which requires the absence of a right of secession in the international legal system. The problematic dimension of legality in the secessionist process has to be found in the border between constitutional law and international law.
