Catalans, Spaniards and Europeans all have reason to be proud of Sunday's democratic decision to expand the powers of self-government available to the citizens of Catalonia. The Catalans wanted it. The Spanish parliament mandated it as constitutionally lawful. And the European Union provides a framework - part architecture, part shock-absorbers - that should make such exercises perfectly ordinary.

In Spain that is not yet the case. Since the death of Franco and his noxiously parochial dictatorship just over three decades ago, Spaniards have successfully created a confident and prosperous democracy. But the federal dimension of this democracy has, from the outset, been a work in progress.