Catalonia declaration of independence

Now I come to the recent declaration of independence by Catalonia and the subsequent collapse of their bid. Catalonians were getting increasingly frustrated by what they saw a wealth grab by the Federal government and also thought that since they were the wealthier side, they needed to break away and have their own independent nation. With nobody outside their own boundaries willing to recognize or help them gain independence, this was bound to fail. The European Union with their own problems of separatist tendencies in places like Italy where the Northern league wants to secede from the rest of Italy and in Belgium where the Flanders want to have their own nation accusing the French south of taking their wealth to the Scottish bid to go its own way, this vote was not going to bring any joy to the European Union and hence the European union did not back it. The Unites States did not want to back it either since they would have been losing a strong NATO ally and for the reasons mentioned above. All this separatist tendencies are done by wealthier regions of their respective countries who feel that the southern part of their countries are not working hard enough to better their lives and also want to have a distinct identify based on their wealth, language and culture. But if this was the criteria to follow in any bid for independence, there would be hundred more countries as ethnic rivalry will heat up almost everywhere there is a huge gap of rich and poor regions. It is time to take a step back and resolve the issues behind all these separatist bids in a democratic manner.