I am "british" and have great problems with US postal employees
who cross out the 'legal' name of the country -
"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"
and put "England": there then ensues a conversation along the lines of
"That won't work, it is going to Wales"; "Where's Wales?" ;
"To the west of England"; "It isn't in my book" ; "Well, it
was conquered in the 12th Century"; "Oh, so it isn't a country then?" ;
"Oh yes - all public announcements, like - notices in Post Offices -
have to be in Welsh as well as English"; "So it's really part of England.."
and so on...
In Europe there is/was a notion of "l'europe des patries" - one of the
possibilities of a federal Europe might be the opportunity for the
many and varied peoples of Europe - including the Celtic peoples
(Welsh, Breton, Cornish) and their Gaelic cousins from Ireland and Scotland,
and then the Basques, the Flemish, the Walloon...these peoples would have the
opportunity to have expression of their nationhood: so that it wouldn't seem
a novelty when, next year, the 'official' language of the Barcelona Olympics
turns out to be Catalan..
But I guess by now there are just too many counter-examples of
federal structures not accommodating multiple cultures (US, Brazil,
Canada) or breaking down on nationalistic lines (USSR, Yugoslavia,
Canada) for this to be more than a pipe dream.
Iolo Goch