It is wealthy, industrial, and sees itself as the regional engine for growth. It is also fed up with paying for its poorer neighbours.
It is not Germany, but Catalonia. And the Spanish region's politicians certainly don't mind the comparison.
"An economist just this morning told me that he saw Catalonia as being to Spain what Germany is to Europe," said Joan Vidal, chief of staff for the president of Spain's most economically powerful region. "That shows that we have our own image, while Brand Spain is really suffering.
"Of course, things have been done here that shouldn't have been - we're not denying that. But if we had the mechanisms to develop ourselves, we think we could get out of this situation."
Spain's continuing national debt crisis has already put the country's future in the euro in question, along with the future of the single currency itself. Now it has had another effect, unwanted in the rest of Spain, by fuelling demands for Catalan independence. Fed up with effectively paying more to Madrid than the region receives back in central government funding, the region's own government, centred on Barcelona, has already gone cap in hand to the national treasury to ask for a bailout of its own debts.
Now its people are increasingly convinced that breaking away from Madrid may be their best hope for the future - a development watched from Spain's capital, 400 miles away, with a mixture of anger and fear.
Earlier this month, on Catalonia's own "national" day, more than a million people took to the streets as their president Artur Mas told the cheering crowds that "never before has Catalonia been so close to achieving its aspiration and its desire of full national freedom".
Last week Mr Mas, who feels he has been backed into a corner by Madrid's refusal to consider granting him greater autonomy, called a snap election for November. He promised, if re-elected, to hold a referendum on independence.
With Spain being pummelled by the financial market, rocked by protests and hit by doubts over its finances, the surge of support for Catalan independence is the last thing the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, needs.
Even King Juan Carlos, who normally remains aloof from political wrangles, was driven to intervene, issuing a thinly-veiled warning in which he wrote of a "decisive moment for the future of Europe and of Spain", which could "either assure or destroy the well-being we have struggled so hard for".
In his most overt political intervention since 1981, when Spain's post-Franco democracy was threatened by revolution, he added: "The worst thing we could do is to divide our strengths, foment dissent, chase chimeras and deepen our wounds."
And he is perhaps right that the current eurozone and Spanish crises, a contracting economy with record unemployment, and the looming constitutional crunch over Catalan separatism, together amount to a national emergency.
Seven of Spain's 14 main credit institutions failed their financial health checks on Friday – so-called "stress tests" – which means they need €59 million of capital.
The problem was compounded for Mr Rajoy when Germany, Finland and the Netherlands appeared to backtrack on an EU deal by insisting that a new rescue fund for Spain's would not covering older, "legacy" debts.
Last week the government announced that ministry budgets would be cut by 8.9 per cent and public sector wages frozen for a third year running, along with the possible raising of retirement age.
"This is a crisis budget aimed at emerging from the crisis," said Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, deputy prime minister.
While she was defending the budget, however, Mr Rajoy was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Photos of him puffing on a cigar while his country seethed did little to ease the tensions.
He had also given a badly-judged interview to the Wall Street Journal, in which he said he would seek a full EU bailout for Spain if the country's borrowing costs rose so greatly that he was forced to do so.
As if on command, borrowing costs soared. "This guy is an ace communicator," one European diplomat noted with heavy irony.
Mr Mas, Catalonia's leader, has meanwhile made himself a sharp thorn in the side of the prime minister.
Catalonia, Spain's most wealthy region, makes up one fifth of the national economy and generates 30 per cent of its exports. Its 7.5 million people have always seen themselves as distinct from the rest of Spain, with their own language and cultural identity.
But what most angers people is that Catalonia is responsible for managing public services, but Madrid retains regulatory and tax-and-spend powers.
This means that they transfer a net €12 billion a year in tax revenues to the rest of Spain, leaving - they say - too little for their own essential needs.
"The time has come to exercise the right to self-determination," he said. "The parliament that emerges (from November's election) will have a historic responsibility."
Now a referendum is due to be held after a new government is elected on Nov 25. It would have no legal consequence but would hugely increase pressure for Madrid to grant the region complete autonomy.
"What we want is more freedom and more independence," said Joan Vidal, the chief of staff for the president. "We have a clear plan of our priorities, but we are not getting the support from the central government."
Sitting at an expansive desk inside the Gothic, gargoyle-surrounded presidential palace – the heart of which dates from 1359 – Mr Vidal denied that calling for independence at this time was opportunistic or dangerous.
He said that Mr Rajoy's talk of shared struggle was hollow, given that Madrid refused to pass on the EU's more relaxed deficit targets to the regions. Catalonia knew how to handle Catalonia's problems, he added.
"We agree that austerity is necessary – we are not irresponsible. But we think that Catalonia itself has the best motor to get out of the crisis."
The region was forced to ask Madrid for a €5 billion bail-out in August, the largest of all Spain's 17 regions. Even though it generates the most money, it has high running costs and huge debt. Hospital wards are closing, class sizes are growing, and university fees are rising.
The Sant Pau hospital, a huge complex on a hillside above the centre, has seen a 20 per cent reduction in the number of beds. The number of surgery sessions has been reduced by three per day, meaning that there will be 1,500 fewer operations per year.
Other hospitals have stopped providing night-time emergency services.
Unemployment is 22 per cent; huge compared to much of Europe, but less than the national average of 25 per cent.
And the embarrassment of the bailout only served to help the cause of Catalan independence. A survey in June showed 51 per cent of Catalans now support independence; the first time that more than half have called for a separate state.
"What Catalonia makes should stay in Catalonia," said Albert Garcia, 20, a finance student. "We could be like Monaco or Andorra – small, strong, independent nations." His friend Andreu Pedascoll, 22, added: "The Spanish hate us anyway. They only want us to stay part of Spain for our money."
But aren't they Spanish, I ask? "No!" they say in outraged unison. "We're Catalan. Definitely not Spanish."
The fear is, of course, that the cracks in Spain will spread to the rest of Europe. Already there is talk of a north-south divide: will the Catalans spur on the Italians, already sharply split between the industrial north and more rural south? What about Belgium, with its Flemish separatist issue? And Scotland, or the southern German state of Bavaria?
"I'm not sure if the EU is fracturing as such," said Mr Vidal. "But each country is moving at its own rhythm. "There shouldn't be fear about this. They just need to listen to us."
The Telegraph
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