In a little factory near Girona artisans are making four-inch plaster figures of Alex Salmond.

The first minister is half-smiling with a look of intense concentration on his face and a little half smile. He also is squatting to answer a call of nature; a little pile of hand-painted brown spirals at his heels.

This is a Caganer, a Catalan "crapper", a traditional Christmas nativity toy used to celebrate the great and the good. It is supposed to be a leveller, to symbolise that we all have to go to the toilet; that we are all equal. New to this year's collection, the Salmond version also symbolises just how far Scottish politics has been cross-infected by Catalunya's.

"We are always taking about Alex Salmond here," said the Caganer's creator, sculptor Marc Alos, whose firm sells the figurine for 16 euros each. "He is a point of reference for us, including his White Paper."

That White Paper set out the reasons why Mr Salmond thinks Scotland would stay in the EU. That - for the firmly and enthusiastically pro-European Catalan home-rulers - came as a godsend. After, their enemies, the arch-unionists of Spain, for more than a year have been warning that Catalunya, Scotland or any other breakaway region would be "left outside" the club they split.

Cue one of the biggest events of our indyref debate yet. Mariano Rajoy, prime minister of Spain and ultra-unionist-in-chief, stood next to the president of France, Francois Hollande, and warned that Scotland wouldn't get automatic admission to the EU.

A new view? No, but none the less important for it, not least given the heavy-lifting by academics and officials in Edinburgh and Barcelona suggesting he is wrong.

Non-partisan Scottish experts, for example, reckon an indy Scotland may well have a fight on its hands over its share of the existing rebate. That, surely, is a serious enough issue. But Schengen and border posts at Gretna? The Euro? A lengthy accession period?

So is Salmond quaking over a Spanish veto? Is he making like his Caganer? Pass.

But what happened this week was nevertheless huge. Why? Because it represents the partial internationalisation of Scotland's big vote. It also appears to be the first proper diplomatic spat Scotland has had, Megrahi aside, since it launched itself back in to the global relations.

Here's the thing: it appears Salmond's enemies at home knew that Rajoy was going to open his mouth before he did so.

Were unionists in Scotland colluding with their fellow thinkers in Spain?

Ultra-unionists in Spain's ruling Partido Popular have made overtures to Better Together types before. At first the reception they got appears to have been merely civil. They met again this autumn, at the Tory conference in Manchester, as confirmed by the Conservatives.

There was another meeting yesterday, this time between Rajoy and his UK counterpart, David Cameron.

Westminster has downplayed the encounter, at a EU summit in Vilnius.

Spanish sources do not. "The prime ministers of the UK and Spain, David Cameron and Mariano Rajoy, today decided to co-ordinate their response to the independence aspirations of Scotland and Catalonia," reported El Pais in Madrid. "In a brief chat at the beginning of the EU summit with eastern neighbours taking place in Vilnius, both sides agree that independence of Scotland or Catalonia would result in their automatic expulsion from the EU."

"This isn't the first time that the head of government has warned that Catalonia would exit the EU if it goes independent. He last did it on Wednesday at an appearance with the president of France, Francois Hollande."

"The new thing is that he is seeking," the paper underlined, "is British complicity."

The theory for a unionist alliance between Madrid and London is simple: that independentistas in Scotland and Catalonia are watching each other closely and that "any hesitation or faltering" by either Madrid or London would "harm" the other.

El Pais earlier in the week in its analysis has pointedly reported that Rajoy had not specifically threatened to veto Scottish EU membership.

The paper was more interested in the fact he made the remarks while at the side of Hollande. The Spanish PM, it said, was "taking advantage" of the fact that was next to the president of France, "one of the countries that, thinking of its own separatists, would almost certainly ejecute a veto".

Salmond now joins Rajoy and Hollande in the elite group of international statesmen who have their own Caganer. So does Cameron. And - at least until reports of his anti-separatist alliance with Spain - he remained the pin-up of Catalanists.

The Tory leader, after all, is the cuddly democratic, the fella with the British sense fair play who let his minority region decide whether it wanted to become independent.