Conflict is resolved by voting: Catalonia – The Economist

The president of the Catalan autonomy Carles Puigdemont meets a year as the head of the government that was established with the aim of forming a critical path to independence.

Carles Puigdemont warns the president Mariano Rajoy who has availability to meet. Photo: AFP

The president of the Catalan autonomy Carles Puigdemont meets a year as the head of the government that was established with the aim of forming a critical path to independence.

The newspaper La Vanguardia interviewed him a day before his predecessor Artur Mas, to go to testify before a judge for violating a constitutional order on "consultation" which he organized as president of Catalonia on 9 November 2014.

Accompany the former president Artur Mas of around 20,000 people to show him their support. The Vanguard asked Puigdemont if the trial But will be the start of a permanent mobilization to which the president replied: "The mobilization began four or five years ago. A long time ago that the Catalan society is permanently mobilised in demonstrations, participatory processes, elections…"

Màrius Carol, director of The cutting Edge is interrupted by Puigdemont to tell you that since "we are in a countdown (for the independence). The president Catalan says: "I Prefer to say that the State is entering a time of discount. The time you are just. Has had enough time to understand that there is talk of the political situation between Catalonia and Spain and has not done anything".

The European Union has not had interference on the shocks are permanent between the government of Mariano Rajoy with the of Puigdemont. "The defense of the referendum (of independence) does not find a lot of support in Europe," says The Edge: "I Think there is almost unanimity on the conflict between Catalonia and Spain is resolved by voting. There would be no european government that is opposed to that. Of course, by an agreement on the consultation. The consultation does not in itself scares in Europe".

Puigdemont says that when her government put the polls to vote, "what we will do are protected in all legal guarantees".

Since Rajoy became the Spanish presidency, five years ago, and has maintained a cold distance with the Catalan government.

in Front of the Statute that was drafted by the Catalan Parliament, Rajoy made it possible for boicotearlo. Went out to the streets to gather popular support to lead the Constitutional complaint that the Statute violated the Constitution. Carol, director of The avant-Garde asked Puigdemont if he "believes that a mobilization continued in the street could make change of opinion to the president Rajoy," to which the representative Catalan replied: "I would like that changed not by pressure, but by conviction."

On the cold and vast bridge that separates Rajoy and Puigdemont, the president of an autonomous region says: "I’ve had phone conversations with him, and now I have total availability, so that we see, but the decision that the Government takes should not come from a citizen pressure, but by the pathway of the political (…) I did not ask him to accept that, let’s talk a mandatory referendum, but Catalonia and Spain. The relationships are not good…".

on 9 November 2014 the catalans were invited to a "consultation" on independence. The Vanguard asks Puigdemont if the referendum next will be a "9N bis", to which the president replied: "In this case there will not be a question multiple, but a clear answer of yes or no to independence. In the second place, to organize the Government of the Generalitat. And third, the result will be binding, that is to say, that we commit ourselves to apply it".