President Mas: “The distance between Crimea and Catalonia is very large, just like that between the Spanish Government and Great Britain”

The president of the Catalan government, Artur Mas, denied any parallels between the situation in Crimea and that which is underway in Catalonia, which he underscored, are “two different situations”. “The distance between Crimea and Catalonia is very big, just as big as that between the Spanish government and that of Great Britain,” he said and he continued, “the problem is the difference in the attitude of Great Britain toward Scotland, not just that they let them vote but that they have come to an agreement about how the vote will take place and what consequences it will have. Meanwhile, the attitude of the Spanish government is that they won’t even let us vote.”

The head of the Catalan government explained that the international community has clearly voiced its displeasure with what is going on in Crimea because “it is not happening through a government that was chosen at the polls, and it is not happening in an environment of democracy and freedom, in contrast with what is going on here in Catalonia.” In that respect, Mas pointed out that in the Catalan case, “there have been no declarations at an international level of anyone against Catalonia’s process, while there have indeed been messages encouraging that a solution be found.”

The president asks the political parties to ‘take a little risk’ and ‘if they have to take the picture, to take it’

‘Their big strategy is to wait for us to fight amongst ourselves here. That’s why I’m biting my tongue, though it may bleed,’ said the Catalan government president, Artur Mas, in an interview with RAC1 this morning. Mas was referring to the lack of agreement between the pro-referendum parties which has made it impossible to forge a unitary candidacy for the European elections. And also to the difficulty in having even an agreement on a common plank in their respective electoral platforms in order to defend the November 9th referendum in the EU. ‘If I explain why I believe an agreement hasn’t been possible, I will be the source of stirring up the bad feeling among the political forces that are carrying this very important process forward.’

However, Mas did make a few recommendations to other parties, like how he believes that they should act in the exceptional political moment that the country is going through. ‘I believe that we are at a point in which the Catalan parties have to get over two temptations: the obsession with esthetics, that is, “above all, we want it to look good, so they don’t say who knows what”… Now that’s just not possible. The parties have to take small risks. The parties once in a while, have to go for it.’

And he added a subtle reference to ICV [Eco-Greens], who refused to make an agreement with CiU for the European elections. ‘There are those that say “and now we’ve got to be in the picture with those guys?” Now, even if you’re not thrilled about the joint photo, you do it. It’s about showing those people on the outside how strong the process is, and then the strength grows, because the photo reveals a diverse movement. Because then, from the outside, they can see that we believe it in a very mainstream way.’

Mas also said, ‘And we shouldn’t only look at the short term, that is, to think that the traditional way of doing things is going to resolve the challenges of the future. We can’t apply the traditional partisan methods of the last few years. Right now we have to do things in a very different way, because the challenge is different. We can’t act with the same code as before.’

Open to meeting with Rajoy
Mas also explained that he has made it known to the Spanish president, Mariano Rajoy, that he is ‘completely open’ to having a meeting while at the same time regretting that all of the responses so far from the state have been ‘right now, there’s no need’. He says in addition, that in case of a meeting with Rajoy, he wouldn’t put any limit on what was to be discussed. In his opinion, besides talking about issues like financing, it’s clear that in a meeting of this type, he would have to talk about the referendum, because otherwise, he would be acting like a ‘zombie’.