—After four months in Gaza, you decided to return. You said you were mentally and physically exhausted. How are you now, one week later?
—Good, because it’s as if I’d been released from prison. It’s a horrible place. Now I can rest, find food in the fridge, and I don’t have children or patients to care for, but I also feel deep sorrow for not being there with my colleagues.

—In fact, you went to Gaza for what was supposed to be a one-month volunteer stint, and you stayed four months. Why so long?
—Because of the constant need. There were many mass-casualty incidents every day, which made the work unending. Also, my colleagues greatly value having foreign doctors. Among themselves they seldom complain, because they are all victims, but with foreign doctors they would share what their lives were like before. They’d show us their phones: “This was my house, these were my children who are now dead.” We saw that our presence, beyond medical care, provided companionship and support, and I wanted to be there with them.

—What was your daily routine like? It’s hard to imagine the situation…
—It’s a 270-bed hospital with a few pavilions, but it’s running at 200% capacity. It was completely full, and wounded people kept coming in nonstop. In the first two months, there weren’t that many. But after the opening of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s food distribution, organized by Israel and the U.S., mass-casualty events, which before happened two or three times a week, occurred every day, sometimes several times a day. In the emergency department you saw civilians mutilated, mostly under twenty years old—many fifteen- or sixteen-year-olds, and even children aged five or six, babies as young as a month old. They’d be pierced by shrapnel, with chest, abdominal, or head perforations—sometimes brain matter exiting—amputations, burns, crush injuries… And it was constant. Many bodies arrived too, which went straight to the morgue. You couldn’t stop. Families were frantic, parents crying. You stabilized those who could be stabilized, and then—if they made it—you took them to surgery. It became a problem when the ICU filled up after about six weeks; they had to open secondary ICUs, which also filled up. Many times you had to choose which child to intubate and send to the ICU and which to let die, because there wasn’t enough space. That happened constantly. And it worsened greatly when attacks occurred during food distributions. The numbers then shot up.

—This 270-bed hospital must care for over a million people. Can you work under these conditions?
—Very poorly. You’re utterly exhausted because so many patients arrive and they’re all alike—you see the same horror over and over. Sometimes you have to put two, three, or four children on one stretcher because there aren’t enough. You trip over patients lying on the floor in the corridors and courtyards. The hospital had about seven hundred inpatients. My colleagues work very long shifts—sixty to seventy hours a week—and they live in makeshift shelters. After work they must fetch flour, water, firewood. And then there’s the lack of supplies. Last week they ran out of gauze and dressings, so they couldn’t treat wounds properly; there was no fentanyl for surgeries, so we performed major operations with just three milligrams of morphine. For postoperative pain there weren’t enough drugs, so patients suffered terrible pain. There weren’t enough antibiotics, and there was no infant formula for the neonatal ICU. Everything was awful. There were critically ill patients whose legs we had amputated or whose skulls we had opened to evacuate hematomas, and we had only ketorolac, diclofenac, or IV ibuprofen because there was no morphine. During surgery they didn’t realize how much pain they were in—they were sedated with gases—but afterward, the pain was immense.

—You lived at the hospital. I imagine you were in a constant state of alert…
—Yes. You never rest. When you try to sleep an alarm for a mass-casualty incident sounds. At night the workload is heavier because they bomb the so-called “humanitarian zone,” the area people were told to evacuate to for safety—but they bomb it too. Every night we received one or two families bombed while seeking refuge—children killed or injured. I lived on the same floor as the ICU and operating rooms; I couldn’t leave the hospital. In the last month and a half I did take a day off now and then and rested at the NGO’s house. Going outside is very dangerous. If you step into the street you know a bomb could fall on you, because they shell around the hospital. You’re tired of being confined to the same place. Moreover, the hospital is full of displaced people and refugees; there’s nowhere to be alone. You have to hide in the bathroom for just five minutes.

—Is the hospital safe?
—No, it isn’t safe. It was attacked six times while I was there: two airstrikes, three militia attacks—one by an Israeli-paid militia using Israeli drones—and, finally, Israeli soldiers opened fire on the hospital, killing one man and seriously wounding another. Previous attacks killed others. People feel the hospital is safer than the street, but they know it can be hit at any moment.

—You describe the whole thing as hell?
—Yes, it’s hell. Everything is razed. Very few buildings remain standing in central Gaza. It’s like five atomic bombs fell—but in pieces. If you total the explosive weight of the more than 100,000 tonnes of bombs dropped on Gaza, it’s more than five Hiroshima bombs. What you see matches that: it’s utterly devastated; nothing remains.

—You talk about patients of all ages, but you especially emphasize children…
—Because that’s what affects you most. A violent death should never occur, but a violent death in a child is even more shocking—because a child has so many years ahead of them. It’s the most unnatural thing. A child shouldn’t die, but a child murdered… We received children daily with bullets in their heads and chests or perforated by shrapnel. The worst thing was witnessing their ongoing post-traumatic stress—not “post,” because it never ends. These children suffer horribly: depression, mutism, severe behavioral changes, nightmares. And the many amputees. Above all, what they call “Children With No Surviving Family” (CWNSF)—a term coined after October 7 to label the thousands of children arriving alive but with their entire families killed. It’s a tragedy because you don’t know who will care for those kids. I met children who came in conscious and terrified, with no mother or father, no adult to comfort them.

—How do you cope with a situation like that?
—You dissociate. You have to focus solely on the protocol to save their lives. Realizing it’s constant and won’t stop, your mind shields itself and you work with a normality that is abnormal. We treated bomb-injured children as routinely as appendicitis here. You dissociate—and that’s unhealthy, because you don’t process it. I’m fortunate to have left and be able to reflect on what I experienced, but my colleagues haven’t—they’ve been there twenty months. Psychologically, they’re shattered.

—What’s the worst part? There’s also the hunger…
—The worst part is undoubtedly the violence. But all my patients were malnourished—far underweight for their height or age. I saw eight-year-olds who looked five, five-year-olds who looked three. All my colleagues have lost twenty-five to thirty kilos since the start of the Israeli assault. They’d show me photos: “This was me,” and I wouldn’t recognize them. A 1.70 m person who weighed 85 kg now weighs 55 kg. The main issue was wound healing—they heal so poorly and get infected more because they’re immunosuppressed. Infection rates were far higher. I could feel it in my own fatigue—I lost twelve kilos and was always hungry. I was constantly tired. My colleagues were exhausted—they had no energy because they weren’t eating. They ate very little.

—What do people eat?
—Rice—which is expensive. When I left, it was about thirty dollars per kilo, up from fifteen. Flour when they can find it—they risk being shot or bombed going to food distributions. Sometimes a bit of pasta. There used to be canned legumes, but very few remain. They eat little vegetable protein and virtually no animal protein—a can of tuna costs around ten dollars. Vegetables are scarce and overpriced; fruit is almost nonexistent. They get mostly carbohydrates and minimal protein if they find a can of beans.

—You say Gazans have gotten used to being bombed, but allow food in…
—Yes, because sadly they’re accustomed to bombs. Even if a bomb lands on your tent—as happened to a colleague three weeks ago—you never fully get used to it. But they’ve grown used to bombs falling 100–300 m away. Children play in the streets despite bombs and gunfire. They live with this abnormal normality—bombs can fall anytime, but there’s nowhere safe to hide. Hunger is different: you can’t get used to it. At some point you become aggressive, steal from neighbors or aid trucks, become irritable, weaken—you can die.

—You explain that in recent months it’s not only bombing but direct shootings…
—They’ve shot civilians directly since the aggression began, but in these four months it’s become much more evident. Much of Khan Yunis was ordered to evacuate to the humanitarian zone, but some stayed, and they were bombed there too. Any person—any child—in a red-zone evacuation area is shot directly. But it was most noticeable during food distributions, where civilians were shot without warning. Colleagues who went, conscious patients, and their families all reported the same thing: they were shot intentionally in the body, head, and genitals. We even retrieved tank-shell fragments and drone- and mortar-fired projectiles from patients’ bodies. It’s extermination, not stray bullets.

—Some call it genocide, others deny it. Having been there, what do you say?
—If on the street we saw a father brutally beating his five-year-old son, we wouldn’t wait for a judge in a year and a half to confirm it was assault. Even if the father killed the child, we’d call it murder immediately. It’s the same with genocide. You don’t need an international body to label it “genocide” before stopping the aggression. First, you must stop it. The UN has said there is plausibility of genocide. Leading Jewish scholars on the Holocaust and genocide, like Amos Goldberg, say it is genocide. We doctors keep sending daily forensic reports to the UN, showing patient volumes that indicate intent. You have intent: you’ve obliterated Gaza’s homes and cultural and educational infrastructure; Israeli ministers have openly expressed a desire to cleanse Gaza of Arabs… All elements of genocide are present. We don’t need a tribunal in two years to say so. Those who refuse to see it do so out of ideology.

—How are your hospital colleagues doing?
—They’re depressed, suffering post-traumatic stress and burnout. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t lost a family member. Dr. Alaa lost nine of her ten children and her husband in one bombing. Another colleague lost all his children and wife. Nurse Moa Tasem lost all her siblings and parents. Everyone has lost someone and their home—they now live in shacks. They’re burned out, still going to work but making mistakes and lacking motivation. Yet despite exhaustion and depression, they treat patients excellently, always with a smile and mutual respect. But you see their hopelessness.

—Do you plan to return?
—Yes. Once I feel stronger and the idea no longer repels me. It depends mainly on the Israeli army, which approves or denies doctors’ entry.

—This isn’t your first trip. Is it very different from the first time?
—Completely different. I arrived on October 2, 2023, and saw Gaza in a few days of normalcy. On October 7 the war began, then the Israeli retaliation; I stayed three weeks. But I saw a standing Gaza. Now it’s all destroyed. The people are exhausted, they’ve lost everything, and they know their future will never be as good as their past—with homes, families, hobbies, beaches at sunset, university friends. That normal life is gone.

—They have no hope…
—No. They hope for the bombing to end and for aid to enter, but they know Israel won’t allow Gaza’s reconstruction. No one expects Israel to stop bombing one day, open the border for aid trucks the next, and send in bulldozers the week after to rebuild everything. Deep down they know Israel seeks revenge and territorial gain. Though unspoken, they are hopeless.

—Israel doesn’t allow journalists into the Strip. Do you feel it’s your duty to speak out?
—Of course. Foreign doctors and international personnel are the only ones who can speak. It’s a shame: there are many Gaza journalists, some award-winning, and many have been deliberately killed. It’s sad that a Western voice carries more weight than a local one. Gaza journalists use social media to report constantly; people can see their reality with a click, if they want.

—How do you assess the media’s role? Is it talked about enough?
—No. In mainstream media, I find it obscene how news is selected. Some days 50, 100, 150 Gazans die—that should be front-page news every day. If anywhere else in the world a bombing killed 150 people, it’d be front page. It should be covered daily. There’s a bias: they don’t speak of the more than a thousand hostages in Israel, including many healthcare workers. It’s a double standard. They should publish explicit images more often and talk about it much more.

—It feels like the killing has been normalized…
—It’s genocide. I don’t know how many politicians have seen what’s happening. I’ve heard politicians here deny genocide or justify Israel’s actions. It’s shameful. The Lancet estimated nearly 200,000 dead. Many deaths from Israeli strikes are UN-certified, but there are thousands missing under rubble and thousands more dying from lack of care for chronic illnesses—dialysis patients, those with cancer or heart disease. All avoidable deaths because Israel destroyed the healthcare infrastructure.

—Anything you’d like to add?
—We must continue speaking out. Civil society can make a difference, because the EU is complicit, as are the U.S.—they sell weapons to Israel, especially Germany and the United States. If the EU and U.S. are morally corrupt, then each of us individually can act to shame the politicians in power.

—You’ve passed the halfway point of your final term. How do you assess it?
—I understand that it’s up to the citizens to scrutinise our work. But if you ask for my opinion, and without wanting to be self-congratulatory, I think we’re doing well in fulfilling the commitments we made in the last election and during my investiture. We’ve taken decisive action on housing. For the first time, we’re creating a public stock of rental housing, which will reach five hundred flats by the end of this term. We’ve already invested millions of euros. This is our real priority. We’ve also worked to improve purchasing power: the minimum wage has increased by 30% over six years. We’ve made public transport free and we continue to work toward our major goal—reaching a good association agreement with the European Union. This is with a view to the Andorra of the next ten, fifteen or twenty years. A country that must diversify its economy through added value, innovation, and sectors that bring prosperity.

—You mentioned the association agreement with the EU. What is its current status? Is it faltering?
—Not at all. With an agreement of this magnitude and scope, patience is needed. Much of the negotiation happens behind closed doors, and I’m confident it will be successful. This is the most comprehensive agreement the EU has ever negotiated with a third country. It’s normal that, now that the text is ready, it faces further analysis and questions that delay the process. But this is a project for Andorra’s future, and if it takes another six months to fine-tune it and make sure it protects our national interests, then it’s time and effort well spent. I’m convinced it will eventually be approved unanimously by EU member states, and we’re working to ensure it’s classified as an “EU-only” agreement—meaning it wouldn’t require ratification by national parliaments.

—What would it mean if it weren’t?
—It wouldn’t jeopardise the agreement, but it would mean that, instead of just Andorra and the European Parliament ratifying it, every member state would have to do so, and that always brings potential complications and delays.

—What role does France play in this process?
—France has always been a privileged ally, as has Spain. They’ve helped to make this agreement a reality. France may have some reservations about the legal nature of the agreement—not the content itself—which is important for future trade deals that might affect French national interests. We’re working discreetly on a diplomatic solution that works for everyone. That said, France has consistently supported this agreement, including its favourable terms for Andorra, and remains committed to approving the text.

—Do you think the agreement will be approved before the end of the term?
—Yes, I believe it will happen during this legislature.

—So there will be a referendum in this term?
—Once the process is complete—that is, once the Council of the EU, the European Commission, and the government of Andorra (the negotiating parties) have signed the agreement—it will go to the European Parliament for ratification. Once that happens, we’ve committed to holding a binding referendum before Andorra ratifies it.

—Polls show a majority against the agreement. Do you understand the public’s concern?
—Yes and no. I understand it because of today’s complex geopolitical context. It’s true that the European project doesn’t always generate enthusiasm—often unfairly, as it’s blamed for problems that come from the member states or external factors. I still believe in Europe as a project of prosperity, social cohesion, and environmental sustainability. And in a world increasingly divided into blocs, we benefit from being part of the European bloc. We’ll be stronger and better able to defend our interests together than alone. But yes, there’s a perception—especially among Andorrans who’ve had a relatively comfortable life despite challenges and growing social cohesion in recent years—that this agreement might end that. It’s actually the opposite: this agreement is the best guarantee, paradoxically, of preserving the status quo.

—Why is that?
—Because our economic sectors are very mature. Betting everything on keeping things as they are is difficult. Sometimes, change is necessary to take a leap forward and preserve what’s valuable. We’ll need to convince people that this agreement won’t undermine our low-tax model or our immigration policy. On the contrary, it will allow us to diversify the economy, maintain public revenue levels, and continue the social and environmental policies our citizens expect.

—Do you see an alternative to the association agreement? Some groups have called for renegotiation.
—Suggesting we could now knock on Brussels’s door and start fresh after nine years of negotiation—at a time when the EU is focused on the U.S. tariffs, the war in Ukraine, and the Middle East—is naive and disconnected from reality. That doesn’t mean we’re giving in. But we must be realistic. We now have a good instrument, well negotiated, and we must use it fully.

—Speaking of Europe, Catalan might soon become an official EU language. Would that help Andorra?
—Absolutely. We’ve always offered our support and done our part to help make that happen, for two reasons. First, a pragmatic one: if Catalan becomes an official EU language, all EU legislation will automatically be translated into Catalan. That means we won’t have to translate it ourselves in Andorra, which will be essential once the association agreement is in force and we begin integrating the EU acquis into our legal system. Second, it raises the status of our language. So it’s a milestone we fully support, and we’re aligned with the Spanish government on this matter. That said, we’re not an EU member state, nor do we aim to become one, so we can’t demand that Catalan be made official in the EU.

—Another key issue of this term was the passage of the Catalan language law. In just over a year, thirty disciplinary cases have been opened, and two resulted in sanctions. Are these low figures? Concòrdia says filing a complaint is too difficult.
—It depends how you look at it. Thirty cases, given Andorra’s size, is not bad. Only two have resulted in sanctions so far, but many are still being processed. In any case, we should focus more on the law’s deterrent and preventive effects than on punitive outcomes. The main goal is to change mindsets and encourage proactive efforts by citizens. And the best proof is that enrolment in Catalan language courses has grown exponentially. Whether out of personal conviction or because we now require proof of a minimum Catalan level to renew residence permits, more people are learning Catalan—and thus, more people are speaking it. So the real measure of the law’s success will be the results of the next language use survey: if we see significantly more people using, speaking, and writing Catalan, we’ll know the law was effective.

—You spoke of a change in mentality. Does this require civic engagement?
—Absolutely. Language should never be a tool of opposition; it must be a tool of belonging. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have coercive mechanisms at times—there are rights to be enforced, and sometimes enforcement means obliging the other party to comply. But ultimately, if we want Catalan to flourish and become the dominant language in social settings, it must happen through attraction and engagement. I believe this law includes mechanisms that support that approach. I’m hopeful we’ll turn things around. The most recent survey already showed more positive results than the previous one. Even before this law, we had good language policy in place—and now we’re consolidating it.

—The situation is improving in Andorra, but not necessarily in the rest of the Catalan-speaking territories. Should closer ties be built with other institutions?
—Each territory has its own context, its own identity, and its own policies. We have one big advantage: Catalan is the sole official language. But that’s not enough. There must also be civic adherence to the language, and it needs to be prestigious. That calls for active promotion by public institutions. The alternative languages are spoken by hundreds of millions—500 or 1,000 million people—and without proactive policies, it’s hard to reverse the trend toward dominance. This must be entirely compatible with defending linguistic diversity and cultural plurality, if I may use that term. So making Catalan the dominant language in society must coexist with the reality that, in Andorra, both Spanish and French are also widely spoken—as they’re the official languages of our two neighbours—and of course English, which serves as a lingua franca.

—Another major issue this term is abortion. You’ve said it will be decriminalised before the term ends.
—Yes, it’s one of our commitments, and we’re moving forward with firm but discreet steps. We want to preserve our institutional structure, because it guarantees our independence and Andorra’s identity. Legalising abortion here would be incompatible with that. But between where we are now and full legalisation, there’s a middle ground: decriminalisation. That means no criminal penalties for women who choose to terminate a pregnancy. And beyond that, we want to create a support system so that women who make that decision—freely and voluntarily—receive full assistance from Andorran authorities, even if they can’t have the procedure done here. They should be supported and reimbursed, especially women in vulnerable situations, so that they can act freely and without coercion. That’s what we’re working toward: a compromise that advances women’s rights while preserving our unique institutional system.

—The episcopal co-prince plays a key role here. The new co-prince, Josep Lluís Serrano, recently said dialogue is needed to find a plausible solution. How do you interpret those words?
—I think his remarks are quite aligned with what I’ve just said. Nothing is purely black or white. The Catholic Church has dogmas, and those by definition don’t allow concessions. But that doesn’t mean the Church advocates criminal punishment for women who have abortions. I believe a solution can be found.

—So your proposal is for Andorran women to travel abroad for abortions?
—Exactly. They would go through a support service here in Andorra, and then be accompanied to a place where the procedure is safe, discreet, and practical. Afterwards, the costs would be reimbursed if the woman is in a vulnerable situation and meets the criteria.

—With the appointment of a new episcopal co-prince, do you expect any changes for Andorra’s interests?
—No, we see it as a continuation, which is what we hoped for. It was especially important to avoid a vacancy, because the role also entails being a head of state. Leaving that post vacant—or vacant for too long—would have been problematic for Andorra. We still have a co-prince who speaks our language, understands our culture, and has spent almost a year alongside the previous co-prince. So he understands what it means to be co-prince, beyond just being bishop. I’m confident we’ll maintain our excellent institutional relationship and continue to have a head of state who is authentically Andorran in the best sense of the word.

—As for the other co-prince, there’s a chance the far right could win in France soon. Do you worry this might affect Andorra’s interests?
—It’s true that the president of France automatically becomes co-prince, and the choice of who becomes president is not ours to make. So we’ll assess the situation depending on how things unfold. But I don’t think we should engage in political speculation. Whoever it is, the key will be to maintain institutional harmony and ensure our system remains intact.

—Housing has also been a defining issue of this term. Do you think the situation will stabilise by 2027, when rent caps are due to expire?
—I truly hope so. But calling it a “normalised” situation implies that the housing problem is temporary. Unfortunately, in Andorra—as elsewhere—it’s become structural. We often blame real estate speculation, which certainly doesn’t help, but it’s not the only factor. Family structures are changing, and so is the tourism model. Changing that is difficult, especially in a country like Andorra, where until recently, we didn’t even recognise the need for a public rental housing stock, despite having one of the highest rates of renters. In any case, we’re working to address citizens’ legitimate concerns, through many reforms.

—What measures have been taken?
—I mentioned the creation of a public rental stock. We’ve also passed a very ambitious housing law that has been politically costly. Around 30% of tourist rentals will lose their licences and return to the residential market. If you own a vacant flat, you must justify keeping it off the market; otherwise, it must be offered for rent. We’ve also raised capital gains taxes on property and limited how many properties foreigners or prospective residents can acquire. We’ve pulled every possible lever with moderation and a centrist approach to achieve the goal that everyone in our country can access decent housing.

—Can Andorra continue growing in population and construction as it has until now?
—No, and that’s why we’ve adopted the measures we have. Thanks to them, population growth has halved—from nearly 5% in 2023 to just over 2% last year. This wasn’t due to economic slowdown but to government policies, like reducing immigration quotas—even at some political cost. Just this weekend, we saw protests from the restaurant, hotel, and tourism sectors, asking—quite reasonably—for more foreign workers. But we also have to recognise the housing and sustainability challenges we face. Rapid population growth creates wealth for certain sectors, which can benefit the broader public, but it also generates serious problems. We must strike the right balance.

—You’ve said that Andorra is reaching the limits of its tourism model.
—We currently receive about ten million tourists a year. That’s enormous, considering our small size and population. We’re not aiming to reduce those numbers, but Andorra cannot continue growing like this. We need to maintain tourist volume while increasing their purchasing power.

—So an economic model shift is needed?
—We need to diversify our economy. That means preserving traditional sectors while recognising their limits and growth potential, and balancing that with new, value-added sectors.

—Changing topics: on July 15, one of the BPA court rulings will be issued. Do you think all the questions around the case have been answered?
—The BPA [Banca Privada d’Andorra] case has many layers, and this ruling will only address one part. I’ve always said: whatever happened between the Spanish police and former Spanish officials—or even with American authorities—I don’t know. But I can speak about what Andorran political leaders, financial institutions, anti-money laundering agencies, and the government experienced. And that is well known: there was a FinCEN notice stating that BPA posed a high risk of money laundering, listing numerous cases. That caused correspondent banks to immediately cut ties—not just with BPA, but with all Andorran banks, fearing contamination. Anyone familiar with banking knows that this spelled death for our financial system, with major consequences for jobs, client deposits, and the country’s survival. We did what had to be done—and time has proven us right. We intervened in BPA and launched a resolution process that saved our financial system, protected BPA’s jobs, and guaranteed clean client deposits. I believe we acted correctly. As for what happened beyond that, I don’t know. And frankly, other than some alleged emails from Mr Villarejo—hardly a credible figure—I haven’t seen solid evidence of those alleged connections.

—Reports have emerged about Spanish officials accessing client databases or pressuring Andorran authorities.
—I can assure you there was no pressure. When Mr Rajoy visited Andorra in January 2015, there was no mention—at any point—of a possible intervention in BPA, not with the then head of government, nor with any of the relevant ministers.

—How is it that the court has dismissed several cases related to the so-called Catalan dossier in such a short time?
—I believe these cases were submitted around the same time and were therefore resolved in close succession. I wouldn’t go so far as to speak of a “Catalan dossier” in the sense that they’d all receive the same treatment.

—Let’s look at them one by one. First, the ruling deeming inadmissible the case brought by Josep Costa and Eusebi Campdepadrós for breach of parliamentary immunity. You said it was disappointing. Why?
—Because they alleged a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of expression—one of the most protected rights. It’s a broad right, albeit with limits, and the court may at times rule that it doesn’t protect certain forms of expression, such as hate speech. But here we’re talking about parliamentarians speaking within a parliamentary chamber. I would almost go so far as to say they can say whatever they want—within reasonable bounds, of course. Freedom of expression must be protected as broadly as possible.

—Soon after, the ECHR dismissed the claim of the father of the child killed in the 17-A attack.
—I don’t understand it. I can’t understand how a single judge could brush aside such a case—a terrorist attack, people dead, a catastrophe.

—The judge said there was no appearance of a rights violation.
—Exactly. That was the sole justification.

—Is that unusual?
—Very. Maybe the court could have ultimately rejected the case, but it should have delved into the merits and provided a reasoned decision, which a single judge cannot issue. At the very least, a panel of three judges or a chamber of seven should have reviewed it.

—The lawyers in the 17-A case are preparing a request for reconsideration. Is that viable? Are there precedents?
—None that I know of. In principle, a single-judge decision is final and not subject to appeal, as the judge himself states in a few lines. That said, I’d still advise submitting a request, especially if, as I’ve heard, new documents are being declassified. That would mean evidence that couldn’t be submitted initially might now support the original allegations. Even if the request is denied, it’s worth trying—given the importance of the case.

—Another case dismissed recently was that of the pro-Catalan language education groups. The same single judge, from Austria, handled it. Why was it the same one?
—Because he’s the appointed single judge. Judges can’t handle cases against their own countries, so each year the president of the court assigns single judges for inadmissibility decisions. Spain is probably assigned this Austrian judge, possibly along with another.

—How are these assignments made? Based on language, perhaps?
—That might be a factor. In this case, the Austrian judge had taught in Spain and Latin America…

—So that’s the explanation.
—Indeed.

—Why does this single-judge system even exist for dismissing so many cases?
—Ultimately, because of pressure from the states themselves.

—Pressure from states on the court?
—Not in a strictly legal sense. But they do exert influence economically and politically. The Strasbourg Court exists because states allow it to. If they ever decide otherwise, it will cease to exist. Meanwhile, the court has developed significant case law, interpreting and expanding the Convention. But states have tried to limit this—to reduce complaints and avoid condemnations that may carry political or moral weight. One of the most recent amendments to the Convention added the principle of subsidiarity and the margin of appreciation for states.

—To limit the number of admissible cases.
—Exactly. The court receives 50,000 to 60,000 applications a year. Only 4% or 5% are admitted. Do they want to cut that to 3%? Two?

—Is that why they created the single-judge mechanism?
—Yes. But the single judge has little knowledge of the case file. It’s first reviewed by experienced legal officers called non-judicial rapporteurs, who assess whether the case holds up. They prepare a draft decision and send it to the judge.

—Does the judge assign the rapporteur?
—No. The judge receives the rapporteur’s proposal and can only sign or reject it.

—Who selects the rapporteur?
—It’s a jurist from the division assigned to the state in question. Spain’s cases are handled by the jurists in its division.

—What does “division” mean?
—Groups of countries and their assigned jurists. Spain might share a division with Portugal or Andorra, for example.

—So these rapporteurs—likely Spanish in Spain-related cases—play a critical role.
—Does the single judge read the whole file? One would hope so, but I have my doubts. They probably read a summary and the draft inadmissibility decision. They can sign or reject it. If they reject it, it goes to a three-judge panel or a chamber, which must give a reasoned ruling.

—What profile do these rapporteurs have?
—Usually, they’re Council of Europe officials with considerable experience.

—Could the Spanish nationality of rapporteurs lead to bias in dismissing Spanish cases?
—I see where you’re going, but you haven’t mentioned the national judge yet.

—Does the single judge consult the Spanish judge when deciding on admissibility?
—In principle, no. But in practice… I’d be surprised if the judge didn’t at least consult their Spanish colleague.

—In this case, that’s María Elósegui.
—Even if just to ask: “What’s this about? Seventeen dead, a van attack, an imam, possible links to the intelligence services…” It’s no minor issue. I dare say the Spanish judge was aware of this case. But beyond that, we’re speculating.

—All we know for certain is that the case was dismissed.
—Yes. The single judge could have admitted it—but didn’t.

—Can we infer anything about the future of the 1-O prisoners’ cases from these dismissals?
—I wouldn’t draw a connection. The claims and alleged violations differ. The Mesa members’ case focused on Article 10, whereas the prisoners’ cases involve Article 5 (liberty), 6 (fair trial), 8 (family life), and others.

—Does the amnesty, combined with pardons and repeal of sedition, invalidate the prisoners’ claims?
—I doubt it. Their status as victims remains. Even if the amnesty is applied, it doesn’t erase past violations—if they occurred. It might be considered a corrective measure, but doesn’t compensate for years already spent in prison. The court will have to assess this.

—Could the repeal of sedition or the amnesty be seen as reparation?
—Possibly. It might indicate that the state acknowledges some wrongdoing, which the court could interpret as partial redress. When the court finds a violation, it asks the state to take steps to repair it and prevent recurrence—though it rarely specifies how. Implementing legislative changes can be required.

—Who ensures that states comply with judgments?
—The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. The court itself has no enforcement power.

—What can the Committee of Ministers do if a state fails to comply?
—They apply political pressure. At their periodic meetings, they ask: “Spain, you have eighteen pending rulings; France, you have twenty-five. What’s the status?” States provide updates—draft laws, pending budgets for compensation, etc. Most rulings are eventually enforced, barring very politically complex cases.

—Is it a matter of political and moral reputation?
—Exactly.

—In the 1-O prisoners’ cases, is a ruling more likely on procedural grounds—such as the lack of a legally assigned judge or doubts about impartiality?
—Possibly. These are valid grievances that have been raised.

—All of the plaintiffs also allege a violation of Article 18, concerning abuse of power by the state. Could that claim succeed?
—It’s rare. Only in very flagrant cases where the Convention is applied in a clearly negative way—for example, lawfare.

—If the court finds that they weren’t judged by a legally assigned judge, could that lead to retrial?
—The court can’t annul convictions. Spanish law allows for the possibility of reviewing final judgments following an ECHR condemnation, but it’s not automatic. The affected person must request it. It’s intended for cases where trials were not fair under Article 6.

—Given where the procedure stands, could we expect a ruling within months—possibly this year?
—It’s possible, but I can’t say for sure without knowing the procedural status. They may be in the judgment drafting phase.

—How does that phase unfold?
—It’s lengthy. Legal officers draft the initial text. There are preliminary deliberations and a provisional vote where judges express their views. Then comes the final vote. Dissenting judges can write separate opinions—either dissenting or concurring.

—Does the Spanish judge have much influence at this stage?
—Not anymore. Unlike in the single-judge stage, decisions now rest with a chamber of seven judges plus three substitutes. The case is already assigned to a legal team and likely has a designated rapporteur.

The editor for the first thirty years, Assumpció Maresma, will remain involved as founder and shareholder, and will chair the board of directors. This transition will ensure the continuity of the newspaper in line with its founding values: editorial independence, journalistic honesty, integrity, and the courage to stand up to authoritarianism and any attempt at censorship or oppression—within the communicative framework of the Catalan countries.

Txell Partal holds a degree in political science from Pompeu Fabra University and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Barcelona in partnership with Columbia Journalism School. Her first journalistic job was as a contributor to La Vanguardia. She later joined local tv station Betevé, where she developed much of her professional career. Throughout, she maintained a close collaboration with VilaWeb, promoting projects such as Letters for Freedom and producing reports and interviews. Four years ago, Txell Partal joined VilaWeb full-time, where she has worked in various editorial and coordination roles. She is currently the director of content planning and growth, and also hosts the weekly talk-show La tertúlia proscrita.

“I’ve known VilaWeb up close since the very beginning. In fact, I saw it being born in our living room. So I have a very clear sense of the paper’s founding values and what is essential to it,” says Txell Partal about the generational handover now consolidating the newspaper. She says she faces the challenge with the drive to grow the project and reach new audiences. “Journalism is undergoing a time of change, and we’ll be ready to face it, because we want to keep reporting on what happens in the Catalan-speaking territories and around the world for many more years to come.”

The current editor and founder of the newspaper, Assumpció Maresma, has published a special editorial article today in which she explains to readers the reasons for this transition. In it, Maresma writes that “this change will link to a generational handover that aims to guarantee the continuity of the newspaper and the will to preserve the founding values of journalistic independence and national commitment.”

The editor of VilaWeb also reflects: “Power has always wanted to keep the press, the media, under its control. There are unforgettable books and films that explain this very well. Today everything has become more sophisticated. Coherence is a value that seems to have vanished from our political and public life, which in turn facilitates the degradation of the journalistic world. A lack of scruples gains ground every day. I share all of this as a way of bearing witness. Even though it can be exhausting at times, it reaffirms the will to be, to exist, to strive to do our job better each day, and to persevere. This is the legacy I now pass on with renewed enthusiasm. These are difficult times for journalism and for freedom.”

She concludes by saying: “This is not a moment for nostalgia, but for determination, responsibility, and innovation.”

The Spanish army was deployed after the major power outage that collapsed the Iberian grid on Monday to protect important military installations.

Specifically, VilaWeb has confirmed that several units of the Centauro B1 wheeled armored howitzer were deployed around the Jaume I base in Bétera (Valencian Country), where the NATO Rapid Deployment Headquarters in the Spanish Kingdom  (HQ NRDC-ESP) is located.

It is a multinational command structure of the Spanish Army and NATO, designed to direct large-scale military land operations, where military personnel from thirteen different states work (Germany, Spain, France, the United States, Slovakia, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Türkiye).

The units deployed around the perimeter of the base were Centauro B1 vehicles, also known as VRCC-105, which belong to the neighboring military base of General Almirante, located in Marines.

These are wheeled reconnaissance and combat vehicles, armed with 105-millimeter cannons. These vehicles offer great mobility and have participated, as part of the Lusitania Regiment number 8, in several international missions, including deployments to Slovakia as part of NATO’s Multinational Combat Group.

The distance between the Jaume I base in Bétera, which has no armored vehicles, and the General Almirante base in Marines is thirteen kilometers in a straight line.

VilaWeb has been able to verify from information from several witnesses the presence of at least three of these vehicles outside the perimeter of the base, in civilian areas, all three with camouflage elements.

One was stationed near the Doctor Moliner Hospital, located north of the base. Another at the beginning of the Serra Calderona natural park and a third south of the base, on the rural path known as Camí d’Alcubles.

This newspaper has had access to a photograph of this third armored vehicle and has been able to verify with geolocation tools that it was indeed located in this area.

VilaWeb contacted the Jaume I base, which merely said that it did not have vehicles like these and explained that it did deploy the UME (Military Emergency Unit), which includes antennas, tanker trucks, and more vehicles that assisted facilities such as the Manises hospital, which needed to power generators.

VilaWeb did not get any response from the General Almirante base.

Shortly after the blackout, according to what this newspaper has been able to find out, among the political authorities, the hypothesis of an attack as the cause of the network’s collapse was seriously considered.

Along these lines, it is noteworthy that, in the midst of the crisis, the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, held a conversation with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, made public by the latter, in which Zelensky offered him help to restore the electrical and communications network based on the knowledge acquired by his country in the recovery of these networks after Russian attacks.

Each year we will publish four books, one per quarter, with in-depth investigations conducted by the newspaper’s editorial staff or related content. It is a new window that will allow for deep analysis of the reality of the Catalan Countries, at a time when the rush of information overlooks in-depth analysis.

The 2025 collection consists of the following books:

1 Tres dies d’Agost by Josep Nualart Casulleras

The most accurate and precise account of the events of August 8, 2024, and how President Puigdemont’s entry and exit operation was planned and executed.

It will be published in May.

2 Els morts de Mazón by Esperança Camps

The narration of all the events of October 29, during the flash floods in Valencia. With special attention to what happened with the more than two hundred people who died and what President Mazón did.

It will be published in June.

3 Contra el silenci i la impunitat by Xavier Montanyà

In the year that Spanish authorities want to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Franco’s death, it is a good time to review the legacies of Francoism that still weigh on daily life.

It will be published in September.

4 Entendre els mapes by Vicent Partal

Based on the experience of La Pissarreta, Partal explains how to read maps and how to better understand the reality of the world and the country through cartography.

It will be published in December.

The book collection can be acquired preferentially by subscription, for a price of 68 euros per year. Those who are already subscribers to the newspaper will have a special subscription price for the complete annual collection of 64 euros per year. In both cases, the delivery of books to your home will be free of charge.

And almost without realizing it, she describes her country’s drift into fascism—a drift that culminates in the outbreak of war and the invasion of Ukraine, a development she regrets not having foreseen. She threw herself into covering the war, and Putin marked her as a target: Russian soldiers were ordered to kill her. She went into exile, reluctantly, leaving her mother and sister behind in her (still beloved) Russia. She has survived a poisoning attempt and has had to cope with the pain and anger of knowing her mother has fallen victim to Putin’s propaganda. She talks about this in the interview we conduct at the newsroom. She arrives exhausted after a long journey (for safety reasons, she cannot say where she lives) and a packed schedule. Yet she gives herself completely in every answer; she closes her eyes, often needs to catch her breath, and chooses her words as if drawing them from a deep well of pain she carries within her and urgently needs to share with the world.

—How do you feel living in exile?
—Someone once told me that living in exile is like having an open fracture. And it’s true. It’s very hard, especially coming from Russia, because I used to share my fate with my readers; we had a common reality. That’s no longer the case. My mother lives in Russia, and so does my sister. My mother is seventy-seven, turning seventy-eight next month. I don’t know how much time we have left together. In theory, I should be living near her now, spending lots of time with her, but instead we maybe see each other once a year, twice if we’re lucky. We meet in third countries, but it’s not easy for her or for me. I’ve also met incredible people I would never have known if not for exile. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve paid a very high price, but even so, I’ve learned a lot.

—Do you speak with your mother and sister every day?
—Yes, every day. Of course. My mother lives in Yaroslavl, and my sister in Moscow. She works with what’s left of Novaya Gazeta. When the full-scale invasion began, she moved from the photography department to investigations, and now she’s a researcher. I’m very proud of her.

—But they can’t publish anything.
—They don’t have a media license, can’t publish any issues, the website is blocked… But still, they find ways to get information to readers. They do it through Telegram and PDF versions, which is wild. People literally print out the PDFs on paper.

—Like in a dictatorship.
—Yes. I mean, it’s like samizdat in Soviet times, when people used to print texts themselves. That’s what people do in Russia when they want to read Novaya Gazeta.

—How has your communication with your mother changed since going into exile?
—The early days of the full-scale invasion were really tough. I was in Ukraine, reporting, and she would call me to tell me what she was seeing and feeling—because she thought she knew more than I did. Once, she phoned me after I had spent the whole day in a morgue in Mykolaiv. I saw the bodies of two sisters, one lying on top of the other. The little one was three years old, the older one seventeen. Russian artillery had killed them… [she pauses, takes a deep breath]. That same day, she called and said again that the war was justified. And I did something very ugly, something I can’t forgive myself for: I copied all the photos I had from the morgue on my phone and sent them to her. She replied with something about “necessary collateral damage,” or some similar nonsense. And that’s when I thought I had to cut communication with her. That she was no longer my mother…

—She spoke like the voice of the Russian government…
—Yes, exactly. Those days, she sounded like the television. She just repeated phrases from TV all the time. I thought, “I can’t take this anymore.” But then I started to think. I can break off communication, sure, but… do I really want to lose my mother because of Putin? Do I want him to be the one who takes her from me? No. So I kept talking to her. At first, I yelled a lot. A whole lot. And then I realized that it was also my fault—I didn’t want to listen to her. Why did I yell every time she opened her mouth? I started to listen to her. And that helped. She started to listen to me too. And one day she called and said she no longer believed the war was justified, that it had to stop as soon as possible. She asked me, “You wanted me to understand, right? Well, now I understand. What can I do to stop this war?” And that… that is a very hard question.

—A difficult question to answer…
—Yes. And this new knowledge, what she has learned, has left her much more alone. Because she can’t talk about it with her friends or neighbors. She doesn’t trust them enough. Her life has clearly become more complicated. One day I asked her: “If you could go back, would you rather not know everything you know now?” And she said no, she preferred to know. Now we talk every day. And I talk to my sister too. The conditions she works under are unimaginable. She can’t plan anything beyond the next day; she risks being arrested at any moment. So she lives day to day… We don’t make many plans these days.

—You describe this book as chronicles of a lost country. Do you think Russia is lost?
—I think it’s lost its way, lost its sense of itself. And I’ve lost it too. It’s a play on words, but I think it’s true.

—You had to flee because of your work as a war reporter.
—Yes, I left my country to cover the war, but at that moment I didn’t realize I was actually leaving it for good.

—You were never able to return.
—Exactly. And I didn’t know it then.

—One day you were warned that the Russian army wanted to kill you.
—Well, it was like… [she laughs bitterly, sighs] There’s a Russian joke that goes: a man goes to the dentist and says, “I want you to pull out this tooth.” And the dentist replies, “One hundred dollars.” The man says, “A hundred dollars for five minutes of work?” And the dentist says, “Well, I can pull it out very slowly.” [She laughs again.] So for me, I had to understand things very slowly… I left Russia with a single bag: a helmet, a bulletproof vest, a sweater from my mother “just in case,” a pair of trousers, socks, and notebooks. Nothing else. I started writing reports. And in the second week, after I had sent my second article to Novaya Gazeta, news came out that parliament had passed a law making it a crime—punishable by up to fifteen years in prison—to publish any information that contradicted the official version of the Ministry of Defense. And I thought: shit. What worried me most then was whether they would publish my piece. If they hadn’t, I would have quit. I called them, and they said they were still thinking about it. A few hours later, they called me back and asked if I agreed to have it published. I said yes. And my mother says that was the turning point. She said: “If you loved me more than your job, you would have said no and come home.”

—Wow.
—But it wasn’t really a choice. If you’ve worked as a journalist your whole life, if you go to a country that has been attacked by your own, if you see people being killed by your people—you can’t stay silent. I couldn’t. So I said yes. We published the report. And I understood that from that moment on, if I went back to Russia, I’d probably be imprisoned. And I accepted that. Some of my friends were already in prison. I knew I could survive it. I kept working: I went to Mykolaiv, I went to Kherson, which was occupied at the time. Then I wanted to go to Mariupol, which was still resisting. The day before I was supposed to take the road to Mariupol, a colleague called me and said his sources had confirmed that the military checkpoints had information about me, my photo, and orders not to detain or arrest me—but to kill me.

—What did you feel?
—I felt a lot of anger, because I wanted to go to Mariupol. I knew something was happening there. I knew the city was being destroyed, and its people too. That it was the scene of a large-scale crime. I stayed one more day at the hotel, trying to find another route to get there. Not the main one—another one. But at that point, there was only one possible route, and only occasionally. And I realized I didn’t have a chance [she sighs, it’s hard for her to speak]. I thought about going anyway. But I don’t drive, and I became aware that I would have to go in someone else’s car. And that if I got killed, the others wouldn’t be spared either.

—You would have put their lives at risk…
—I can risk my own life, if I choose to. But others’ lives? No. And I decided I couldn’t do it. I left Ukraine. My editor-in-chief, Muratov, asked me not to return to Russia immediately. He told me to wait a bit, that maybe the situation would calm down. And I thought, okay. And in fact, I had been wanting to write a book for a long time…

—For a long time?
—Yes. And with this war, I felt like the puzzle was coming together. That now I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I started writing it. Then I called Muratov again, and he told me it still wasn’t the right time. So I decided to join Meduza. They had an office in Berlin. I moved to Berlin, and we realized that I had to go back to Ukraine. I went to the consulate in Munich to apply for a visa. And on the way back, I started feeling sick.

—And you suspected they had tried to poison you.
—At first, I didn’t suspect anything. I thought I had covid again. The symptoms didn’t quite match, but you know how strange covid can be. I went to the doctor. For two and a half months they ran tests to figure out what was wrong, and in the end they told me I might have been poisoned, and they alerted the police. And from that moment on, I clearly understood that I couldn’t go back to Russia while Putin was in power, while these people were still in control. But I’m obsessed with the idea that I could do it.

—What do you mean?
—I mean that every second of my life I know I could buy a ticket and fly to Moscow right now.

—That must be incredibly hard.
—It’s insane. Completely.

—In the book you say that Russia has become a fascist state.
—I can tell you how I came to that conclusion. The first time I thought it was in 2013. The first law against the LGBTI community was passed, and the text stated that we were socially unequal compared to others. And you know how it works: dividing society into groups and declaring one of them inferior is part of the definition of fascism. And I thought: maybe we do have fascism. But then I tried to calm down and thought: well, it’s just our parliament—which, to be fair, we didn’t even truly elect. Can we say that the whole country is fascist just because a parliament that takes direct orders from Putin passes this law? Maybe not. But later on, when I did a report on a psychiatric institution, which I talk about in one chapter of the book…

—Which you describe as a concentration camp.
—Yes, and on the third day I realized that what I was writing was a report from a concentration camp. From that moment on, I could no longer deny that fascism existed. Still, I didn’t take the next step in my reasoning, because, knowing history, we know that fascism always ends in war. It’s not about peace or prosperity, it’s about fear and war. But I didn’t see this great war coming. Muratov did see it; he talked about it in his Nobel Peace Prize speech…

—So you were very surprised the day the war in Ukraine started.
—Yes, very. When Putin recognized the independence of the so-called People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, I wondered what he intended to do. I thought the whole thing was aimed at NATO, not Ukraine. I imagined he would send troops, like he had before, but this time openly, and then blackmail the world by saying: “If you don’t do what I want, I’ll push forward.” But I never thought he would bomb Kyiv.

—What did that mean to you?
—To me, as a Russian, it was unthinkable. To bomb Kyiv! Ukraine was our closest neighbor. Kyiv was, almost, a sacred city. The idea of Russian planes bombing it… I never would have imagined it. And I didn’t imagine it until I realized it was happening: during the first week of the war, I couldn’t believe it was real. I was already there, I was already working, I was seeing people. It felt like I was trapped in a continuous nightmare, a delusion. I kept expecting to wake up at any moment.

—You write in the book: “It was impossible to prepare ourselves to accept that the fascists were us.”
—It’s still very hard for me to acknowledge that fascism exists in Russia. My grandfather fought fascism [her voice breaks, she gets emotional]. I always thought that, since we had defeated it, that made us immune. But now I see that’s not true. No one is immune. No culture, no country. Look at what’s happening around the world: this shift toward authoritarianism, more and more authoritarian people in power… It’s frightening. I think Russia has started a very big wave, and we still don’t understand its consequences.

—And now we see Trump drawing closer to Putin.
—It’s a catastrophe. I was recently in the United States and I spoke with a lot of people. For me, it was very instructive to be there at this moment. To see how things are starting to change, how journalists are beginning to censor themselves…

—Do you see similarities with Russia?
—Yes. It’s like watching a new version of a bad movie you don’t want to see but end up watching anyway. And reactions I used to think were specific to Russia—our history, the Soviet trauma, the repression—I now see they aren’t unique. They’re the reactions of anyone who’s afraid.

—Despite all the pessimism, you manage to find light and life even in the darkest situations. How do you do it?
—I try to use the whole palette. Life is complicated, people are complicated. I don’t believe in good and evil. We’re a mixture of everything. And so is life. Even in the psychiatric institution, where the conditions are inhumane—where people have no rights, where they live and die there, where women are sterilized against their will—even there, people try to love each other. They share love stories. Because people need that. I do too.

—And you capture these people’s speech patterns to convey exactly how they express themselves, what they feel.
—Yes. My editor, Maksar Miklatov—whom I dedicate the book to—once told me that the best story is the one that isn’t told. Because that’s where the blind spot lies. And when I write, I think: what don’t I know? What am I completely unaware of? And since I’m just an ordinary person, I usually have the same blind spots as everyone else. So I go there. And I believe that to understand how a system works—whether it’s small or a whole country—you don’t need to speak to the people inside it, but to those who are outside of it. I approach those people. Often, I’m the first journalist who listens to them. The first who takes their words seriously. And I stay as long as they’ll let me.

—I remember a scene from the chapter on the Beslan school: TV cameramen avoided filming the protesting women, working with blank faces, focused only on their job. The role of the media is a big part of the problem.
—Yes, it is. And I think we journalists have failed our people in many ways.

—You include yourself in that?
—Absolutely. I, like many journalists in Russia, used to think that being a good journalist meant staying uninvolved, not touching anything, keeping yourself above it all. That if you got too close, you’d get stained. But I think that’s a mistake. Professional duty, which is hard enough to fulfill in Russia, doesn’t cancel out civil duty. And we, who knew things, could have seen fascism growing before others did. And we should have fought it—not just described it. Yes, I’ve failed too.

—But you did fight—you’re an LGBTI activist. You chose to do both: to report and to advocate.
—Not at first. When I became an activist, I wanted to keep both roles completely separate. I thought: “If I’m an LGBTI activist, I shouldn’t write about my own people. Let straight people do it—they can be objective too” [laughs]. I believed that nonsense. But then I realized that I could write about my people. And that being a lesbian doesn’t mean being unobjective. Getting involved doesn’t mean abandoning objectivity. It means no longer being passive. And today, in the world we live in, we cannot afford to be passive spectators. It’s not enough.

—You wanted to become a journalist after reading Anna Politkovskaya. And you ended up working with her. What did that mean to you?
—I can’t even describe it. She gave me everything. She gave me a profession. She gave me Novaya Gazeta. She gave me the life I live now. She completely changed my life, without even knowing it. And I deeply regret not being brave enough to go to her and say thank you. I always thought there would be time. That one day I’d be a good journalist and I could tell her: “Thank you. You don’t know it, but you’ve done something huge for me.” But I never got the chance. Our offices were very close. When she was in the newsroom, there was always a line of people waiting to talk to her. When she wasn’t there, I would go to her desk and leave apples. One time she caught me, and I just ran away. I was hired as a staff writer on April 1st, 2006. And on October 7th of that same year, she was murdered. I never got to tell her how grateful I was. But I hope I won’t make that mistake again. At Novaya Gazeta, I learned this: you never know how much time you have left, and if you love someone, if you hate someone, if you have anything to say—say it now.

—You write in the book: “When I’m afraid, I run forward.” Aren’t you afraid?
—Rarely. And when I am, I know it’s less than what many others feel. You can’t compare emotions, but you can ask others how they experience fear. And I understand that mine is smaller. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s biological. That’s why I hate it when people say: “You’re so brave…” Being brave isn’t about feeling little fear, it’s about overcoming it. And me—when I’m afraid, I keep doing what I do until I feel better.

In the overall count presented by the Valencian government, Catalan has prevailed with 50.53% of the votes, that is, by just over one percentage point. But if only the Catalan-speaking regions are taken into account, the figure rises to 68 percent in favor of Catalan.

The Valencian Country has always been divided into two linguistic areas that correspond to medieval repopulation. The coast, repopulated by Catalans, continues to speak the language while in the interior, repopulated by Aragonese, Spanish is spoken. In historically Spanish-speaking regions, Catalan is not used in schools.

Some media have fallen into Rovira’s trap and have not hesitated to headline that Catalan had won by a narrow margin. But reviewing the map of the entire Valencian Country, it is clearly seen how the Spanish-speaking regions—Bajo Segura (4.75%), Plana de Utiel (7.04%), Valle de Cofrentes (12.8%), Alto Vinalopó (16.83%), etc.—skew the result in favor of Spanish.

Meanwhile, Catalan has prevailed decisively and overwhelmingly in the bulk of the regions, except for the metropolitan areas of València and Alacant-Elx. Even so, in the two metropolitan areas, pending the detailed count of votes, everything indicates that Catalan has prevailed in public schools and Spanish in state-subsidized private schools.

The region where Catalan has obtained the best result is Alt Maestrat (94.71%), followed by Els Ports (93.20%) and El Comtat (87.63%).

It has been a great surprise that the demand for classes in Catalan has also been the priority option in La Serranía (51.97%), which is part of the Spanish-speaking regions. It should be remembered that until now there were no Catalan classes in this region, which now requests them by majority vote of its families.

For now, Domingo does not wish to reveal the names of the individuals who will form the new government, except for Jordi Castellà, with whom he struck a last-minute deal during the campaign to join forces in his candidacy. He states that he wants highly talented individuals with international recognition to be part of his government, which will play a crucial role in the internationalization of the Catalan Republic.

—65% of voters supported you. Did you expect this result?
—Not at all. It’s a huge responsibility, but also a great incentive. I thought that if only a thousand people voted, for instance, we wouldn’t stand a chance. I believed the race would be decided between Toni Comín and Montserrat Duran, and that we weren’t even in the conversation. As voter participation increased, I started to believe we had a chance. But the sheer number of votes—almost 66% in favor—was a figure I never could have predicted.

—How do you interpret this result?
—It marks an important turning point, and I hope to be up to the challenge. It means that, despite the reputational damage the Council has suffered and the widespread disillusionment—not only with the Council but with political parties and the country’s political action in general—people have not abandoned their vision of an independent nation. Suddenly, many people turned out to vote.

—Do you already have the names of those who will join your government?
—We are working on it. I’ve always said I want internationally recognized individuals. Right now, we have ideas, but no formal confirmations. I can’t announce the government just yet. However, we are putting together a strong sub-government and an advisory council, and we are further along in that process. But I don’t want to rush anything. We will make an effort throughout the entire term to involve as many highly qualified and internationally recognized individuals as possible.

—When will the new government be announced?
—I expect it will be by the end of February or early March.

—What kind of profiles are you looking for?
—I am speaking with highly talented and well-respected individuals in their fields. The Council of the Catalan Republic is not in the best shape right now—it lacks prestige, and we are in a crisis, an economic emergency. All of this makes it difficult to attract people. However, we are working to bring in individuals who are both highly skilled and willing to contribute to the cause. I am convinced we will succeed.

—Will there be members from previous governments?
—For now, no, but I’m not ruling it out.

—Do you want to add anything else?
—We have a tremendous opportunity to rebuild the Council of the Republic. If we take advantage of it—and I say this to everyone who stood in line to vote on October 1st—if we seize this moment, nothing will stop us. We must make the Council strong enough to represent and preserve the legacy of September and October 2017. This is what the Council should be: powerful both externally and internally. And now we have a chance to make it happen. Despite the current difficulties—the financial struggles and past controversies—when elections were called, people turned out in large numbers to vote. They expressed themselves with absolute clarity. This strengthens us, but it also places a great responsibility on our shoulders. The message is clear: “We will hold you accountable.” And I welcome that. We are ready to take on this challenge, but we need the support of those who voted for us and also those who didn’t. Now is the moment. We cannot sit idly by for another two years waiting to see what happens. No, the time is now. If we fail to seize this opportunity, we will regret it forever.

–What does the election of Donald Trump tell us about the United States as a nation?
–The most important thing is that there had already been a degeneration of American democracy. The history of democracy is not just a formal system with a checklist: a free press, elections, and other elements. It’s a process, a movement of increasing popular rule and participation. The US started with very little democracy and it had a historical story of increasing democracy – that was partly true history and partly national myth. What has happened in the last 50 years is that the country has been divided in many ways. Americans have been divided. Inequality was partly organised regionally, so that whole communities were divided from each other, whole parts of the country. It wasn’t just spread everywhere as class, and it wasn’t experienced as class division because it was experienced as regional. So workers experienced deindustrialisation, but other people experienced an improvement in their living standards. And throughout this period, the liberal centrist Democrats and Republicans, both political classes, more or less ignored the people who felt displaced or harmed.

–Does this elite neglect explain Trump’s rise?
–Most elites continued to believe that the country was moving forward. But many others, especially non-elites, but also some of the elites, came to believe that America was broken, that it was damaged.

–So the answer is yes.
–Not just that: It is the level of inequality in the country and also the way it has been organised. And it’s the end of social mobility.

–The well-known theme we know here as the “social lift”.
–Throughout most of American history, a defining characteristic of the US was that if you were not well off, you could hope that your children would be better off. This started to falter in the 1970s and came to an end with the century. And then the financial crisis and other things make it worse, the pandemic makes it worse, and all of that prepares the way for the rise of the far right and the election of Trump.

–Do people really believe that Trump is a solution to this?
–Some people believe Trump has a solution, but many people, more people, believe the country is broken and they have been betrayed by the old elites. And so, even if they’re not sure Trump has a solution, they think: The country’s broken anyway; let’s give him a chance.

-But this is extremely dangerous.
– Extremely dangerous, yes. People think that since the system is broken, we need strong leadership. We need our country to have a sense that we need stronger leadership, and we need to be confronted with the weaknesses of the conventional political system. And Trump is one of the big beneficiaries of that.

-Does this mean that this election goes beyond the candidate, that we will have Trumpism for some time?
-He has already said that he would like to run for re-election, even though he cannot. But in any case, the challenge for the Trump right in the near future is to sort out the fact that on the one hand it has a lot of billionaire backers – let’s say the oligarchs of America – and on the other hand it has backers who are poorer people who are angry about corporate capitalism. They both support Trump because they’re angry at the same old leaders, but they now have different worldviews and agendas. The future will depend on whether they can find common ground.

-Musk vs. Bannon?
-Yes. Look at the fight between Elon Musk and Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon is part of the international far right, but that’s very different from Elon Musk, the billionaire from South Africa who leads U.S. technology companies. There’s a coalition, but a big gulf exists between them.

-The human factor complicates things; dealing with Elon Musk shouldn’t be easy.
-Should not be easy. No. And my best guess is that Elon Musk will not remain closely integrated. It is difficult to have two charismatic leaders at the same time.

-Does authoritarianism unite them? Take that image of Trump signing a bunch of executive orders – are those consistent with the Constitution or not…
–Absolutely crazy thing. Some of them that clashed with the constitutional order and that really were not… Will be in the courts for years. But this idea of Trump as somebody who says I want this, I’m going to get this no matter what the Constitution says, that’s not authoritarianism. So I would make a distinction between, if you will, personal power and more organized authority.

-Go ahead
–I think we have both. That’s not to say that we don’t have authoritarianism, but it’s the difference between the dictatorial power of the individual head of state and the existence of a somewhat authoritarian system. It’s a question. And that’s a question for Trump, because if he has been authoritarian in his first term, he hasn’t been a very effective authoritarian. He was too chaotic. He was not able to build the kind of staff that would carry out his authority. It depends on having a number of others. This time he may be much more organized and effective, in my view and in the view of other people, but it remains to be seen.

-Do you think there will be limits?
–He’s not going to be able to do whatever he wants; it’s a lot more complicated than that. That’s why I distinguished this from a more authoritarian regime. Inside the U.S. and outside, this complete unilateralism is going to be challenged. First of all, every one of these things is going to have a cost, and he doesn’t anticipate the cost. He can take the Panama Canal, but it’s not that easy: taking the Panama Canal is going to have major repercussions. It will cost economically, it will cost militarily. It will provoke China. It will create big problems with all Latin American countries… And that’s the price. I think his personal desire to rule by decree will ultimately be self-defeating for him, although it may do a lot in the short term.

-The problem is that, given the current state of affairs, an impulsive or uncontrolled action could trigger a war with unpredictable consequences in a world that seems far from stable.
-I agree. I think we have achieved a certain stabilization of the world in the past. Stabilization doesn’t mean perfection or anything like that, but stabilization of the world. And especially the stabilization of the great power relationships in this world. First during the Cold War, but then even after the Cold War, it was maintained as a world of nation-states with a strong belief in the idea of sovereign nation-states. Although it did not work perfectly or gain universal respect, it was generally possible to believe in the stabilization of that world. But now I think that world is dead. What will be the new regime? I’ll give you my answer, but I have no power, so it’s not a very important answer.

–I do care.
–The chaos of a world war is a possibility, but that’s an incredible level of destruction, and my guess is that the major powers who have the capacity to wage that war will refrain from doing so. So it will be a multilateral world. China is not going to be powerful enough to dominate. I don’t think China is going to be the new hegemonic power. China just doesn’t have the capacity to do that right now. Will there be three, will there be five, will there be ten big countries? How will it be structured? It will not be one country, one vote in the United Nations General Assembly, where the vote of Liechtenstein is the same as the vote of the People’s Republic of China. Of course, there may be some lip service to that, but it is a great power project. And there are already several potential superpowers. Brazil? Iran? India? Turkey?

–You are one of the world’s leading experts on nationalism, and you have always maintained that it is almost impossible to define what nationalism is, because it depends on each moment, each actor, and each circumstance. It is clear that the nationalism that is on the rise is the worst kind – the one that has historically been the most dangerous. Do you think there is still room for other types of nationalism in these circumstances?
—Great question. The places, including Catalonia, where the national project has been tied to significant ideas of social progress and trying to build a better country, are they just doomed? I hope not, and I don’t believe so. But what is the place? I think the place is first from a within and a focus on improving social conditions in countries. And to the extent that the nationalism is not just about aggression against other countries. It may be very hard but I think there has to also be a focus on building solidarity inside countries. And number two, I think that the nationalism of countries that are not contenders for hegemonic global power is important. There are countries that are not on that list of possible superpowers who may not be able to militarily rival those countries, but who can work to build their country. So I could assert that the most successful nationalists in recent years are Norwegians and Singaporeans, neither one of which had any agenda of global power. But they built effective internal relations, and they developed relatively clear strategic views of the world outside and how they would relate to it, play a role, benefit, and so forth.

–But in a world where brute force prevails, everything becomes much more complicated. At the event you held in Barcelona with the Fundació Irla, you said that your hopes are in Catalonia, in Barcelona. But you said this while sitting next to a Catalan political leader, Raül Romeva, who has been imprisoned by Spain for more than three years simply for defending his political ideas. Under these conditions, is there room for alternatives?
-Obviously, this is not good and it limits the chances for good realizations of Catalan visions. But it is instructive and clarifying.

–May I have a personal question at the end: Are you optimistic about your country?
–Less than I have been for most of my life. I am optimistic by nature, and I prefer to commit myself to hope. Hope is not quite the same as optimism. And I’m much less optimistic, but I still think it’s more likely that we will survive, that American democracy will survive the Trump disaster. But I am not confident.

The winner of this second edition was Javier Andrés (from Barcelona, aged 47), who clinched the title at the last moment after a closely contested face-off with Antoni Rúbies (from Vallfogona de Balaguer, aged 17), the runner-up and champion of the first edition. Aina Vicens (aged 49) from the Mallorcan town of Felanitx claimed third place.

The event, hosted by linguist Pau Vidal and comedian Maria Rovira (Oye Sherman), combined moments of competition with activities designed for the audience. Meanwhile, the finalists demonstrated their command of Catalan through vocabulary and mental agility challenges. Susanna Sanna, the sole finalist from L’Alguer, the catalan speaking city of Sardinia, said, “Paraulògic is a way to feel more connected to the Catalan language. It’s fantastic, and being here with all of you is a dream come true for me.”

This year’s final introduced a new feature: four different “hives” instead of just one. Javier, Antoni, and Aina competed for the title among the top 71 players in 15-minute rounds in each “hive.” The final tested participants’ speed, creativity, and mastery of Catalan, with interactive moments involving the audience and linguistic games such as Mot-li! and Minimots. These activities added dynamism to the event, and some audience members left with special prizes.

The three winners received a bundle of Paraulògic-themed products, a one-year subscription to VilaWeb, and a Fem País gift box as recognition for their effort and dedication.

The event attracted 400 attendees, who enjoyed the thrill of the competition and entertainment tailored for the whole family. With this grand final, the Lliga del Paraulògic once again demonstrated its strong appeal and importance as a tool for promoting the Catalan language.

The second edition of the league began on October 14 and was initially scheduled to conclude on December 14. However, the semi-final in Valencia and the grand final were delayed due to the floods.

This edition saw nearly 8,000 players from 88 counties across the Catalan-speaking territories, surpassing participation in the first edition.

All participants competed in two online phases (local and regional levels), and to reach the final, they had to qualify in one of the five semi-finals held in Andorra, Barcelona, Palma, Perpinyà, and Valencia. The winners of the competition in L’Alguer advanced directly to the final.

Paraulògic is a linguistic puzzle game inspired by the New York Times’ Spelling Bee, which gained popularity in Catalan at the end of 2021. It is part of the suite of games offered by VilaWeb, attracting hundreds of thousands of players, 90,000 of whom play daily.

Ramadan is one of the thousands of prisoners of the notorious Sednaya prison under Syria’s former regime. He was imprisoned from 2018 until the regime collapsed on December 8, 2024, after serving five years of mandatory military service in the city of Daraa (the epicenter of Syria’s 2011 uprising). In 2017, he had begun working in the capital, Damascus, but one night, while returning home, he was detained at a checkpoint.

I never imagined that a human being could be so monstrous and savage toward another. When I saw videos and photos of Sednaya prison after the regime fell, I thought they were exaggerated. I cannot fathom how these people endured so many years in that hell. The words I’ve transcribed do not capture the full catastrophe and suffering I’ve witnessed and felt. Writing this is difficult, and reading it will be, too. But it must be done.

—How were you detained, and why?
—The police called my name. They told me I was being summoned for reserve military service. I served for about three months, but then I fled. That’s when they arrested me.

—Where did you go after fleeing military service?
—I hid in an abandoned house in a suburb of Damascus for three days. I was still wearing my military uniform. I ate scraps from the trash. One night, they caught me and took me to the prison of the Palestine Branch (notorious in Syria for its torture methods). I spent a month there before they sent me to Sednaya’s hell.

—What was the prison like?
—Ten of us shared a tiny cell. There wasn’t space to lie down or stand up. We slept sitting. We used the same bucket for urinating and eating. The conditions were harsh. Sometimes we slept on corpses. I was detained there for six years. I never went outside, not even once. I didn’t see the sun during all those years. For seven months, I showered only once, with cold water.

—What food were you given?
—Half a piece of dry bread in the morning; half a boiled potato and a spoonful of wheat at noon; and another piece of dry bread in the evening.

—What torture methods did they use?
—They made us sit on a half-wooden, half-metal chair to electrocute us. They sprayed us with acid to burn us. They used barrels of acid to dispose of corpses. They pulled out teeth and nails with electric pliers. They beat us all over, especially on the knees. We were not allowed to lift our heads or look at their faces; we only saw their military boots. They burned women with acid after stripping them. They executed people and brought us the corpses. We were forced to sleep on the dead. We had only one blanket: we would lie on half and cover ourselves with the other half.

—…
—And there was psychological torture, too.

—Were you tortured?
—Yes, severely. When you enter Sednaya, you’re welcomed with 200 baton blows to your feet. That’s their greeting. If you lift your head, you get 250 blows. If you eat someone else’s food, it’s 500 blows. The worst torture I endured was when they burned my tongue with cigarettes and coals from water pipes [hookahs] for speaking Kurdish.

—What? They burned your tongue?
—I didn’t know there were surveillance cameras in the cell; they could also hear us. I asked something from my Kurdish cellmate, and they overheard me. They came and took me away. They beat me. They burned my body and my tongue.

—What happened when the regime fell?
—Two days before the regime fell, they came to our cell and called out two numbers. In Sednaya, we didn’t have names, only numbers. I was number 125. They announced that number 105 and another would be saying their goodbyes to the world in two days—they would be executed. They usually gave us food through a small hatch under the door. They only opened the entire door when they were taking someone to their death. When they opened the door after the regime’s fall, we thought they were coming to execute us. The door was wide open. They told us that the dog Bashar had fled and that we were free.

—What did you do?
—We walked out into the prison yard, crying and shouting. Some of us couldn’t walk because our feet had been beaten days earlier. Some of us stood still for half an hour, unable to believe it. We thought it was a joke or that someone important had come to inspect the cells. Then a man approached and asked why we weren’t moving. People took us to the city, gave us clothes and food. Those who didn’t know where to go were taken to a hospital.

—How did you contact your family?
—I was lucky I didn’t lose my memory [cries]. I remembered my name. I didn’t know my family’s phone number. I spent one night in a park. Then a family helped me. They recorded a video and posted it on Facebook. A friend of my brother, who lives in Germany, recognized me. He called my brother and told him I had been released. I took a bus to al-Hasakah, and then a family brought me here. My brother said he wouldn’t have recognized me if he had seen me on the street.

—How do you feel now?
—I still can’t believe I’m out, that I’m free. I think one day I’ll wake up and realize this freedom was just a dream. I still can’t put my feet on the ground because they were beaten so badly over the years. I was beaten 250 times for eating half a piece of bread from my cellmate. In prison, we would pretend to cook lavish meals and smoke as part of our gestures. Now I don’t even feel like eating or smoking.

—Are you receiving treatment?
—No. First, I need dental reconstruction. They broke and pulled out my teeth in prison.

—Did you paint this?
—I painted this. It’s the girl I loved but never married. She was Christian, and I am Muslim, so our families didn’t allow it. I don’t know anything about her now. The other paintings depict how they tortured us.

—Do you go out in the sun?
—I can’t stand sunlight for more than ten minutes. It gives me headaches.

—What are you thinking about now?
—That they’ll open the door and take me to my death. I remember the moment they opened the door for the last time when I thought it was my turn to die. Instead, they told us we were free.

—What do you want to do in the future?
—I want to leave the country. I don’t want to stay in this corner of the world. I’d rather be on another planet than here. If I stay here, I won’t improve. One day, I’ll wake up and realize this was all a dream and that I’m still in Sednaya.

“For Sassoli, it was important to respect that ruling and apply it immediately,” Roberto Cuillo, Sassoli’s spokesperson at the time, told VilaWeb. “The ruling was very clear: it emphasized that popular sovereignty was paramount and must be respected, and that the composition of the European Parliament could not be influenced by national decisions. The process of admitting the Catalan MEPs was set in motion immediately.”

Currently working as an assistant to Democratic Party MEP Lucia Annunziata, Cuillo, a journalist like Sassoli, recalls how they first met years earlier at a restaurant in Rome over a long conversation about history. Their friendship deepened, and in 2014, when Sassoli was re-elected as an MEP, he brought Cuillo on board, initially as vice-president of the institution and later, when Sassoli became president, as his spokesperson.

Both Sassoli and Cuillo were struck by the judicial persecution of Catalan pro-independence leaders. “I remember the demonstrations in Catalonia, followed by the referendum, all conducted nonviolently. I was deeply shocked by the judicial and police response to those events. It was at odds with the idea of Spain as a strong democracy capable of addressing issues through dialogue,” Cuillo recalls. Sassoli, then vice-president of the European Parliament, had publicly opposed the police repression of October 1 voters. While he held a critical stance on the goals of Catalan independence, he consistently advocated for dialogue and even suggested that the EU could mediate between Catalonia and Spain.

Pressures on Sassoli

This background explains his stance on December 19, 2019, when he received the ECJ ruling. Upon deciding to enforce it and recognize the Catalan leaders as MEPs, Sassoli faced intense pressure from Spanish Socialist colleagues. According to veteran Libération journalist Jean Quatremer, Iratxe García, the spokesperson for the European Socialist Group, reportedly shouted during a meeting before the plenary, “You can’t do this to Spain! Do you realize what you’re about to do?” García lost her temper that day; four years later, she would sit with Puigdemont on a sofa beneath a large photograph of October 1 to finalize the agreement for Pedro Sánchez’s investiture and the passage of an amnesty law.

Cuillo refrains from providing details about those meetings between Sassoli, political representatives, and legal advisors, citing confidentiality. However, he highlights the shift in the PSOE’s stance from 2019, noting that the same government under Sánchez had sanctioned mass surveillance of pro-independence leaders, journalists, lawyers, and activists.

“A Non-Independent Judiciary in Spain”

“What concerns me most now is the behavior of the Spanish Socialists regarding the Catalan issue,” Cuillo says, focusing on the judiciary’s refusal to implement the amnesty law. “A judiciary that does not enforce a law passed by the Spanish parliament is not independent. Judicial independence is a cornerstone of the rule of law in Europe.”

Cuillo describes Spain’s situation as anomalous. “There’s an anomaly here. A legitimately elected sovereign parliament passes an amnesty law, and that law must be applied, like all laws. That’s the foundation of our parliamentary democracies. The fact that this is happening in the EU is unbelievable; it’s unimaginable that something like this would occur in France, Italy, Germany, or other European countries.”

Sassoli’s team worked closely with Puigdemont, Comín, and Clara Ponsatí as MEPs. “I’ve seen them in action at the Parliament. They’ve worked diligently and respectfully towards the European Parliament and its institutions, with intense activity. While I don’t share their cause, they are politicians striving to change the existing reality through politics, not terrorism,” Cuillo explains.

He takes a moment to honor Sassoli’s legacy. “Sassoli always reminded us that politics must be brave and serve to change reality, to challenge the status quo. That’s why I find it incredible that these two political figures [Puigdemont and Comín] cannot return to their country. It’s incomprehensible. And I find the Spanish right’s lack of humanity reminiscent of the Inquisition rather than a modern European democracy.”

“A Shameful Attack by Mr. Vázquez”

Sassoli passed away in January 2022, shortly before his term as president ended. Some Spanish politicians never forgave him for granting access to the exiled Catalan MEPs. For example, Adrián Vázquez, a former Ciudadanos MP (now with the PP), chaired the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee and was obsessed with removing Puigdemont, Comín, and Ponsatí from their seats. Vázquez criticized Sassoli posthumously last year, accusing him of “fraudulently” recognizing the Catalan leaders. “It was disgraceful for Adrián Vázquez to attack Sassoli when he could no longer defend himself. It was a smear campaign for personal propaganda,” Cuillo says.

In his final New Year’s address shortly before his death, Sassoli urged European institutions to remain focused on protecting the most vulnerable and “not add pain to pain.” Cuillo reflects, “It’s not a good time for European institutions. It feels like we’re moving backward with two wars, in the Middle East and Ukraine, and a structural economic crisis. There’s a risk that national interests will overshadow common European interests. Sassoli’s vision was the opposite: bringing the Union closer to its citizens, ensuring it serves the European people.”

Sassoli’s former spokesperson underscores the importance of respecting European law. “European law is superior to national law because it guarantees the rights of all citizens. Without respect for European law, there’s no respect for European citizens. This principle drove Sassoli’s decision on December 19, following the Junqueras ruling.”

The mayor of Les Banys, Marie Costa, and the mayor of Elna, Nicolas Garcia, emphasized that the ruling “is not a victory, but neither is it a defeat.” They explained that as judicial decisions progress, more legal articles previously cited to marginalize the use of Catalan are being ruled out. Garcia acknowledged that “there might not be much hope with the Council of State, but it allows us to take the case to Europe, which protects the linguistic rights of all citizens.” He added, “This is how we can compel the French state to recognize our existence.”

Currently, the judicial arguments rest exclusively on Article 2 of the French Constitution, which states that “the language of the Republic is French.” Although Article 75-1 recognizes that minority languages “belong to the heritage of France,” the use of French is mandatory for public legal entities. This means Catalan can be used in council meetings, but only as a translated language and after French, without carrying any administrative or legal weight.

This nuance added by the Toulouse Court to the initial ruling of the Montpellier Court creates “a breach,” according to lawyer Mateu Pons, which they intend to leverage to take the case to the Strasbourg Court. The next step is to appeal the ruling of the Toulouse Court of Appeal to the French Council of State, the highest judicial body in France, and the final hurdle before reaching the European Court of Human Rights. Pons explained that they have two months to file the appeal, with the Council of State expected to deliver a decision in about two years. Following this, they would proceed to Strasbourg, marking the first case concerning linguistic rights where the French state not only marginalizes such rights but outright refuses to recognize them.

Pons also noted another advancement: the mayors’ right to intervene and defend their individual rights as elected officials to use Catalan has been acknowledged. This is significant because cases before the European Court can be brought in defense of individual rights, not institutional ones, representing another breach in the case.

“The Toulouse Court has condemned Catalan to be a subordinate, second-class language,” stated Xavier Antich, president of Òmnium. However, he added that through this process, they have managed to secure a ruling that “recognizes Catalan can be used in council meetings and that it cannot be prohibited.” “We are raising the battle for Catalan to another level. We are moving beyond regional and departmental administrative courts. Now, the mayors and Òmnium are directly confronting the French state,” Antich affirmed.

The ruling

The Court of Appeal of Toulouse today upheld the ban on the use of Catalan in municipal council meetings in the towns of Banys i Palaldà (Vallespir), Elna (Roussillon), Portvendres (Roussillon), Sant Andreu de Sureda (Roussillon), and Tarerac (Conflent). The municipalities had filed an appeal following last year’s decision by the Administrative Court of Montpellier, but the appeal has been dismissed. However, the court has left open the possibility of translating speeches from French into Catalan.

The court confirmed what had already been stated during the appeal hearing on November 28 and what the Montpellier court had ruled in May of last year: French must be the primary language in council meetings in Northern Catalonia, as required by the French Constitution. The ruling rejected the appeal by the municipality of Elna and upheld the annulment of the regulation allowing the use of Catalan in its council meetings. This regulation was later adopted by four other municipalities. The regulation stipulated that council members could speak in Catalan, provided their speeches were subsequently translated into French.

The court emphasized that under Article 1 of the law of August 4, 1994, French is “a fundamental element of the personality and heritage of France, and is the language of the Republic pursuant to the Constitution.” It further cited Article 21 of the same law on the protection and promotion of minority languages, which states that the provisions of the law “do not prevent the use of regional languages in public and private actions.” However, the ruling concluded that these provisions “neither prohibit nor authorize” council members to speak in a regional language during oral interventions.

The court also referred to Article 2 of the French Constitution, which declares that “the language of the Republic is French.” While Article 75-1 recognizes that regional languages “are part of the heritage of France,” the ruling underscored that “the use of French is mandatory for public legal entities.” Administrative documents must therefore be written in French. The court argued that although Article 75-1 was introduced to “underscore France’s attachment to regional languages,” it did not establish any rights or freedoms enforceable by individuals or local authorities, nor did it intend to diminish the scope of Article 2. Based on this reasoning, the court concluded that the modification of the regulation violated Article 2 of the Constitution, even if it required Catalan interventions to be accompanied by a French translation.

However, the court acknowledged that the provisions of Article 2 do not preclude council deliberations and speeches, once expressed in French, from being translated into Catalan.

A Long Judicial Battle

The decision of the Court of Appeal of Toulouse comes after a long legal process dating back to April 2022. The municipality of Elna approved a regulation change to allow speeches in council meetings to be delivered in Catalan, becoming the first municipality to adopt such a measure. The regulation required that these interventions be translated into French. The municipalities of Banys i Palaldà, Portvendres, Tarerac, and Sant Andreu de Sureda later followed suit. Opposition council members in Elna who were against the change reported it to the then Prefect of the Pyrénées-Orientales, Rodrigue Furcy, who subsequently referred the matter to the court after unsuccessfully urging the municipalities to reverse their decision.

Nearly a year later, in March 2023, the Administrative Court of Montpellier rejected Elna’s request to refer the issue of using Catalan in council meetings to the Constitutional Council. The hearing against the five municipalities took place on April 18 of last year. During the hearing, the public rapporteur of the Montpellier Administrative Court recommended annulling the regulation changes that allowed Catalan to be spoken in council meetings. The magistrate argued that “the language of the Republic” is French and that translating debates placed French in a subordinate position.

The court’s ruling, issued on May 9, annulled the regulation changes of the five Northern Catalan municipalities that had permitted speaking in Catalan during council meetings, provided the speeches were translated into French. The court justified its decision by stating that French is the language of the state, as established by the French Constitution, and could not be relegated to a mere language of translation. The affected municipalities described the ruling as a “slap in the face” for the Catalan language and announced their intention to appeal to the Court of Appeal of Toulouse, which has now delivered its verdict.

Siwed was involved in women’s organizations (Kongra Star) from 2016 to 2021, worked at the Consultation and Diplomatic Research Center until 2022, and represented the Autonomous Administration for two years in the Iraqi Kurdistan region. In this interview, we discuss the perspectives created by the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

—How do you assess the current situation?
—There was likely an agreement among the hegemonic powers for Syria. The country had been at war for fourteen years. The fall of the regime in less than ten days is no coincidence—quite the opposite. This shows a well-prepared plan that started in the city of Idlib, then Aleppo, Daraa, and Sweida, all the way to the capital, Damascus. This plan must have taken a long time. The fall of the regime has led the country into a new phase of radical and serious changes. It has created a void in the country, which also triggered the collapse of the Syrian pound. After years of war, there is disagreement between all sides; no one accepts the other. The ethnic cleansing carried out in many places is horrifying. Thousands of people live in other people’s homes and loot their properties. This has created a very complicated emergency situation that needs a lot of attention, understanding, and time to resolve.

—After armed groups and members of the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant entered Aleppo, thousands of civilians fled. The AANES has received them. What preparations has the AANES made to handle the displacement crisis in these circumstances? Does it have the capacity to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of displaced people?
—More than 120,000 people have arrived in our areas. Most of them are from Afrin, Shahba, Tal Rifaat, Aleppo, and even Idlib. Accommodating so many people is not easy. They all fled their city in 2018 due to a Turkish military operation that led to the occupation of their homes. The AANES was not prepared to receive them all at once. This is the second time these people have fled their homes. Many had already spent more than six years in displacement camps. They wanted to return to Afrin, but now they find themselves even further from their city. The AANES opened its doors to them, just as it did for those fleeing the last Israeli-Lebanese conflict.

—Have you received any international support or support from international organizations for the displaced people?
—This area has been under siege and sanctioned by an international embargo for years. The country has been at war for years. Most cities, like Raqqa, where I am now, are destroyed. The war situation continues. We are doing as much as we can to help these people. Direct assistance from individuals and the general public is the most effective and efficient. All citizens have united and supported each other in this situation.

—What are the future plans of the Autonomous Administration in light of the current developments?
—The AANES was established to meet the needs of the people in the region. Those who follow the situation in Syria and North and East Syria know how civilians defended this area. Together, we are building an administration that has already gone through many difficult phases and tests. The most important issue now is to stand firm, continue, and stop Turkey’s attacks. The situation in Manbij is serious. There is a fierce battle. The occupying Turkish state has not stopped attacking us all these years. Now, it is exploiting the void in Syria to intensify its attacks. Its goal was and still is to eliminate the AANES.

—Do you have any information about the women abducted from the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) and the civilians kidnapped by the factions currently controlling Aleppo?
—They abduct women because they want to break their will. The YPJ will defend its members. As the AANES, we promise to do everything we can to save them.

—Are there relations with the Russians currently?
—Yes. We are in dialogue with all those who have a role in Syria.

—With everything happening in Syria and these radical changes to the country’s map, is there any guarantee for the continuity of the AANES?
—The AANES has existed for years. It occupies a strategically important position and has a population of over five million people. These are all reasons to continue. We must protect our people from all challenges and armed groups. The AANES seeks to represent all communities in a future pluralistic Syria. Today, we are facing attacks and threats. But with the unity of our communities and the support of the population, we will continue. Our communities must unite to strengthen our position in the country’s future.

—How are you? You’ve already surpassed 23 million users. Did you expect this?
—I think we’ve had more users in our first year than Instagram and Twitter did in theirs. Naturally, we didn’t expect it. Over the past ten years, there hasn’t been a surge in new social networks like there has been with messaging apps, apart from TikTok. But for a social network like ours, where you connect with friends, it’s been a while since that happened. We’re as surprised as everyone else. We couldn’t force this to happen; users had to choose us. And when you’re a small startup that no one knows about, you sometimes wonder, “Does this even matter to anyone?” The answer has been a resounding yes.

—Is Bluesky the new Twitter?
—That depends on who you ask.

—The interface looks identical.
—It’s very similar to Twitter. Jack Dorsey started the project with a tweet, so I completely understand the connection. We’re excited to think that by the end of next year, people will stop comparing the two because they’ll see we’re different. Right now, comparing us to Twitter is like comparing 1950s television to Netflix. On X, there are few channels. Bluesky is different. There are many channels, feeds are created, and in fact, they’re created by the users themselves. In any case, Bluesky is even more democratic.

—Do you agree with the claim that the far right has taken over Twitter?
—I’d say that Twitter in the US clearly isn’t a bipartisan platform anymore. It’s now a megaphone for one party. I don’t know how that will change over time because it depends on people’s opinions. But that’s exactly why Bluesky exists—so users can take back the helm.

—I ask because many people are tired of far-right content and violent imagery appearing on Twitter…
—Bluesky operates under our terms of service and community guidelines. At this time, we don’t allow misinformation or hate speech. However, some things fall more into the realm of opinions that we wouldn’t remove. That’s where user moderation tags come in. If you believe something is misinformation or lacks evidence, you can flag it. This happens often in politics and gives users more control. In other words, they don’t have to wait for us, as a central authority, to decide what’s right or wrong. Bluesky builds the infrastructure for an open, global conversation, and our tools allow people to create their own experiences. We don’t build tools for any specific political viewpoint. We don’t serve the right or the left. Any user who wants to have healthy dialogue and create their own spaces will find a safe place here.

—Why do you think people trust Bluesky to foster healthier discussions?
—There are a few reasons, but one of Bluesky’s philosophies is that we, as a team and as a company, can be adversaries in ourselves. We don’t ask people to trust us but rather to trust our infrastructure. It’s like democracy—you may not like every president, but you trust the process, knowing there’s a chance to elect a new leader in four years. We’ve opened our app, our protocol, and users can take their data anywhere. People often mistake technology for solving human social problems. It helps enable connections, but without the right people—the soul of the party—it won’t be diverse. Bluesky is completely different from Instagram, where aesthetic content dominates. Here, the content and culture are different. Plus, we don’t control the algorithm, and people can follow one another freely. Participation numbers speak for themselves. It’s remarkable.

—Can you explain what you mean by decentralization? Many people don’t fully understand it.
—It’s very complicated to explain [laughs]. The example I like to use is the dating app Hinge, similar to Tinder and Bumble. It used Facebook’s API [application programming interface] to help match profiles. Anyone could connect and see if others shared interests. Facebook cut the connection with Hinge because it didn’t want such interconnectivity. With Bluesky, the protocol is open. Anyone can keep building without central authority. Users can express what they like. We, as part of the ecosystem, can learn from it but can’t shut it down. People need to understand that we don’t have as much power as most other centralized platforms.

—Bluesky isn’t the first decentralized network. Mastodon is very popular in Europe and doesn’t have a company behind it. Yours does.
—Mastodon has people who’ve worked on ActivityPub [a development protocol]. There are many differences, the main one being design. I think Mastodon is hard for users to understand. You have to look for servers to aggregate information, which can confuse people unfamiliar with decentralization—people who just want to know what their followers like and find friends. We focus on end users, everyday users, and the experience. Mastodon is mostly small communities. I remember trying to join when it had only 500,000 users. The server was full, so I had to find another, and I got lost [laughs]. It took me ten minutes to find a friend sitting right next to me. I kept saying I couldn’t find her.

—How many people work at Bluesky, and how are you funded? I see cryptocurrency companies are involved.
—Our team has 20 people, and we’ve hired 25 content moderators. We have many investors—crypto companies aren’t the only ones who believe the future lies in decentralized networks because that’s the world they want. It’s also practical; they believe technology shouldn’t be forced on users but should solve problems. It’s important to clarify that investing doesn’t mean control. These are separate things. That’s why Kinjal Shah is one of our partners. She understands our decentralized vision better than most investors and hasn’t pressured us regarding cryptocurrencies. It’s about finding a like-minded partner.

—Are you exploring other funding sources?
—Yes, at the end of the year, we’ll launch paid subscriptions, which won’t affect basic features. They’ll be more about aesthetics, like customizing avatars or downloading high-resolution images. I insist: we prioritize users and don’t like to pressure them. People build the ecosystem. We want developers, creators, and users to thrive on Bluesky.

—Let me ask a political question. Do you think Donald Trump’s administration might take a hostile stance toward your project?
—I have no idea, but some people with ties to Trump’s administration, including Elon Musk, have tweeted negative things about Bluesky. There are hints, but nothing clear.

—Does that worry you?
—Worry? Not at all. We’re prepared. I won’t give you details, but we have many experts. It’s important to emphasize that we’re not a platform for any political party. We aim for healthy conversations where everyone can create their spaces. That doesn’t mean there won’t be supporters of Trump or other presidents. What we’re saying is that, like anywhere else, our goal is dialogue.

—To wrap up, how would you describe Elon Musk in one word?
—Unpredictable.

—Why?
—Because I’m sure he is [laughs].

—Would you like to add anything?
—One challenge of social networks is onboarding. At Bluesky, we focus on community. As soon as you join, you’ll find an interesting starter pack to begin exploring.

• More news in English, at VilaWeb
• All the news, in Catalan

This is the conclusion of an investigation conducted by several media outlets, including Mediapart (France), Drop Site News (USA), Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italy), and Reporters United (Greece), in collaboration with the German public radio network NDR, which ultimately withdrew from publishing the revelations due to pressure, despite having led the investigation.

The findings indicate that this consortium, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which brings together dozens of media outlets worldwide to publish investigative reports on major corruption cases, receives half its funding from U.S. government agencies. Washington has the power to veto appointments to its leadership team and imposes silence on investigations into potential corruption scandals that implicate U.S. agencies, multinational corporations, or compromise U.S. diplomatic and strategic interests.

Among the seventy media outlets associated with OCCRP is El Periódico de Catalunya, which, under this umbrella, published a report in May 2022 on contacts between alleged representatives of the Russian government and individuals close to President Carles Puigdemont in the fall of 2017. The report suggested Russia offered support for Catalan independence to destabilize the Spanish state, including offers of money and 10,000 armed soldiers in exchange for favorable cryptocurrency legislation.

The Media-Judicial Plot

The journalists who produced that report relied on data extracted from the phones of Víctor Terradellas, a former CDC official investigated since 2018 by Judge Joaquín Aguirre of Barcelona’s Court No. 1 in a case initially concerning alleged embezzlement of public funds. Both sides collaborated in what attorney Gonzalo Boye, one of those implicated in the Russian plot case, described as a media-judicial conspiracy. Boye mapped out how information from Terradellas’s phones, exclusively used in the report, circulated.

The phone data had been in Judge Aguirre’s hands since 2018 due to the embezzlement case. In 2019, following a Civil Guard report referencing cryptocurrency use and alleged visits by Russian emissaries, Aguirre opened a separate case, known as the Vólkhov case. Progress stalled until January 2020, when Aguirre claimed to have received an anonymous letter linking a group of Russian businessmen “with strong economic interests in Catalonia” to support for independence.

Boye submitted a document to the court—reviewed by VilaWeb—showing that in March 2021, copies of Terradellas’s devices were made while in the possession of the judge and the Civil Guard. This data ended up in the international journalism consortium, which published its findings on May 8, 2022. These materials coincided with documents Aguirre said had been received in anonymous letters sent to the court.

In essence, the consortium used information under Aguirre’s custody to construct the narrative of the Russian plot. This narrative, presented as a report under the consortium’s umbrella, provided the judge with a pretext to reactivate a high treason investigation that had stalled amid negotiations for the amnesty law.

Who Funds OCCRP?

The investigation into OCCRP’s funding has now exposed Washington’s influence. The consortium was created in 2004 in Sarajevo by U.S. military and senior official David Hodgkinson, who is currently a member of U.S. intelligence services. The project was initially funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The first payment of $1.7 million was made in May 2008, with additional funding from the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) Office.

This raises credibility concerns for the consortium’s investigations, as explained in the report by former USAID official Mike Henning: “If the people providing you information think ‘oh, a cop,’ that might be a problem […]. Your independence and reputation are incredibly important.”

Since its inception, OCCRP has received at least $47 million from the U.S. government. It has also received $1.1 million from the European Union and $14 million from six European states: the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Slovakia, and France. Together, these contributions accounted for 70% of the consortium’s budget between 2014 and 2023, with U.S. funding alone making up 52% of the total.

This dana had been announced, publicized, commented upon, written about, drawn, and explained in a way that seemed almost excessive. Authorities had time to prepare, to activate every possible system to prevent harm to the population. Measures to protect people should have gone beyond school or university closures taken by some local councils.

But something went wrong to produce such a terrifying provisional figure. Today, even though waters are starting to recede and reveal the landscape of devastation, it’s not yet the aftermath. Today is still “the day.” The “day after” will be when we clarify what happened, why it happened, who made which decisions, and who conveyed which messages.

In this tragedy, which reeks of diesel mixed with mud, of tears and desperation, there is an implacable chronology. There is a series of political decisions that, read in sequence, give a picture of the lightness with which policies were executed, the lack of political weight of those who make and implement them. They reveal a desolate panorama: the irresponsibility and negligence of those managing public administrations—in this case, President Carlos Mazón (PP).

The Consell, the Valencian government, took office in July of last year. In November, it abolished the Valencian Emergency Unit. This was part of its electoral program, and Vox, its allies, demanded it loudly. They called it a “chiringuito” (a derogatory term meaning “boondoggle”) of former socialist president Ximo Puig. They stated it this way and even tweeted it—a post that resurfaced when the Campanar building caught fire last February: “The Valencian Emergency Unit, the first agency of Ximo Puig dismantled by Carlos Mazón. The first step in the restructuring of the public business sector announced by the Valencian government.”

The Consell decided it could do without a global emergency management body, thereby removing a layer of protection for the population.

The Disappearance of the President of the Generalitat

Eleven o’clock in the morning of Tuesday was a key moment to perceive the solitude of Valencians facing this catastrophe. At eleven, the spokesperson for the Consell, Ruth Merino, was supposed to hold a press conference to explain the Consell’s decisions. At eleven, the Spanish government’s delegate, Pilar Bernabé, was expected to report on the morning’s developments after a very tough night in Safor and Ribera. And at eleven, the President was scheduled to make statements after attending a sectoral event. The statements overlapped.

Bernabé explained which roads were closed and a few incidents, but little more. Ruth Merino mentioned the number of schools closed and also listed closed roads, adding little more. President Mazón was more expansive in his statements. Expansive and oddly optimistic, despite media coverage that had already been broadcasting special programming on the human tragedies, stories of people unable to reach work, flooded basements, and the swelling Magre River, which originates in Utiel. Yet he said:

“As for hydrological alerts, the reservoirs are well below capacity. They are absorbing the incoming water without any issues. There is no hydrological alert for any reservoir so far. So, I’d like to emphasize that the rains are particularly affecting the Magre River, but so far, we have no hydrological alert. This is good news at this hour.”

And he added: “According to the forecast, the storm is moving towards the Serrania de Cuenca, and consequently, by around six in the evening, the intensity is expected to decrease across the rest of the Valencian Community.”

After these statements, the president continued his agenda, meeting with various people and taking photos that were disseminated through the communication channels of the presidency. He made no further comments on the floods.

It was half-past eleven when Mazón made these statements. At 11:45, the Emergency Coordination Center issued a special hydrological alert for the riverside towns along the Magre River. “Alert of increased flow in the Magre River with a record of 350 cubic meters per second. Riversides and towns along the Xúquer River up to the mouth in Cullera are warned.”

If, when the president spoke, he knew that the Magre River was becoming a danger to the population and did not say so, he committed a highly reprehensible act. If he did not know, it was also serious, as it showed he did not know what he was talking about when he said the reservoirs could contain the water that was already spilling over the riverbed. He called for caution, of course, but conveyed a message of calm that bore no relation to what was actually happening.

A few hours later, at five in the afternoon, the Xúquer Hydrographic Confederation began to release water from the Forata Reservoir in Yátova. Thus, it ceased its regulatory function, and the Magre River surged towards Algemesí, meeting the Xúquer. It devastated everything in its path. The images circulating on social networks left no doubt that this was a catastrophe of unknown dimensions.

At the same time, the Poio ravine also filled rapidly, flowing towards the Albufera of Valencia. Disbelieving residents and workers in the metropolitan area of Valencia, where it had barely rained all day, found themselves trapped in a deadly trap. They were in cinemas, shopping for furniture, at work. And there they spent the night. Or they died. The president had spoken of calm at half-past ten in the morning, and he had not been seen since.

He did not appear again until after half-past nine in the evening. And when he did, he communicated nothing—neither information, nor reassurance, nor encouragement, nor any sense that he had control over the situation. Rather, he admitted that they lacked significant information, that rescue teams couldn’t reach certain places, that communications were indeed down, and that they had no confirmation of fatalities. His statement left the population with an extraordinary sense of vulnerability. The President of the Generalitat appeared, in a corridor, before the microphone of public TV À Punt and the Presidency’s microphone, to say that À Punt was the official broadcaster. Thus, incidentally, he muzzled the press, who could only report what the Generalitat said.

An Empty Statement

The president’s silence became an unprecedented cry from people trapped, soaked, lost, and terrified. Testimonies began to emerge from people abandoned on highways, in shopping centers, in a funeral home… People calling 112 and getting no answer. People on rooftops watching firefighters pass by because they couldn’t help them.

In the middle of this wild, dark, windy, and rainy night, President Mazón appeared again. It was past half-past twelve in the morning. He had donned the red vest of emergency services and spoke of fatalities without specifying a number. As he had done with the Campanar fire, he hid in the darkness to deliver bad news. This time he could not provide an estimated number of fatalities, nor could he give precise information on what was happening. Empty words to say that the Spanish government’s Military Emergency Unit was now working. Nothing more.

Until this morning, when the count stands at 62 dead, for now. Sixty-two lives cut short in an episode of intense, fierce rain. Perhaps the most severe ever seen in the Valencian Country, yet announced, marked, and warned of.

—Today we know where Scotland is after voting “No” to independence. Where would it be if it had voted “Yes”?
—Well, I’m actually doing a TV series about that. Scotland Speaks with Alex Salmond (YouTube). I’ve looked at the economy, politics, society, and experts agree that we would be better off than we are now. But that’s not saying much because the past ten years have been a depressing decline. If we had voted “Yes,” we wouldn’t be in a land of milk and honey, but we would be a land of oil, gas, and renewables, and that would have put us in a very good position.

—Why did you lose the referendum?
—When we started in 2012, support for independence was below 30%. Seeing that we got it up to 44% in the referendum was quite an achievement. Maybe we were starting from too far behind, and it was too big a leap. Saying we won the campaign but lost the referendum isn’t much consolation, but there’s some truth to it. And despite the SNP’s incompetence in government, support is at 50%. Fundamentally, Scottish independence is more likely now than before. Now we’re starting from a higher position, with greater support than the 2012 level, which was below 30%.

—Today, support is around 45%, and you started below 30%.
—We won’t argue about the polls. But the surveys say we’re neck and neck. The poll that gave us 45% didn’t exclude the “don’t know” responses. But the issue isn’t that. The issue is that the country is split in two, and the SNP has gone from disaster to disaster. They’ve lost the ability to govern well and competently. That’s a problem for the SNP but also for the independence movement. Someone might hesitate about independence because they don’t like the SNP’s stupidity. In these circumstances, I see the advantage of having more than one serious party supporting independence. It means people fed up with the SNP government can still vote for other pro-independence parties without having to switch to the unionists or Labour. In the current situation, it’s an advantage to have more than one party supporting independence.

—At this point, neither the parties nor the governments in London, nor judicial rulings are opening the door to a second referendum. Do you think it’s possible?
—That was one of Nicola Sturgeon’s many mistakes. Taking it to the Supreme Court was a kamikaze move—an incredible naivety and stupidity. As you know in Spain, as you Catalans know from experience, the supreme courts of states don’t tend to help those who want to dissolve the state. Thinking that was a smart step is almost irrational. You come to the conclusion that Nicola, during her years in government, wasn’t very grounded. There won’t be a referendum soon. So, you have to find opportunities in other elections. The Scottish Parliament elections are run under a system where, in the second vote, the regional vote, you can seek a mandate for independence. Because there, you can vote based on principles, unlike the first vote. So the “Yes” parties need to coordinate to send a common message and seek a mandate. Then go to Westminster with the democratic will of the Scottish people, with internal and international pressure. There are several ways to do it. The institutional weakness of the Westminster government is the greatest I’ve seen in my life. I’m convinced that with a sufficient majority, we can force Westminster to respect Scotland’s democratic rights.

—If I understand correctly, the idea is to turn a Scottish election into a referendum. Let’s say you do this and surpass 50%. You have a mandate. What would you do the next day?
—You mobilize the Scots. Then you can hold a referendum, not on independence, but on who should be the arbiter. Who should decide independence—the Scottish Parliament or Westminster? It would be a referendum on the powers of the parliament, and that is within the Scottish government’s remit. That’s just one example of what can be done institutionally to force Westminster. Catalan independence activists used to say, “If only the Spanish government acted like Westminster, so polite and democratic.” Well, it seems Westminster has learned more from the Spanish government than the Spanish government has from Westminster.

—What can Catalonia learn from Scotland. And Scotland from Catalonia?
—Catalonia’s movement has always impressed me greatly. For example, the fact that the movement went beyond the parties. Even though the Yes Movement in 2014 in Scotland was done very well, the structure and organization haven’t been maintained at the same level. I think that’s been a big mistake—folding the sails of the “Yes” campaign. What has impressed me about the Catalans is their approach to citizens and all the internal diversity.

—And what can Scotland learn from Catalonia?
—Politicians seeking independence for their country have the obligation to ensure they can deliver on their promises and make the path to independence credible. It has to be achievable. And that’s very difficult, I know. Don’t get me wrong. But you have to line everything up before making the move. Everything must be in place before you take the step. Before 2014, we had to force Westminster to grant us the referendum. Catalans might say, “Well, Westminster is full of nice, pleasant people.” If you believe that, you don’t know what Westminster is. They accepted the referendum because the alternatives to saying no were even less acceptable.

—In Scotland, at least the independence movement still holds power. Here, the independence movement has lost it.
—Well, you’ll have to regroup for the next opportunity. Institutions and parliaments are very important for the independence movement. And you have to govern well. In 2014, all sorts of terrible things were said about independence (that it would be a disaster, that the European Union wouldn’t accept us, that we would be marginalized, blah, blah, blah). But one thing they also said: even the unionists said that between 2007 and 2014, the SNP was the best at governing. As it was said at the time, we were irreproachable. One of the Conservative candidates said the SNP government from 2007 to 2014 was the best Scottish government in history. You have to emulate that because the message is powerful. But you have to govern effectively.

—“Independence is dead for at least a generation.” Said by the Scottish historian Thomas Devine.
—Thomas Devine is a top-tier historian, and people have a lot of respect for him. But he himself has often said that his department is the past, not the future. I think those are wise words. We should leave future predictions to politicians like me… Ha!

—Will we ever see reconciliation between Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond?
—Never say never. But let’s note that Nicola will no longer be in politics. So, no problem there. The SNP has fallen from grace due to the foolishness of the last five years, and I could mention a few: self-identification as an act of faith. That’s religion, not what was expected of a national party. Even if you believe that transgender identity is the most important policy you have at hand, it’s not a policy that helps unite the nation toward independence. You can’t unite the country by dividing it. You don’t achieve independence by alienating the independence movement from women. It’s ridiculous! These are mistakes that need to be left behind. We need to hand it back to the adults. We need people who know how to lead. Scots may not agree on everything, but if they doubt competence and ability, well… And the last thing, most important for both Catalonia and Scotland: it’s like the old Coca-Cola ad. If we’re talking about independence supporters, you want the real deal. You want people who truly believe in it. Not people pretending to believe in it.

—What do you think of the Scottish Green Party, which also supports independence?
—My final answer was about them. The problem with the Green Party is that they adopted a pro-independence stance to gain votes. But the Greens are already speculating about forming a coalition with Labour after 2026. That’s not a truly pro-independence party.

—How come, despite Brexit, more people haven’t jumped on the “Yes” train for independence?
—There was a rise in support for “Yes” after the Brexit referendum. And at that moment, the SNP should have pushed harder for the common market. It seems to me that SNP politicians (not everything is Nicola Sturgeon’s fault) didn’t have the statecraft or political skill necessary to take advantage of the common market opportunity. Catalans should understand that in Northern Ireland, the majority party didn’t want the common market, and look where they ended up. In contrast, in Scotland, almost all parties (except the Conservatives) wanted to stay in the common market, and yet we’re out! How do you explain that if not due to political incompetence?

—Have you visited Carles Puigdemont or Pere Aragonès recently?
—Depends on what you mean by “recently.” I’ve seen them both on one occasion or another. But I haven’t been to Catalonia in the last two years, I’d say. I gave a talk at the Catalan Summer University, and your paper was there. That was the last time. Maybe I’ll visit you at the Champions League if Celtic ever plays Barça and scores a few goals against them.

—Good luck with that, because I’m not sure which is harder—Catalonia and Scotland’s independence or Celtic beating Barça…
—Scottish independence is easier than Celtic beating Barça. Although we did beat them years ago. We beat them.

—I understand you say you don’t know if it will be tomorrow because President Carles Puigdemont has announced he will return for the inauguration. You said that if Puigdemont arrived at the parliament, you would not allow him to be arrested, that they would have to arrest you first. Do you stand by that?
—I reaffirm it. We have many legal arguments, but there’s also a political decision that is unyielding. As long as I am president of the parliament, I will do everything I can to prevent a deputy from being arrested while exercising their duties, because the parliament has an immunity that transcends the strictly normative framework. It’s a sacred place. In any advanced and democratic country, the seat of parliament is sacred, democratically sacred, and no deputy’s rights can be limited in terms of deprivation of liberty. This happened to me in the Spanish Congress of Deputies. I was a deputy for one day, along with Jordi Sánchez, Jordi Turull, and Oriol Junqueras. I recall a very impactful image: when the inaugural session ended, we were forced to stay in the chamber, and the police, probably armed, entered to remove us. That will never happen in the Parliament of Catalonia.

—How will you ensure this?
—We will guarantee it first with a series of solid legal arguments: from what the Statute of Catalonia says to the parliament’s own regulations, as well as two protocols we have already approved and are in force, which state that no deputy can be arrested within the parliament. Beyond that, there are more arguments. The process of a parliamentary activity, in this case as solemn and significant as the inauguration of a president, cannot be interfered with in any way. Therefore, from the moment the plenary session is formally convened, which I will sign, until it is concluded, no one can be arrested because it would disrupt the parliamentary activity. But the guarantees I want to present as president of the parliament go beyond that. There are various levels: from the most legally robust to the most politically determined. And here, it is not only about the law but also the political determination. There is a law that supports us, but also the political determination of the parliament’s presidency, and this is not a minor element.

—Has the Catalan Interior Minister contacted you?
—We have spoken. I have simply upheld what the law and the parliament’s protocols state. I have told him what I have already said publicly.

—And what did he respond?
—I can’t say, I don’t think it’s appropriate to disclose the conversation.

—Some media outlets claim that the Spanish police are already inspecting the parliament’s sewers. Are you aware of any unusual activity?
—No, personally, I haven’t noticed anything. It’s true that for significant events, there is some control. Not to prevent someone from entering through the sewers, but to ensure the parliament’s security. I understand that the police’s role, in this case, is to guarantee the parliament’s integrity and the security of the 135 deputies.

—What would happen if the police entered the parliament?
—If that were to happen, I would try to place President Puigdemont in the safest possible location within the parliament, which would be my office. I am very clear about this. The political determination, in this case, exists. I don’t believe we need to reach that situation, but for me, it is an absolutely sacred and non-negotiable element.

—Therefore, do you trust that Puigdemont will be in the parliament tomorrow?
—It should be normal for him to be there. In a normal democracy, it should be normal. But we have seen that at this moment there is a part of the Spanish state, the judiciary, specifically the top of the judiciary, that is out of control, it is rampaging.

—If Puigdemont ultimately cannot reach the parliament, should the plenary session be suspended? Your party would ask you to suspend it…
—If President Puigdemont is arrested, I cannot accept that the plenary session proceeds normally. Therefore, postponing the plenary session would be an ideal and appropriate approach.

—And would that depend on you or the Permanent Deputation?
—Initially, it would depend on me. There are precedents of plenary sessions that have been postponed due to absolutely exceptional circumstances. If President Puigdemont is arrested, which means a deputy is arrested while performing his duties, and with such a significant debate, we should postpone the plenary session. My role is to guarantee the rights of all deputies. In this case, it is the right of a deputy who would be deprived of his freedom, but also the right of the candidate for the presidency, Salvador Illa, to face a complete debate in which he can confront his political program with all the leaders elected by the people of Catalonia. Therefore, it is not only the right of Deputy Carles Puigdemont to participate in this debate in person but also the right of candidate Salvador Illa to confront his political program with all the leaders of all political parties.

—But the Board and the Spokespersons’ Committee would also need to agree, right?
—Initially, it depends on me. Then, of course, I would have to consolidate the decision, negotiate, and agree with the Board. This has already been implemented twice. The plenary session for President Puigdemont’s inauguration on January 30, 2018, and the inauguration that did not happen for candidate Jordi Sánchez were postponed. In those cases, there was a postponement, not a cancellation, because the plenary session had not yet begun.

—In those two cases, the postponement was indefinite. I understand this time it would not be exactly the same.
—We need to determine that with the Board and the parliamentary groups. And today [yesterday, for the reader], during this round of consultations, this option has already started to take shape. Therefore, we will have to discuss it extensively. But what would be unacceptable is doing nothing in such a serious situation as the arrest of a deputy. Especially under the specific conditions in which this arrest would occur, with an amnesty law already approved. Moreover, if we were talking about imprisonment, a precautionary measure of deprivation of liberty, we would be talking about an exceptional situation. We would be discussing preventive detention requested by Vox, not the prosecution, with a crime that almost never leads to deprivation of liberty and with an accused returning and entering the Spanish state. Therefore, the risk of flight does not exist. It’s worth noting that President Puigdemont has never fled justice. Neither have Minister Comín nor Minister Puig, as they left before any orders were issued, and when they were, they appeared before European justices. They have always been subject to justice, in this case, European justice, which is infinitely more protective than Spanish justice.

—So, how long should this suspension of the plenary session last? As long as Puigdemont is detained? And if he is imprisoned?
—I don’t want to speculate. We will have to see under what terms it happens. If it is an arrest and release, if it is an arrest with a precautionary measure of provisional imprisonment…

—And if Puigdemont were imprisoned, could he continue voting?
—Yes, we approved a modification of the regulations where there is the figure of delegated voting. Therefore, when it comes to voting, President Puigdemont will still vote. His vote will be recognized and counted. Could there be legal reprisals from some state body regarding the Board? I take that responsibility.

—What can be done against Llarena, who is breaking the amnesty law with Puigdemont?
—I like to see the glass half full, and I see that there is no longer the consensus in the Supreme Court that existed when the ruling on the process was issued.

—Do you say this because of Judge Ana Ferrer’s dissenting vote?
—Yes, and because of the way Judge Susana Polo has handled the Tsunami Democràtic case. In the most serious case, for terrorism, the judge says: “Listen, the law allows me to take your statement via videoconference, and there is an international legal cooperation mechanism, so I can do it in any EU country.” Llarena, on the other hand, reissues a new arrest and prison order. This is a dissent within the Supreme Court and shows that we are not wrong and, moreover, that probably in this journey Mr. Llarena is not so accompanied. 

—But Llarena and Marchena’s vision could prevail.
—They are breaking the rule of law. There is a TSJC resolution that says about embezzlement the same thing that Judge Ana Ferrer said. How will the TSJC resolution, which is final, and the Supreme Court resolution by Llarena coexist in the future? How will they coexist within the same legal system? 

—Marchena already invents, in his resolution, an argument to justify amnestying embezzlement for Miquel Buch and Luis Escolá, but not for Puigdemont.
—This is the greatest defeat, having to invent an argument. The best jurists in the Spanish state say that the law says what it says. And then there are others, the last ones from the Philippines, who consider that the law says something else. 

—You assume that Puigdemont will be detained when he returns from exile.
—Today, as a jurist, the only thing I know is that there is an arrest and imprisonment order against him. 

—As a lawyer, what do you recommend, that he returns discreetly or accompanied by popular mobilization?
—My duty is to inform my client of the consequences of the current order. How to address this order from a legal standpoint is my responsibility; the rest is not.

 —If there were a popular mobilization to try to protect Puigdemont from a possible arrest, would there be any legal risk for the demonstrators?
—Why? 

—I’m asking you.
—It’s hard for me to think that people would let President Puigdemont be detained just like that. The Catalans are a mobilized people who have shown that if they need to stand firm, they stand firm. I don’t think anyone is thinking about a fine or anything like that. 

—If he were detained, what would happen to President Puigdemont?
—He would be brought before a judge, and Judge Llarena would have to decide whether to imprison him. But let’s not forget one thing: this time he only has Vox. It’s the saddest thing I’ve seen in my professional life, that a whole Supreme Court depends on a fascist party to take measures against a democrat.

—But they’ve gotten this far.
—Yes, but they no longer have the prosecution or the state attorney, who have requested the application of the amnesty. They have no one else in this procedure: it’s them and Vox. 

—Could it matter where he is detained?
—I think that in President Puigdemont’s case, there will be an attempt to take him to Madrid immediately. If they had detained Bolívar, San Martín, or O’Higgins, they would have put them on a ship and taken them to the metropolis. But they were not detained. 

—If so, Vox would request pre-trial detention, and Llarena would imprison him. Could Puigdemont’s pre-trial detention last long?
—Of course, it could last four years. Two years extendable by two. Sustaining a detention in the case of an act that falls within the objective scope of the amnesty is serious. Sustaining imprisonment based on this same act is much more serious; and keeping him in prison is saying “I don’t care about the rule of law.” 

—What could you do? Initially, a habeas corpus request?
—We have a series of measures prepared for this scenario, and we will use them when necessary if it comes to that. I always believe that in the end, common sense will prevail. 

—Many people are worried that he could end up in prison. They could deactivate him politically.
—For seven years, they have tried to deactivate him as a political figure. Puigdemont in prison is not deactivated. 

—But it severely limits his ability to maneuver and move.
—Yes, no one wants him to go to prison. But those who want to imprison him, I think, have not even measured the consequences of doing so. 

—From what you say, Puigdemont could spend several months in prison. At least.
—The president has always been aware that there is a risk. He has been exposed to this risk every day for seven years. 

—And amid all this, you are informed that in November, the trial in which you are accused of money laundering from drug trafficking will begin.
—It will start on November 18. 

—Coincidence?
—I’m not worried about that; I’m worried about going to trial. Because I see the scenario very clearly: what Judge Aguirre did, finding someone to testify against me, is what they did in this case when they released an alleged confessed murderer in exchange for testifying against me. And with that, they have built a case for which I am now going to trial. 

—And what do you think could happen?
—They will probably offer absurd sentences to the other defendants to testify against me. 

—They are initially asking for nine and a half years in prison for you.
—Nine years and nine months. 

—If this trial ends in conviction…
—If this trial ends in conviction, I will spend the rest of my life in prison. 

—And you already said a long time ago that you had no intention of going into exile.
—I will face the situation, I am a practicing lawyer, and I will defend myself to the end. 

—And the imprisonment would be before the appeal to the Supreme Court?
—I believe that if they sentence me to nine or ten years, I will go to prison and spend the rest of my life in prison, because at my age, it is a life sentence. 

—How do you mentally cope with such a possibility?
—I have work to do and no time for whining. I am very aware of what is coming my way, and I have no choice but to keep fighting. Throughout the processing of the amnesty law, all sorts of barbarities have been said about me. I am now going to trial; I am not subject to the amnesty law. And I am going to trial because a prosecutor insisted on it, not because I committed any crime. I am going to trial because there is a prosecutor who should not be a prosecutor, and who, with public resources, has insisted on bringing me to trial and trying to ensure that I spend the rest of my life in prison. Why? Not because of what I do, but because of whom I defend. I had no problems, neither in this case nor in any other, until I defended the leaders of Catalan independence. And I am convinced that they will make me pay this price. Of course, they will make me pay. I am aware, but no one will be able to say that I stopped defending them for a single day. 

—Could there have been any way for you to be included in the amnesty law?
—No, I don’t think so. Look, from the moment the law has an objective scope, if it had been accepted that all lawfare was included in the amnesty law, then obviously, yes. But I am not a subject of it. And if I had been, I should not have participated in drafting the law.

—Statistics indicate that, in general, the population of Europe is tired of the war in Ukraine, as if it has lost the interest it had in the first months of the war. What is happening? How do you explain this?
—Statistics also show that people support Ukraine in abstract terms, but do not want to get emotionally involved. Everyone wants to live a normal life. “Yes, okay, the Ukrainians are right, maybe we should do something, but now there’s a football match on TV, so let’s sit and watch it.” This is normal.

—However, I don’t know if you agree with me, today the danger is greater than two years ago. And not only for Ukraine but for all of Europe.
—In Europe, there is a syndrome of “sympathy without intervention.” Oh, yes, Ukrainians are very good people. We all agree on that. But no one ever says: Ukraine is ours, we are the same. And you are right in the sense that the danger today is greater. Russia was much weaker two years ago than it is now. It has learned from its mistakes and adapted, so the problem is growing.

—How have they done this?
—They have it relatively easy: They do not respect any rights, there is no effective opposition to the war within Russia, which is becoming more militarized every day. If someone speaks out, they are killed or imprisoned, we have all seen this. The West still lives under the illusion that Russia is weak and that there is no need to be more afraid than necessary. But the reality is that Russia is advancing significantly in terms of war technology and has found a perfectly viable alternative to maintain its economy despite sanctions, in India, China, and others.

—But at the same time, there is another movement: Europe is becoming more and more involved in the conflict, even militarily.
—That’s true. It may seem contradictory, but it is not so much because the reality is that Russia is not at war with Ukraine but with Europe, with the way we Europeans understand society. It is at war against what they believe is the West and against societies that think freedom should be at the center of social life.

—Alright, but there is also a geopolitical design, isn’t?
—Yes, but it is very simple. Russia thinks we are going back to the past and moving towards a world marked again by the existence of various imperialisms. They know the largest empire will be Chinese, but they are okay with being the second. And in this sense, they are convinced that, like in the past, Europe will be divide, and they are destined to take part of it.

-Well, Russia has always defended that it has no borders. The famous phrase that Russia’s borders breathe…
—Exactly!

—When they have problems and have to retreat into their territory, the border is the Rostov-Saint Petersburg line, but when they are strong, the border is in Berlin…
—That’s it. Russia has never been a nation-state with clear borders. It has always been an empire and an expansionist one, aspiring to be the only one. This is the entire history of Russia. At the beginning of Moscow’s power, Russia wanted to be the empire of Orthodox Christians – that is, of Christians, because they did not consider others to be Christians. In the 18th century, under Catherine the Great, Russia considered itself the only enlightened empire – there was Prussia next door, but they said it couldn’t compare… In the 19th century, they concocted that they were the only Slavic empire and had to liberate the rest of the Slavs and started fighting with the Turks. In the 20th century, as we all know, they were the only communist empire in the world. Now, for the first time, they do not have a clear global idea of what they want their empire to be; they say they are the new “conservative empire”, in the authoritarian sense, but the point is that they want to continue being an empire. They are clear about that.

—The Russian world, as they call it.
—They have this concept of русский мир – the Russian world, the Russian civilization– which by definition means it cannot have borders because political barriers do not matter when the concept is that you are a civilization. [Alexander] Dugin, [Vladimir] Medinsky, and all these people whom Putin listens, insist repeatedly that Russia is not a nation. That it is not a nation, that it is much more than that, and they say it over and over again.

—So, they assume the idea of empire.
—Russian imperialism forms an empire, but a continental empire. And this makes it different from maritime empires, such as Great Britain in the past, for example. Because continental empires do not colonize nations far away – as was the case with India for the British – but those right next door. Therefore, the idea justifying their colonialism cannot be that they are very different people but that they are the same. This is important to understand. The British told the Indians they were different and would never be like them. That’s why they invented the concept of “race”, which, as we all know, is false. In the case of Russia, they do not tell the colonized peoples that they are different and will never be like the Russians, but quite the opposite, they say they will never be different from the Russians. That they will never have their own life. Therefore, they will be Russians.

—So, they turn it around.
—Simply, the instrument of domination is different. It is no longer the idea that you are different, implicitly inferior, but the idea that you are the same. That is why they have to convince everyone that Ukraine is an invention and does not exist.

—From the ethnic point of view?
—The idea that you are the same as them, and this is another interesting characteristic, is not necessarily ethnic. It can be religious, for example. This is what they do with Georgians, who cannot be identified ethnically with Russians but are absorbed through religion and confrontation with neighboring religions. And with others, they use the instrument of the Russian language – with Buryats or Tuvans, for example. They say that since they speak the same language, a language that they imposed on them, then they are the same.

—This is a very interesting perspective in our country: the imperialist use of language.
—Yes, I know that this topic is of interest to Catalans. I think there would be an analogy to be established between racism and, I don’t know how to call it, linguism, as a totalitarian ideology. This, I think, should be studied in depth, it would be a very interesting line of study.

—Linguism is indeed an interesting concept.
—It happens to us just like it does to you with the Spaniards. You resemble each other. The only difference that is immediately noticeable is that you speak differently. Therefore, if the language is gone, the difference is gone, and the nation is gone. This is an essential dynamic of continental imperialism, not just in Ukraine, but everywhere in Europe.

—And what is the role of history? Traditionally, it has always been a privileged instrument for building any idea of a nation.
—Russia has invested a lot in trying to build a history according to which there is a continuous and uninterrupted Russian state through time that would justify its current policies. But to be able to prove this, they had to search somewhere for a medieval Russian state that never existed because Russia in its current form, the Russian state, is an invention of Peter I at the beginning of the 18th century. So they concocted that this state was Kyiv, because the state of Kyiv was called “Kievan Rus”. But “Rus” does not mean Russia. In fact, at that time Russia did not even exist, let alone was called Russia! It’s like the French arguing today that, since Charlemagne once called the German territories of the empire “Western France,” Germany today is French. Please! It sounds similar, but it is not the same at all.

—The history of Kievan Rus is very important for Russian nationalism, to the point that it has been one of the arguments to justify the invasion.
—Of course, because if Ukraine is independent, the Russians lose this history they have concocted, in the sense that they are a continuous and uninterrupted state through time. That is why they need to erase Ukraine. The mere existence of Ukraine undoes their lie and leaves them without arguments.

—Hence the attempt at annexation?
—A friend of mine explains that before occupying a territory, you must annex its time. Before annexing Crimea, you must annex Crimea’s past, for example. I think it is a very clarifying concept.

—We have talked a lot about Russian identity, but I have to say that I have the feeling that, from the Russian point of view, the invasion has been a mistake. Because it has awakened a sense of belonging to Ukraine that was not visible before. Somehow, the reaction to the invasion is building a much stronger Ukrainian nation than ever before.
—If we start from the premise that Ukraine will continue to be an independent state in the future, it is evident that they have made a mistake. It is true that the reaction is impressive and that today in Ukraine there is a national consciousness far superior to what we ever had. I remember being very impressed, at the beginning of the invasion, seeing how the population, even in Russian-speaking cities, took to the streets with Ukrainian flags to stop the Russians. It cannot be denied that, indeed, the Russian invasion and occupation have awakened the national sentiment of Ukraine.

—But…?
—But, if this were not the case, if Russia ended up subjugating Ukraine and occupying it, then this idea that the war has awakened Ukrainian society would cease to be relevant and, from the Russian point of view, the invasion would have been a great success. Simply, Russia would have done everything possible to fulfill its imperialist agenda and carry it out in the most difficult phase, which is the war. Then they would do what they know how to do so well, and what they have done over the centuries: kill anyone who opposes their power, deport people if necessary, annihilate, in short. And this is not theory. It is what is happening right now in the occupied Ukrainian territories.

—It seems incredible that we are talking in these terms in the 21st century.
—Look, I am concerned about this thing we often hear, and which you just said, about how such a thing can happen in the 21st century? I think it does not help at all to understand reality.

—Tell me, then.
—Russia is building an idea of how the 21st century should be, and in this idea, the use of violence is the essential factor, the key piece. They consider that we have returned to the moment when only strength matters and how strong those around you are. And to what extent you are capable of being violent to achieve your interests. It is true that we do not know how this will end because in the end everything will depend on us – on the Ukrainians and Europeans in general – and on whether we know how to resist and defeat them. But it is better not to have illusions and look reality in the face. This is a war, a very tough fight. And it is happening now.

Yesterday, VilaWeb interviewed Francesco Cancellato, the Italian journalist who directs the prestigious newspaper Fanpage, with which VilaWeb has established relationships and affinities. Cancellato is the author of the book Nel continente nero (Rizzoli, 2024), a work that describes the European far-right. He visited seven countries over a year (Germany, Spain, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Sweden), spoke with experts, and attended far-right events to profile a phenomenon he outlined yesterday for VilaWeb in a Zoom conversation.

— I would like to divide the interview into two parts. The first would be the headlines you would highlight from yesterday’s elections. And then I would like to put it in context, thanks to your book. What would be the headline of yesterday’s elections?
— The headline is that the far-right has become strong in the heart of Europe. There is a far-right government in Italy, where the party doubled its votes. And a far-right party that is the leading force throughout France. And a far-right party that is the second largest in Germany. So, the far-right is strong in Italy, France, and Germany, three of the founders of Europe. France and Germany, especially, are the two pillars on which the idea of the European Union is based. The far-right is so strong in the heart of Europe! I think it’s the first time we see it so clearly, but perhaps it was already happening and developing for years.

— A year ago, you wrote a book about the far-right in Europe. What motivated you to do so?
— I had the intuition that something was about to happen. About a year ago, Manfred Weber, during Pope Benedict XVI’s funeral, met with Giorgia Meloni. It was quite strange that in a period when the socialists were having many problems with the Qatargate, they would meet. And I said: this could be the occasion when every frontier, every barrier breaks and the far-right can enter the palace of Brussels. Or even rule in many countries. Something was about to change. Something is changing right now. Now the far-right has an enormous amount of votes and cultural hegemony on the continent.

— Cultural hegemony? What do you mean?
— When we talk about migrants, we always refer to security problems. When we say we must save the planet from climate change, we add that we must save the economy. We must defend the traditional family. Man is man, woman is woman. These ideas are very popular in our countries. They have made these ideas seem like common sense. And now, with votes and strength, they can align with the establishment and come to power. They are normalized. Nel Continente Nero is a year-long journey through seven countries.

— And what are the common characteristics of the far-right in the seven countries you visited?
— They are against sexual and reproductive rights, against gays. They share Islamophobia. They share identitarianism (“If you have a European identity, you have certain rights; if you don’t have a European identity, you don’t have those rights). They also deny climate change. They are against the UN or the European Union. But I think the most important is the peculiar way they try to put nationalism above everything. There is no universalism, they say, so we can do whatever we please in our countries. They see the European Union as a hindrance. You cannot trample on the rule of law in your country. You cannot discriminate against gay people in your country. You cannot go against press freedom in your country. You can’t, you can’t, you can’t. But if you weaken EU institutions, then you can. The European Union is weak, and they want to make it weaker. And to achieve this goal, they have converged with some forces outside Europe. The main one, Russia.

— You have talked a lot about the links between Russia and Italy. What are these links?
— They are mainly links with Salvini, rather than with Meloni. When Salvini became leader in 2013, the Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev attended the Lega congress and greeted. Salvini went to Russia nine times and said that Putin’s democracy was better than European democracy and that sanctions against Russia should be stopped. He signed a political agreement between Putin’s party and Lega. Lega had many votes but little money and needed it. There was a famous conversation between Putin’s people and Lega’s people; Malofeev’s people and Lega’s people, where they talked about money for Lega.

— And who else funds the far-right in Europe?
— There are many religious lobbies and climate change denial lobbies. Journalists from Open Democracy discovered the way to finance Vox and more parties through CitizenGo. “You should give us the money, to keep you anonymous” was the idea. There is another large foundation in Poland, linked to a major foundation in Brazil, TLP. Or financiers linked to ultrachristianity who founded El Yunque, which has links with Vox. We also saw a link between the American far-right and confessional parties in Europe. There are legal organizations like the European Center for Law and Justice or the American Center for Law and Justice that provide legal support and advice to people linked with hate speech. These organizations are often funded by the fossil fuel industry. I want to remember that the AfD was the first political party in Germany to explicitly deny climate change in the German parliament. And the Hungarian economy’s oligarchs support Orbán and have a strong link with each other.

— You went to France, Spain, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, Germany, and Italy. Which country impressed you the most?
— The country that impressed me the most is Germany.

— Why?
— Because it is a country that experienced the most brutal dictatorship of the first half of the 20th century, which destroyed Europe. Since 2013 there has been no far-right presence in the German parliament. Now there is the AfD, which is one of the most radical groups in Europe and is growing a lot. The AfD is more radical in East Germany because it is dominated by the Der Flügel current, the neo-Nazi wing of the party. And in Saxony, Brandenburg, and Thuringia (where Der Flügel dominates), it has 40% or 30% of the votes. In September, they could elect the land president. Germany is the country where the rise of the far-right is most worrying and impactful. “The Green Party is our enemy, not the Social Democrats,” they say, because of climate change. The fight against climate change is the main fight of our era, and the main battleground for this fight is Germany. It was shocking for me to realize this both prospectively and historically. Historically because they are neo-Nazis, and prospectively because they are fighting against humanity’s main struggle.

— Today I saw a map of the AfD votes in Germany. Why are they so strong in the East compared to the West?
— Because in the East, they see the other parties as colonialists, as parties of the West. The AfD has a strong far-right DNA, but even stronger East Germany DNA. Angela Merkel said in 2015: “We can integrate everyone, for example, people from Afghanistan.” Someone, I don’t remember the author, published a book saying: “First integrate the East Germans.” They feel excluded from Germany, and rejected by Germany. In the East, the AfD is perceived as a kind of native party.

— What would you say to someone who says these parties do not use violence and do not want to stage a coup?
— I would say that even words are violence. I was in Spain, and I heard Santiago Abascal’s final rally. He said they wanted to have the power of fathers, and a patriarchal society, and said bad things against feminists, immigrants, and gays. Well, that is also violence. You don’t have to be violent with your hands or with weapons or with sticks to be violent. If you try to discriminate against people, that is also violence. And they don’t want to stage a coup. That’s true. But Hitler won elections. Orbán won elections. And somehow, Putin won elections, and Erdogan won elections. If you want to establish some kind of authoritarianism or some electoral autocracy (I can’t call it a dictatorship right now), you don’t need to stage a coup. It’s enough to win elections. And, of course, if Marine Le Pen won the presidential elections in France, she wouldn’t have the power to build an autocracy because of the system. But it’s worrying because they have ideas and friends who are autocrats, not democratic leaders, such as Viktor Orbán, who is very close to Trump, Meloni, and Abascal and all these people. And they have friends who say that Orbán is a role model. This is a statement of intent. If someone asks me: why do you say they are dangerous? Because they say they are dangerous. They say it. They tell you what they want to do.

— Some say Meloni is one thing, and the Germans are another. Do you agree?  
— I don’t agree. If I ask you who is more right-wing, Orbán or Wilders? Vox or Salvini’s Lega? If they were two different political offers, you would have two options. But the two supposed branches don’t compete. The norm is that in each country, one or the other is presented because basically, the offer is the same. Ideas about sexual and reproductive rights, climate change, Islamophobia, identity, and nationalism are basically the same. They want the Europe of nation-states. They all say the same thing.

— Finally: What do you think of the theory that says all these parties attract the votes of globalization’s losers?
— The situation is worsening for many people. They could become poorer, more insecure, and they feel nostalgic. The far-right gives them the power of nostalgia. They say the answer is in the past. We were great, now we’re not. Let’s go back! That is the power of the far-right right now.

The new president was sentenced to ten years in prison by the Supreme Court of Spain for his role in the 2017 self-determination referendum and the subsequent declaration of independence. He spent three years in prison before being pardoned by the Spanish government.

As part of Rull’s pact it was also agreed that Raquel Sans (ERC) would be the first vice-president, and David Pérez (PSC), the second vice-president. The secretaries will be Glòria Freixa (Junts) as the first secretary; Juli Fernández (ERC) as the second secretary; Rosa Maria Ibarra (PSC) as the third secretary, and Judith Alcalá (PSC) as the fourth secretary.

These appointments ensure that the board of the chamber remains under an pro-independence majority with four representatives (two from Junts and two from ERC) against three (the three from PSC).

The new President  reiterated “the conviction that democracy always prevails” in his first speech in office, asserting that the constitution of the fifteenth legislature “represents that hope is more powerful than fear.” This is the same phrase that the former councilor used during the trial of the Catalan leaders in Madrid.

Rull began his speech by recalling the empty seats representing the exiled deputies – Carles Puigdemont, Lluís Puig, and Ruben Wagensberg – and delved into the history of the parliament as a symbol of the history of the Catalan people. In this regard, he emphasized the symbolic value of President Francesc Macià’s decision to make the Citadel the seat of the Parliament of Catalonia. “What was a symbol to overthrow the freedoms of Catalonia has ended up being a symbol of Catalonia’s sovereignty,” he declared.

In this sense, Rull highlighted the “historical continuity” of the parliament, “which does not originate from the Spanish constitution of 1978, but is the expression of a millenary nation that goes beyond centuries.” He noted that Pere Aragonès is the one hundred and thirty-second President of the Generalitat.

At the same time, the new President of the chamber recalled how, during the Franco dictatorship, the parliament’s entrances were bricked up, and “the democratic will of the people of Catalonia was gagged.” He added: “Let us vow that this will never happen again,” he continued.

“Let us not forget an essential principle: these seats are not ours; they belong to the people we represent. Therefore, the seats must represent not the struggle between us but the general interest, the common good,” he emphasized.

And he continued: “We must be capable of representing a diverse Catalonia. This must be a country where social mobility works, and Catalan schools are a fundamental part of this social mobility.”

Rull then once again recalled the absence of the exiled deputies and lamented, alluding to political and judicial repression, that “we have lived through years in which what we thought was obvious has been questioned.” In this regard, he promised that the board will ensure the principle of parliamentary inviolability of deputies during the legislature. “No deputy can be prosecuted for freely expressing their opinion. But this fundamental principle, which seemed so obvious, has not been respected in recent years,” he said, recalling that Carme Forcadell, as President of the parliament, was sentenced to eleven and a half years in prison for “allowing a parliamentary debate.”

“I commit to protecting the rights of the deputies. In this parliament, everything must be open to debate, without the pressure of another public power and no other constraint than the will of the people of Catalonia who elected these 135 deputies,” he continued. And he reiterated “the anomaly” that “a President of the Generalitat can be dismissed by decree of a President of another government, or that the judiciary decides who can be subjected to investiture.”

—In February, you told me in a VilaWeb interview that you did not want to be the president of the Assembly… And now, four months later, here we are, interviewing you as the president of the Assembly!
—[Laughs] Yes, it was precisely after that interview with you that everything changed. Those statements brought me a lot of headaches, all because of you… That’s when people started calling me, saying I should run. Among them were people I greatly respect. So, I weighed the comforts and discomforts… I like to get on trains. And I thought I could serve. I hope to serve. If not, I will admit my failure and return home to write or to my foundation.

—Why did you decide to take the step?
—I think it’s necessary right now for someone to go to the people and say: “Listen, we need to mobilize again.” Maybe depending on who says it, they won’t listen, but if a singer says it… [laughs]. There’s work to be done, and I believe if people see that I get involved, they will realize that they also need to get involved again. Many people tell me: “Let us know when you really go for it!” No, gentlemen, we won’t have time to notify you because we are in a situation of national destruction. We must mobilize beforehand. No one will warn us. We have to do it ourselves. Faced with this situation, I thought I had to say yes. I accept all the problems and contradictions… It’s very difficult, especially in interviews, to separate Lluís Llach of all time from the president of the ANC. In the end, journalists mix things up, and this causes confusion. Now, I have to learn to manage everything together, but I hope to correct myself soon.

—It has not even been a week since you took the position, and you’ve already done a marathon to learn what it means to be the president of the Assembly?
—Absolutely! Yes! I started by breaking a record. It took time to appoint me as president, there was a lot of reluctance. I don’t know if it’s an honor, but I don’t dislike it; it has been a lesson in humility. Some people don’t see me favorably within the national secretariat. But I am clear that I cannot give up on implementing the program for which people voted for me, and at the same time, I must try to integrate them. There must be a willingness to integrate on everyone’s part. I want to try to create a roadmap together that will be approved by the members in October or November. From there, everything will be much clearer. The problem is that now we have a somewhat strange roadmap…

—That roadmap are currently talking about promoting a civic list to the elections.
—Yes, but, of course, after the vote, the same secretariat that had promoted it already discarded it.

—What happened from one Saturday to the next? How did you manage to obtain two-thirds of the secretariat? Did you make a pact? Were there agreements?
—I think “agreements” is not the word. But yes, some people, although I must say few, because in the end, it was a matter of one vote, listened to us. We had time to explain ourselves. We must remember that on the first Saturday, I did not become president because I was 0.3% short of the two-thirds votes. In the end, I understand that some secretariat member who was not very affiliated with either side decided to vote for me. We must remember that the statutes are the statutes, and we were elected considering them. But it happens that the national secretaries who were behind me had 20,000 accumulated votes. The other group had about 10,000… Therefore, we have a very strong majority again. Even more so if you remove the votes of Josep Costa, who has maintained a neutral stance throughout. Seeing this, I suppose someone decided they could no longer continue blocking. Anyway, we have talked. In fact, I want to integrate people from the old secretariat.

—Therefore, there is still tension within the secretariat?
—This Saturday we meet again. We are in a hurry. We need to decide things. We have September 11th around the corner. Consequently, I hope that on Saturday we can start talking about things and begin to smooth out positions. I believe that as we explain our action plan, we will understand each other. The political program we want to implement does not deserve this blockade. Although I understand that some people may not have understood my stance against the civic list. Maybe I was wrong, but I was trying to defend the Assembly. I believed that committing the ANC to a single parliamentary option was a grave mistake. I can understand the reluctance, but I am sure we will understand each other.

—The first thing you did as president was to join the farmers’ protest. On Tuesday, you went to the protest in front of the Via Laietana police station. I understand that mobilization will be important…
—Yes, but mainly based on the consequences of our dependence. Those who know me a little know that for me, independence goes beyond historical, national, linguistic, or identity claims; it is primarily about service. I want to make the people of the Assemblea understand that from now on, we must serve the consequences of dependence.

—What do you mean?
—Why are the farmers protesting? Their problems are due to an absurd administration that hinders them with bureaucracy and demands that they then ignore when making agreements with the King of Morocco. Or a globalization that hits them from all sides. It is also due to economic manipulation by oligopolies that strangle them. Considering all this, I think it’s important that they know we see them as a state structure. And, therefore, we stand by them to mobilize. And we will do the same with everything that is necessary. We will also stand by those who say independence starts on the train tracks. We need to explain this. The disinvestment in our structures, as well as the denationalization of the country, has brought us to where we are. Denationalization does not only come through language; it also comes through structures that weaken us as a society. And when the people from the health centers protest, we will be there too! And when immigrants arrive and are sent to L’Estartit to a hotel, and they stay there for six months, and only learn two hours of Spanish a week, we will go there. We will stop knitting at home and go there to explain to them that Catalan is spoken here. Offer them help to learn the language. Explain to them where they are. Simple things like saying “good morning” and people will respond with a smile. We must use the tools we have. We don’t have the tools of political or economic power, but we have the citizenship, and we must use it. Without forgetting the functions that each local assembly decides, we must include in their functions all this that I am explaining… We need to participate in all struggles.

—What kind of relationship do you think should be had with other entities?
—It is necessary to stop seeing the Assemblea as the only protagonist. Humbly, we must understand that to achieve independence in a country as complex as ours, we need to work with organizations that we may not fully agree with. We must stop fighting with the other entities. If we work on cultural issues, we must count on Òmnium Cultural. If we work on external projection, we must work with the Council for the Republic. Or if we do municipal work, we must consider the AMI. We must do it humbly, and at the same time without losing the significance of the Assembly, because, along with the CDRs, we are among the most powerful organizations we have in the goal of independence. But this should not mean isolating ourselves; we need to open windows and communicate again. What the independence movement needs, within the world of entities, is what we need in the political sphere: for each of us to occupy a space in defending our national coexistence parameters: from language to economic needs. If each of us specializes in our function, we will be much more effective. Look, now I have an example in mind. It’s old, but I think it helps to understand. It’s all about strategic consumption. If instead of doing it from the Assembly, it had been done from the Council for the Republic, we wouldn’t have had the legal problems we had… We need to collaborate to be more effective.

—And with the political parties?
—We must have a critical stance. We believe they are not fulfilling the function they should when they say they are independence parties. We must be critical because their disunity, plus the repression, as well as the aftermath of Article 155 and the failure of 2017, lead to the disillusionment of many independence supporters. Therefore, we must tell politicians: for doing this, do not count on us. Now, if they make efforts, we will have to push. But our job is to strengthen society to be able to return.

—So, do you think it’s especially important now for the parties to come to an agreement?
—Exactly, to start with the parliamentary bureau. And then continue negotiating. Despite acknowledging that Mr. Salvador Illa has all the democratic and statutory legitimacy to try, we also have it. And even more so, although I know it’s not popular, if it is proposed that we need to repeat the elections to define clearer and more definitive majorities, let’s repeat them! I have witnessed Salvador Illa protesting with Ciudadanos when no one else went! Not even Iceta. I am clear that if he becomes president, he will continue the denationalization of this country. I don’t want that.

—But for Carles Puigdemont to become president of the Generalitat, he needs the abstention of Salvador Illa and the socialist party.
—That is political maneuvering, and I don’t understand it. I understand that, behind the scenes, both Esquerra and Junts have leverage on important people in Madrid. So, they should use it. Play all the political cards they need to play. And if they don’t succeed, go to the last consequences. Just as the best gambler in the kingdom since the time of Adolfo Suárez takes five days to reflect, leaving the state in the air to ensure that the highway that was already open to Salvador Illa works. Politics is that, and all cards must be played.

—You said you were in favor of the DUI (unilateral declaration of independence), but lately, ERC and Junts talk about a negotiated referendum with Spain.
—Fine, that’s their problem! I left the Council for the Republic, partly because of this. But this is not the ANC’s problem. If politicians ever tell us that we need a referendum as the only way to independence, we will discuss it, but at the moment I do not see this possibility as feasible. I don’t see the PSOE willing to hold any referendum. We are under a judicial coup d’état, and I honestly do not understand certain things being said. Precisely now, we will be able to see the extent of this coup. We must be cautious; we could find ourselves in a very negative situation. I do not believe that is possible. A gambler like Sánchez, I think, as soon as he can, will use it to call elections, win them, and not depend on us.

—You have repeatedly said you do not trust the amnesty.
—I believe that the negotiation was somehow contradictory for some people who until that moment said they would not negotiate. Now, I also believe that the fact that the Spanish parliament has approved the amnesty is a gain. It means the annihilation by law of all the repression from Article 155. It is an acknowledgment that the state acted improperly, undemocratically. Now, the big doubt is whether it will be applied. They already say it will take two years. The most progressive Constitutional Court already says the amnesty is a disaster. Okay, do we have them by the balls? And if it’s the other way around? I don’t want to believe it. That’s why I ask the independence parties to shake things up as much as they can until something happens.

—This judicial coup also complicates Puigdemont’s return?
—That is his issue. I want the president of the Generalitat in exile to return if he has guarantees. I want him to return if he has a democratic title that accredits that he has representation in parliament. The president of the Generalitat should not return here as an amnesty recipient, by no means. He should return as an elected parliamentarian, by the will of the people. And if he can return to work, even better. I was one of those who supported the government going into exile. In fact, only one person said no. Later, for personal or family reasons, some accepted going to prison. Maybe they thought they wouldn’t be imprisoned. And that has created disunity. For me, the president should be in exile working for the country. And even more, a personality like Puigdemont, who is one of the twenty-five most recognized people in Europe. Please, do you think we as a society can afford to lose that? I don’t think so.

—But if he returns and there is no amnesty, he could go to prison.
—That is his decision; it goes beyond my opinions. But if he returns as an elected official because people voted for him, his role will be magnificent.

—These weeks, one of the accusations against you is that you belong to Junts.
—Who?

—You!
—Ah! Yes! Of course! All Junts knows that I don’t vote for them, right! You maintain a personal position of coherence, which I understand is complex, but truly is coherent. But, of course, if I say I used to vote for Esquerra, then switched to the CUP—because I know the northeastern area and Poble Lliure, and I love them—and then it turns out I vote for the president in exile… Some may see that as incoherent, but for me, it is of absolute coherence. But maybe I’m wrong; however, they will manage. I think people voted for me knowing this. Maybe even because of this. For me, this is an issue that goes beyond the matter of the parties. Here, what’s at stake is the existence of a community that has managed to survive the destruction of many nations in Europe and that we have maintained so far with the will to be. Suddenly, should democracy be what destroys us if all the dictatorships and civil wars couldn’t? No, sorry, I refuse. And I don’t think this compromises anyone in the ANC. It’s just that now they tell me that because I explain a personal matter, that I will vote for Toni Comín because of the friendship we have. It seems that this is the ANC’s option. And no, as I said, it’s a personal thing. People know me!

—Yesterday on Catalunya Ràdio, they criticized you, saying you are very critical of Esquerra and then don’t understand how you want to build a united Assembly.
—Yes, but I have always explained the reason for my criticisms. My natural party is Esquerra Republicana. And if they hadn’t made a 180-degree turn, I would still be with them. Mr. Junqueras seduced me; I guess that’s why I feel sexually betrayed. Inside Esquerra, I know wonderful people. But it’s Esquerra that made a strategy change that caused a separation from the independence movement. It’s undeniable that Mr. Junqueras did this. He himself expressed it to me at Lledoners. Although this is a personal matter that I won’t explain.

—Will you explain it someday?
—Yes, when the amnesty is effective, I will explain everything I know. But, of course, I must also say that I know that inside Esquerra, there are people like Marta who are making a great effort to reach agreements. And if Esquerra returns to what it was, I will most likely join them right away. But what the hell is strange about that. I am not loyal to a tool; I am loyal to the purposes of the tool. I joined a tool that told me that in eighteen months, we had to achieve independence. I leave when they tell me we have to wait twelve years or twenty years. They tell me we have to wait two generations. No, sorry, no! I believe it’s a very mistaken strategy. I said it two years ago: all this was a highway for Mr. Illa. And look, here we have it. Look at the abstentionism!

—You talk about abstentionism. There is also demobilization. How do you turn this around?
—By going there! In the ANC, we have many people with great communication skills. I believe there are three or four people who are very good communicators, and they will have to go village by village to explain why we need to mobilize again. We need to explain the causes and the routes we have from now on. Although for all this, we should wait until October or November, because the ANC has to approve a new roadmap. But we cannot wait because the country is slipping out of our hands. Therefore, I believe that the members of the Assembly must accept that their president and the national secretariat make decisions that, under normal circumstances, we should wait a bit longer. But if we wait, I understand that some might accuse us of doing nothing while everything falls apart. Now comes September 11th, we will hold a demonstration as committed to society as possible. It will not be a party! We will try to send a message. But we cannot ignore society’s aspirations. For example, now there are the European elections, we must vote, we have a conflict with Spain, we must vote for the parties that explain it in Europe. We must vote for independence! And if there are elections in October, we must be there…

—So, I understand that the mobilizations should not only be on September 11th…
—To put it one way, if we want to explain why we need to be independent, we need to explain all these problems that are consequences of dependence. And, to do so, in addition to our own initiatives, of which we will do many, because the ANC has a lot of strength, we will be proactive and collaborative with other entities. We will be behind social mobilizations that are consequences of this suffocating dependence. We don’t need to take the lead or say we are independence supporters. But the health centers can’t take it anymore, and it’s not because of cuts: it’s because we are missing 22,000 million every year, and that is outrageous. It’s half the national budget. We will go to see the farmers and help them, we will go to see all the people who mobilize. We don’t need prominence, but we will be there. Whether it’s the farmers, the problems with the train tracks, or the problems with the language. We will be there.

—Last week, another political prisoner entered prison
—Yes, three years, right? Three years for Abel.

—At another time, we would have been called to the town halls…
—Well, it’s because we are discussing whether the European elections, the amnesty, whether… Oh, they don’t agree. Meanwhile, the country is falling apart. And that’s why the amnesty will only be valuable the day the last CDR—considered the most dangerous by them—has no criminal or political responsibility of any kind. This cannot be! How do we say it? The coup d’état is still in effect, am I clear?

—Yes…
—We are in a coup d’état, and any of us, you, me, anyone reading what we say, can be imprisoned. They say someone is a terrorist, that this guy who went to prison tortured a policeman on the street, which is hard to imagine… We are in a coup d’état, and until we accept that it is a reality that is here and not in the future; as long as the behavior of the judicial power, in the face of the original power of the three, which is the legislative, is a direct heir of Francoism, this has no other name. It is a judicial coup; just look at how the names repeat themselves. We don’t need the military, congratulations, because now not so many people will die, but the coup d’état is here, gentlemen. We accept it, or if not, I don’t know what we are doing. Sorry.