Puigdemont calls for leaving Spain ‘as soon as possible’

Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont accused current Spanish Minister for Home Affairs, Jorge Fernández Díaz, who is involved in a smear scandal against two Catalan pro-independence parties, of being “anti-system” and called for “leaving” Spain “as soon as possible”. “We can’t stay any longer in such a state” stated Puigdemont. “As a helpless democrat from Madrid who couldn’t change things once said: “Basques and Catalans, run away””, he said. Puigdemont also considered it “deeply blatant” that while current Spanish Minister for Home Affairs “makes a gateway by giving explanations for his illegal and abusive use” of the democratic institutions, former Catalan President Artur Mas and two other former Catalan Ministers will be put to trial “for having allowed the exercise of democracy” in the 9-N symbolic vote on independence in 2014.

Puigdemont stated that Catalans “not only have to make a change of state but also a change of era” since what is currently going on in Spain “is proper of another era, one in black and white”. He made these comments in reference to the recent political scandal involving the Director of Catalonia’s Anti-fraud Office – dismissed this Wednesday – and the announcement that the lawsuit against former Catalan President, Artur Mas, former Catalan Vice President, Joana Ortega, and former Catalan Minister for Education, Irene Rigau for organising the 9-N symbolic vote on independence in 2014 will continue.

During this Wednesday’s plenary session, the Catalan President also referred to the Spanish Elections held last Sunday, in which the Conservative People’s Party emerged victorious with 135 MPs in the 350-seat Spanish Parliament. In view of this result and bearing in mind the “incapability” to “deal with complexity” which the Spanish parties already showed after the 20-D Spanish Elections, “the possibilities of holding a referendum” in Catalonia “are wandering through outer space”.