former spanish minister

Former Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Garcia Margallo, wanted to stop the 9-N symbolic vote on independence in 2014 by force, he said Wednesday during a conference with former Catalan VP, Joana Ortega. Ortega was recently banned from public office by the Spanish Constitutional Court precisely for allowing the non-official referendum. According to Margallo’s version, he suggested the Spanish President, Mariano Rajoy and the Spanish Minister for Home Affairs at the time, Jorge Fernández Díaz, suspend the consultation by taking over the Catalan Police and destroying the ballot boxes. He added that not following his advice “was a mistake” and recommended a similar action to stop the referendum scheduled for September 2017. A vote which Rajoy rejected again this Wednesday in the Spanish Parliament.

One of the most charismatic faces of the Catalan Socialist Party and once contender to Spanish President, Mariano Rajoy, ahead of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) has died at 46. The news reported his death this Sunday night due to a heart disease she suffered since her childhood. hacón was Spain’s first female ministers during Zapatero’s term of office in 2008, after shortly being Spanish Parliament’s VP and Spanish Minister for Housing. In 2016 she stepped down from PSOE’s Secretary for International Relations. “She left nobody indifferent”, said Catalan Socialist Party leader, Miquel Iceta. “Today we feel more orphan, more lonely and sadder”, he added. Many representatives from the Catalan executive, the PSOE and the Spanish Government have expressed their condolences on Twitter and admitted to be by “devastated” by the news.

Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, responded angrily to the confirmation from former Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, José Manuel García Margallo that the Spanish Government had pressured other governments to give statements against Catalonia’s pro-independence process. “It’s unacceptable,” he said and called for Margallo to explain which commitments he made, under whose authority and “what favors Spain owes” in exchange for these position statements. According to Puigdemont, Margallo’s confession proves the Catalan Government’s claims that the Spanish State “is doing everything in its power” so that Catalan representatives “are not received, listened to, or taken into account”. “I hope that the Spanish political system is democratically mature enough to demand an explanation from Mr. Margallo in Parliamentary session,” he added.

Former Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, José Manuel García Margallo, admitted that the Spanish Government pressured other governments to give statements against Catalonia’s pro-independence process. “Nobody knows all the favors we owe in exchange for the statements we got,” he said this Wednesday in an interview on Spanish TV. According to Margallo, the normal procedure when a public representative is asked about such a question is to demur, saying it is an “internal matter”.  Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, considered the facts “very serious” and urged the former Minister to give further explanations.

The Spanish Parliament will finally create a committee to investigate whether the Spanish Ministry for Home Affairs plotted to discredit Catalonia’s pro-independence process. According to a police report published last July, the so-called ‘Operation Catalonia’ was launched during last Conservative People’s Party (PP) term of office, involving former Spanish Minister for Home Office, Jorge Fernández Díaz and Inspector José Villarejo, amongst many others. Indeed, Fernández Díaz will have to appear before the Committee in relation to several tapes published last June which proved how he and former Director of Catalonia’s Anti-fraud Office, Daniel De Alfonso, plotted to discredit Catalonia’s main pro-independence parties. The creation of this Committee was first requested by left wing pro-independence ERC, former liberal ‘Convergència’, now renamed as the Catalan European Democratic Party PDeCAT and the Spanish Socialist Party, but was delayed due to Fernández Díaz’s serious illness.

PSC is the Catalan branch of the Spanish Socialist Party, a force which has alternated in the Spanish Government with the People’s Party (PP) for the last 32 years. Their influence in Catalonia started to decline in 2010 in favour of nationalist and pro-independence parties. Now the Socialists are the third force in the Catalan Parliament and the opposition party in Spain’s Congreso de los Diputados. However, many polls claim their key position in the Spanish chamber might be overtaken by alternative-left Podemos or anti-Catalan Nationalist Ciutadans, both running for the Spanish Elections on the 20-D for the first time. PSC’s candidate for Barcelona, former Spanish Minister of Defence Carme Chacón, is convinced that the Socialists are the only guarantee “to chase Mariano Rajoy out” from the Spanish government and restore “the dialogue” between Catalonia and Spain.