“No government has done as much as Catalonia's to adjust the economic situation” affirms the Catalan President

Barcelona (ACN).- Rotterdam-based newspaper NRC Handelsblad published an interview on Thursday evening with the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas. “Catalonia’s intervention by Spain would be unthinkable, people’s reaction would be very strong against it” Mas stated. Furthermore, according to the Catalan President, such an intervention “would be unfair, as no government has done as much as Catalonia's to adjust the economic situation”. In addition, Mas has doubts regarding the measures that the new Spanish Government is adopting, as they “are not answering what Europe is asking Spain to do”. Europe is recommending that “reforms are made in unemployment grants, reducing public employee salaries, introducing a real [healthcare] co-payment, or increasing the TVA”, and the Spanish Government is not doing so, stressed Mas. However, Catalonia has introduced a drug prescription fee and has reduced its public employee salaries, in addition to increasing university fees explained the Dutch newspaper. Furthermore, the NRC said that Spain ended 2011 with a 8.5% public deficit, and that less than 3% corresponded to the Autonomies, despite managing roughly half of public spending and sensitive areas such as healthcare, education and social policies. “We want to collect our taxes”, Mas emphasised. According to him, Catalonia is like “The Netherlands of southern Europe”, as like Dutch people “we always had to fight for our country: you were fighting against the sea to gain space, we are doing so against our powerful neighbours”. In fact, Mas defended Catalonia as “a state with a federal Europe”, with greater powers, and with Catalonia contributing to regional solidarity.

“We want to collect our taxes […] without completely closing the tap” on regional solidarity

The Catalan President criticised Spain’s current Autonomous Community model, where “spending is decentralised, but not revenue”. “Many Autonomies find it more comfortable to have Madrid manage their taxes, but we want to collect our taxes, have our own Treasury, and be able to modify the laws in our own Parliament”, Mas explained. When asked about regional solidarity, the Catalan President said that “we are not selfish; we do not want to have everything for us. We do not want to completely close the tap on solidarity with other regions, but we want to make those fiscal transfers after having collected our taxes. This way it will be much more transparent”. He also added that those transfers “should not be eternal”, and should have “a time limitation”.

In fact, official studies recognise that Catalonia has been giving 8.5% of its GDP to the rest of Spain every year, for at least the last 26 years, to pay for services offered and investments made in other communities, an amount representing around €17 billion per year. The Catalan Government’s deficit in 2011 was €7 billion.

Mas further reflected on the Autonomous Community model. “If the People’s Party (PP) and the Socialist Party (PSOE) consider Spain’s decentralisation has gone too far, they will be able to go backwards”. However, if they finally decide doing so, Mas emphasised “they will have to respect the historical realities of existing nations, mainly those of Catalonia and the Basque Country”. “Even Franco’s dictatorship was not able to eliminate those realities. The current crisis will not succeed either”, he concluded.

Catalonia, “a state within a federal Europe”, being “the Netherlands of Southern Europe”

Mas compared Catalonia with the Netherlands throughout the interview. “We are like The Netherlands of Southern Europe” he said. “We always had to fight for our country: you were fighting against the sea to gain space, we are doing so against our powerful neighbours”, he added.

The Catalan President explained his future vision for Catalonia, being “a state” like “the Netherlands or Denmark, with the same rights” within “a federal Europe, with strong powers in concrete areas, as in the United States”, where some “regions would gain more power”. In this Europe, Catalonia would be happy to pay for regional solidarity with other countries affirmed the Catalan President when he was asked about it. The NRC journalist asked if Catalonia “as the 28^th EU Member State would be one of the richest Member States, and then it will not have to pay for transfers to Andalusia or Extemadura but to Bulgaria and Slovenia”. “Exactly” answered Mas “and we will pay. Maybe not so much as Holland, because we are not so rich. But we would pay what we would be asked for”. Then, with a smile, he added, “meanwhile, we are already very used to having to pay”.

An interview in one of The Netherlands’ quality newspapers

With the title “Catalonia starts a battle with Madrid”, the journalist Merijn de Waal published the interview with the President of the Catalan Government in the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. This media is published from Rotterdam, as is one of the main quality newspapers in The Netherlands, being also distributed in part of Belgium. It is issued in the afternoon, with some 210,000 daily copies. Furthermore, since 2006, nrc.next is also published in the morning, with some 80,000 copies.