Puigdemont to explain Catalonia’s independence at Harvard University

Barcelona (CNA).- Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont will give the conference ‘Catalonia, Today and Tomorrow’ at the Center for European Studies (CES) at the Harvard Kennedy School. He will be joined by CES’ director Grzegorz Ekiert during the talk, which is set to analyze the current political situation in Catalonia and its place within the EU. This week’s visit to the United States augments other official trips aimed at explaining Catalonia’s pro-independence movement abroad. Last January before the European Parliament, Puigdemont, Catalan VP Oriol Junqueras, and the Catalan Minister for Foreign Affairs, Raül Romeva, defended the Government’s plans to hold an independence referendum in 2017 . Earlier this month, at Oxford University, former Catalan President, Artur Mas, also explained Catalonia’s political situation and the current deadlock with Spain.

Accompanied by Catalan Minister for Foreign Affairs, Raül Romeva and the Delegate of the Catalan Government to the United States, Andrew Davis, Puigdemont will visit the Cambridge Innovation Centre (CIC) and the Massachusetts Institute of Tecnhnology (MIT) and will also take part in a meeting with entrepreneurs.

On Tuesday, he is expected to travel to Washington DC to visit the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage where he will sign an agreement through which Catalan culture will be featured at the Folklife festival next year. Later, the president will hold some institutional meetings as well as interviews with local media. On the following day he will sign a collaboration agreement on urban development between Incasòl, the Catalan Government's subsidiary that manages public land throughout Catalonia, and the Wilson Center, one of the most influential think tanks in the world. He will also meet with other think tanks and academics including the American Enterprise Institute, and its director Arthur Brooks, which whom he will analyze Catalonia’s future.

Finally, on Thursday, he will travel to New York where he will meet with the director of the Jewish Museum and explore future collaboration. Later, he will visit FC Barcelona’s new office in the city and will finish his trip by visiting Europastry’s new plant in New Brunswick. The Catalan family-owned business, founded in 1987, is Spain’s leader in the frozen dough sector and the fifth most important in the world, with 3200 employees in its existing Long Island plant in addition to the 250 it has added in New Brunswick.