"His policy of insatiable thirst, of selfish lack of solidarity and the pursuit of Castilian Spanish, even at children's school playtime, is making people begin to feel the same curse as the Germans in Hitler's times." "You shiver thinking what would happen in a Catalonia without the democratic checks derived from forming part of Spain, and totally in the hands of the nationalists." "Currently, the good Catalans, along with the rest of Spain, must face this totalitarian mentality embodied in the socialist national government of Catalonia." "This mentality, determined to ransack the rest of Spain, to persecute Castilian and even convert children into the victims of their delirium." "Overall, in Spain there is no tension." "Some columnist may comment..." "But the people in general are... in full agreement with the decision of the Catalan people in the elections." "As was the case in previous elections." "I believe there has always been a huge mistrust towards Catalonia." "Wouldn't a Esquerra-CiU government have troubled anyone?" "Before appearing Esquerra, didn't everything that Pujol did trouble us?" "Some day we must begin to state this clearly." "As Paco Umbral said:" ""We don't like gypsies because they push drugs." "They didn't before, but we didn't like them."" "We must agree on knowing what is happening to us in Catalonia." "Prior to the Second Republic, they said that Catalans were richer than the rest of Spaniards, average, of course." "Actually, they were always admired, that's another part, but there was a certain envy." "All this must be in the process of expiring because, at present, Catalonian prosperity is in doubt and, on the other hand, things are much better in the rest of Spain." "Another cliché we should begin to banish, more so taking into account that Catalonia has made a huge fiscal effort out of solidarity" "which has never been acknowledged or compensated except for this sort of mockery and this sort of unfounded accusations." "One of our problems as Catalans is that we haven't traveled through Spain to explain ourselves, to be understood." "If I tell the Castilians:" ""You should understand us..."" "The moment I ask them to understand me," "I lie down on the psychoanalyst's couch and let them be the psychologists:" ""Sure, Catalonia as a European comunity I like your mountains..." "...and you're so democratic and now I see you close minded..."" "And they begin to diagnose." "No." " Hi, good evening." " Good evening." "José Luis..." "Sorry, my name is Josep Lluís." "I don't understand Catalan." "Good evening, José Luis." "I too am from Castile and León, and can't speak Catalan." "If you, in 300 years, from 1714 to present day, haven't learned to say even Josep Lluís, yet you can say Schwarzenegger or Shevernatze, you've got a problem, not I." "No interest in learning Catalan." "Let's let them lie down on the couch and ask them:" ""What's the matter?" "What bothers you about Catalonia?"" "It's tiring to live with someone who is complaining constantly." "Be they nationalist politicians or a neighbor." "I mean, nothing is as unbearable in a building as to have a neighbor who complains about everything." "That's a pain." "The ignorance regarding... the Catalan cultural life in Madrid is total." "The lack of information in Germany on the Catalan case is also the fault of the correspondents of the large media foreign groups with a head office in Madrid, and are not often seen in Catalonia or Barcelona." "And there are people who think Castilians are threatened." "Threatened." "Without the freedom to choose a school in Castilian." "Forced to learn Catalan." "More than one has thought of leaving Catalonia so that their rights as Spanish citizens be recognized." "With due respect, some spaces of public life are monopolized by Castilian, that to me here is clearly dominant." "I have lived many years in a totally bilingual territory," "and one language should not impose itself on the other." "And as Catalonia is still Spanish soil, it is legitimate that anyone coming from elsewhere is not obligated to learn our language." "All languages have the right to be dominant and to carry out essential functions in their own territory, functions like the family language, public language, street language, school language, hospital and communication media languages." "To allow its inhabitants, its people, its citizens, to be happy and creative in their own language." "When focused in terms of the rights of languages, we put people at the service of the languages, and that way we ruin the people's rights." "Strangely enough, linguistic immersion mostly affects the Catalan speakers, because when a family speaks Castilian at home, the Castilian speaker who sends his son to a Catalan school has no problem, he speaks 2 languages." "But if you speak Catalan at home and at school, he may end up not speaking Castilian." "We all know there are students who don't speak Catalan, but none who don't speak Castilian." "The exterior presence of Castilian is so huge that it is learned even without any contact with school." "THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL SUGGESTS "TOTAL IMMERSION" IN CATALAN" "EUROPE ENDORSES THE LINGUISTIC IMMERSION POLICY" "BACKING OF EUROPE TO THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM IN CATALAN ONLY" "People can speak as they wish." "But we must achieve that anyone coming here to work from another part of Spain and wants to educate his son in Spanish, can do so." "If he wants to put up a sign over his shop in the Spanish language, he must be allowed to because this, for now, is still Spain." "The most recent law on linguistic policy states that the information for the user, the client, on the signs and the basic information must be at least in Catalan." "The law on linguistic policy assures the presence of Catalan in the information the company gives the client or user." "I wouldn't emphasize the subject." "Let's drop it, let's let things work out well, and we mestizos will make sure that Catalan, which is in a worse situation," "becomes stronger and stronger." "The conflict between Catalonia and Spain goes way back in time." "And I have evolved from a feasible attitude to a pessimistic attitude." "What has happened these last 8 or 6 years, in general, and specifically with that episode of the Salamanca Papers, have made me find attitudes of mistrust and hostility, that in some cases corresponded to not simply a lack of knowing the nature of the problem," "but to previous attitudes or rejection for being Catalan." "In the group I first discussed this there were three historians, Castilian historians." "We four were in favor of the fact that an institution that had been legalized again, like the Generalitat, had the right to recover its own papers, but when we exposed this to the collective, those always opposed to everything started," "because they're a bit obligated to be opposed." "And a very rude character said:" ""I'm opposed because when Catalans receive something, they want it all."" "Anticatalanism and presenting the Catalans" "Anticatalanism and presenting the Catalans as people eager for money, whose only interest is money, gets votes in the general elections, it's a purely political matter." "It doesn't correspond to reality, but that wave is created, which is very difficult to break, that the Catalans use the Madrid government to get advantages, but have had no more advantages than Madrid." "On the contrary." "When the Socialists governed with Catalan nationalists, from '93 to '96, the right wing spread the idea that" "Felipe González had sold out to Catalanism, that the Catalans want the money and govern and support the government for their own benefit." "But the fact is that from '96 to 2000, the right wing, although that night that I was around there, they did say that about "Pujol, midget..." "Pujol, midget... speak Castilian."" "Aznar governed with Pujol and gave him 38% of Personal Income Tax, and then it was the Socialists who launched that Aznar governed and was selling Spain and selling the PIT to Pujol." "Taxes aren't the problem." "The problem is the destination of the taxes." "There is no government in the world, that I know of, that does this:" "Calculating the fiscal scales and obtaining their balances." "There are specific experiments in some cases, but the practice proposed in the Spanish case, is not done by any other government." "I challenge anyone, whoever, to bring me studies on the fiscal balances of other countries." "My research team is working on that, and I think the only ones who study fiscal balances are the Spaniards, and some Canadians." "It's not true that this isn't done elsewhere in the world." "I work for the Parliament of Scotland and, every year, the Parliament receives a Scottish government document, that used to be published by the British government, with the fiscal balance sheets of Scotland." "This document is called GERS and shows what taxes the government has collected in Scotland, and what Scotland receives from the government in providing services." "The central government has, always, not during the last two years, approached the matter wrongly." "They've preferred not giving any information, fearing it would be used, as it is now, to do demagoguery and accuse the central government of horrible things," "but I think the way to combat this cannot be concealing, because this way you risk more." "Since you cover it up, they could say:" ""He is concealing something horrible."" "I agree with Angel de la Fuente, when in "Papers of the Spanish Economy", he wrote:" ""With or without fiscal sheets, every year the Spanish government must publish a territorial report on investments and public expenses not budgeted, but paid out, so the citizens have all the information and avoid the victimistic speech it generates."" "With all of you, the budget trick!" "Nothing here, nothing there." "We put into the hat the 3.798 million estimated, that, so as not to argue, we'll leave at 3.445, including infrastructures." "That is to say... the trains!" "I subtract the AVE," "I add a weird item that is left over," "I drop the investment in public health..." "And what do we have?" "A rabbit!" " I'd say that's a cat." " It's a rabbit, for sure." "It was a historic demand and for the first time, the central government has published the fiscal balances." "The results confirm what Catalonia has been claiming for years." "It's in deficit as it gives more to the government than it gets." "Let's analyze the results by communities, starting with the most harmed." "Of every 100 euros the Balearic Islands give the government they get back 52." "Next, Catalonia gets 68 per 100." "Catalonia contributes with a third of what it collects." "And lastly the Valencian Country, with 77 for each 100 euros." "What does this mean?" "That the 3 richest communities in the country are in fiscal deficit." "On the other side of the scale, the poorer communities get more from the Government." "In this case, Galicia, for each 100 euros contributed, receives 129." "Asturias is increasing its investment up to 148 euros." "And lastly, Extremadura earns 168 euros for each 100 it pays the government." "So, all three of them have surplus." "Conclusions reached after a long, well-trodden path." "The Spanish case is one of systematic investment that has always spurned the criteria of economic efficiency, leading Catalonia, the Valencian Country and the Balearic Islands, historically the Mediterranean Arc, huge axis of Spanish economic growth," "to what is know as convergence in poverty." "Due to an excessive draining of resources and a deficit of infrastructures that are now chronic and age-old, hardly resolvable on a short term, these territories are losing growth capacity, losing investments, business opportunities..." "The propaganda system of the "regime" did an excellent job selling the idea that the balances show that we're maltreated in general, and particularly on the subject of financing." "I don't think that's true, and here we should separate and explain things in detail." "Most of what is in the balances have nothing to do with financing." "The subjects are on personal redistribution of income, that is to say state PIT, pensions, unemployment benefits, etc." "Catalonia, on a fiscal level, is the collection of individuals who live and pay taxes there." "Its income is above average and, therefore, they pay more." "Looking at the total fiscal balance, it's exactly what you would expect." "But what you cannot expect is that from the fiscal balance a conclusion of maltreatment is reached and which entails undoing what is already done." "The fiscal balance comes from what it comes." "It comes from the EU, distributed as it is, from the Social Security, and the Constitutional Court says this is one single account." "It comes from the policies." "And above all that taxes have a more taxable basis or there are more citizens with more income in specific locations." "But that happens the world over." "It's true that natural persons and legal persons pay taxes." "But those people are living in a territory." "And public expenses have an important territorial component." "An airport is built in a territory, or not." "A highway is built in a territory, or not." "The head office of a governing body can be in one place or another." "It's senseless to deny the territorial character of taxes, and above all of public expenses." "Were it true that the people and not the territories are who pay taxes, were that true, the government would not have received EU cohesion funds." "In the case of the regional development policy that is basically established by the European Union," "it is proven that in Spain there are communities that have taken advantage and have grown, and have converged towards Europe." "On the other hand, others have been receiving funds for 20 years but still remain at the tail end of the European regions." "Prior to the state of autonomies, the citizens moved to where there was work." "Remember the migratory processes from Andalusia to Catalonia or the Valencian Community, or even from Spain to Germany." "You moved and found a job where there was work." "The state of autonomies has settled the population." ""There's no need to go and work in another community because we'll invent a REP, a Rural Employment Plan, so you won't have to leave." "I'll give you the money that you could earn working elsewhere."" "One of the greatest damages to Extremadura and Andalusia is the REP, the Rural Employment Plan." "That makes people lose hope in their work, to settle for that sort of money, cheating or not, because cheating attracts money." "And that isn't good for the people." "A subsidized territory is not a dignified territory." "There'll be a movement of young people, and out of dignity and ethics, they'll destroy it." "No one's touched the duchesses of Alba." "We still have duchesses and other landowners who get the most money out of the European Community, more money just to have the land without doing anything." "One thing is that, at a given moment, solidarity is considered necessary to create a productive blanket somewhere else, and another is that no productive blanket be consolidated." "The Andalusian feudal caciques and employers didn't take advantage of their labor force." "Their labor force and the human mules we people were there, and they were not up to par." "The Catalan employers were up to par." "It developed the productive forces, in Marxist terms, although I don't come from that field, and we proved that we're great workers." "Besides, we have carried out a job of cross-breeding, we've contributed a part of our roots." "So, the subject on identity and the identities is an important subject." "The great deceit is that they tried to build unique identities around the government project." "One government, one nation, one identity and one culture." "You can strike a deal on specific political, administrative, economic, legal powers, resources, etc..." "But you can't deal with feelings." "Feelings are there and they must be accepted and see how they exist together." "They think it's a problem of legal power but it's an identity problem." "Then they offer to transfer roads, sanitation or fishing licenses, but pay no attention to what is important:" "The acknowledgement of the national differential reality." "Some say: "No, no!" "You must acknowledge" "Spain's plurinational reality."" "I just have to take the preamble to the Constitution and there it reads "the Spanish nation"." "It would be different if the Constitution acknowledged the constituent plurality of Spain." "I believe that politicians should do a pedagogic task." "And the more and best they explain that Catalonia is a nation fully compatible with the bonds, the great essential bonds of Spain, you end up understanding." "The autonomous state doesn't mean that our nation is fragmented into plots." "There's but one nation, the Spanish nation." ""Vive la nation!" Long live the nation!" "The masses shouted in Paris in the revolutionary period." "What is a nation?" "It's the sovereignty of the people." "The nation is the sovereign people." "That is the first sense that I think is the revolutionary sense of the XIX century," "and the Germans invented the romantic sense of "nation"." "What is "nation"?" "Nation is an eternal unit in time in which you join languages together." "It's important to have a language to be a nation, a common history and the feeling of belonging to the same social group, allows us to maintain an idea of ourselves as a nation." "Between the revolutionary nation, the sovereignty of the people, and the nation like the historic community of traditions, cultures and moreover of one single language that would integrate us in a nation, we choose." "What I want is a Catalan citizenship." "Based on a Catalan citizenship, then..." "But that means the approach should be political and not strictly cultural." "As soon as they start to speak of the Spanish identity, of Castilian Spanish, "la France éternelle"," ""la France de Maurras", and all that, we must say: "Not Catalonia."" "We want Catalan citizenship, not an identity." "How disgusting." "What we are claiming here is that if we must have a Spanish project in common, the Spanish project in common must take into account not the diversity of the Ecuadorian, because we assure it everywhere, but the diversity of what was historically here." "The problem is that there is no recognition of the country's plurinationality." "They won't recognize that in Spain there are 4 great nations." "The root nation, of Castilian origin, the Basque, Galician and Catalan nations." "By doing so, what the government doesn't realize is that it generates a growth in the separatist feeling in Catalonia." "The present relationship with Spain, and that's one of the reasons I am a separatist, brings out the worst of everyone." "Our resentment and their unwillingness strengthen not what we have, because I'm in favor of Spain on the other hand." "I like Spain more than other countries and feel more identified in many things, but I discover that, even so," "our resentment and their unwillingness create an unpleasant mass and generate a muddle that I don't like." "There is that Hegelian expression that says:" ""To embrace, two people are needed."" "I'd like to embrace Spain, but first I must separate myself from it." "Spain wants to do something that is the invention of the century." "It wants to claim the plurality of the people throughout the world, but not applicable to Spain." "When in Spain, for example, it won't be a problem to speak Catalan in the Congress of Representatives, then I'll believe that Spain is a shared project in common." "Meanwhile, I can't believe it." "I would like to say a few words in Catalan, a language we aspire to use with greater normality in this common place, the Congress of Representatives." "A cordial greeting to the colleague members of our National Catalan Parliament." "You fail to comply with what I said at the spokesmen's meeting." "This is the Congress of Representatives, and when you achieve changing the regulations, you'll speak in Catalan, Galician or Euskera, and I'll love to give you the floor." "But meanwhile," "I must apply the law and regulations in force." "Switzerland has four official languages:" "Italian, French, German and Romansh." "I always speak French, both at the government Council as well as the Commissions." "There is no simultaneous translation." "That means that my German and Italian colleagues must understand me in French, and I must understand them in their languages." "The Congress of Representatives is the place that represents the National Sovereignty, and if you don't have" "Spanish national representation, you have no place in the Congress." "The thing is that" "Spain is born as a nation in the Cadiz Courts, with the peculiarity that we are still maintaining it." "There still isn't unanimity in defining what Spain is." "Regarding the properties of the monarchy, that reached the Philippines and covered the entire American continent, they" "wanted to convert them into a nation, and the 1 st article of the Constitution defines what Spain is." "Spain has a question mark because the French know that that is France, the Portuguese know that that is Portugal and we know what Spain is, but not what that thing is, we don't know what this territory comprises." "The proof is a book:" ""What Do We Call Spain?"" "And "Spain, Historic Enigma", and "Spain"..." "I guess that in 10 or 12 centuries we will end up knowing." "Spain is a nation, and it is for over 500 years, the oldest nation in Europe, as everyone knows." "Abroad, everyone understands that Spain is a nation." "They say:" "Spain is "the oldest nation in Europe"" "because it goes back to the matrimony of the Catholic Kings." "I don't know what concept that is because most of us understand that there is a nation when a human community feels a citizen of one single entity." "And that doesn't begin to appear until there is at least a constitution that sets rights and obligations." "So, it wouldn't begin to come to life until the XIX century." "In the XIX century the problem of the Spanish nation begins, to construct a national state, as is happening in France, in Italy, in Germany, all of Europe." "Should a Martian ask us:" ""How do you decide on Earth?" "Who's in command?"" ""We vote." "And the budgets?" "We vote."" ""How do you decide..." "We vote, vote, and vote."" "He looks at the map and says:" ""And how do you decide these boundaries, borders?"" ""We don't vote on that." "We fight over them."" "We decide that with wars." "If there's war in Kosovo," "Kosovo has a country." "Hell!" "As human beings we should bow our heads in shame." "He'd turn green, if that's not his natural color, but you should turn red." "On Earth we are deciding things that way." "Borders are still established by wars." "There are few exceptions." "Norway, Czechoslovakia..." "But very few." "The rest still come out of wars." "I've said: "Those of you who defend that borders are sacred and that you can vote, but here, and that the Basque and Catalan countries can't vote, and a thing called Spain can vote..." "Why?" "Because of the Battle of the Pyrenees and one man died and another got married..."" "I wrote an article:" ""Blood and Semen", with which the European borders have been made." "The emperors' semen and soldiers' blood." "And that's their great basis:" ""That's intangible, untouchable, sacred."" ""You can vote, but without questioning the framework."" "Why that framework?" "Was it voted on? "No."" "Can it be voted on? "No." Self-determination. "No."" "This must be clear." "These units we call Nation-States, were originally military structures." "The union of Spain is a concern, logically, for the military." "And without a doubt, amongst the military there is a great interest in that this age-old Spain that has so much glory and so much history, continue being a common and indivisible nation of all Spaniards." "Both General Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, born in Barcelona," "as well as the 1936 Franco's uprising, feared Catalan nationalism as one of the crucial elements." "I believe that even in the Republic there were different nationalisms, different options." "There were more or less strong nationalisms, vehement, passionate..." "But they hadn't killed each other in the name of Spain." "Those who died simply for the crime of being considered Catalanists were many." "That is the spirit of Franco's Spain." ""We have an idea of Spain:" "Our people." "The rest are heterodox and condemnable."" "The monopoly of what is Spanish by the right wing begins, above all, with Franco and becomes an instrument and a justification for the death penalty, and that implies erasing everything that wasn't Castilian or Catholic." "That was the struggle in Spain, between the most primitive forms of the sense of unity." "Remember it was prohibited to speak Catalan at the end of the war." "I lived through that in Barcelona as a child." "Franco never prohibited Catalan." "Many legends were created on that here." "No regulation ever prohibited speaking Catalan." "A FINE OF 250 PESETAS" "FOR A TELEPHONE CALL IN THE CATALAN DIALECT" "FINE APPLIED FOR SPEAKING THE CATALAN DIALECT" "I saw a lieutenant turn around and slap a man, an older man, because he was speaking Catalan with his wife." "The reality of a popular culture, because spoken by the people, has overcome those 40 years of dictatorship." "And that came out in the transition, it was an important process requesting freedom, amnisty, out of logic, that were two demands to establish a democracy, but a new claim also appeared:" "The "Statute of Autonomy"." "The 3 things went together." "Maintaining the structure of the provinces, what is called the State of Autonomies was constituted, but the Constitution says nothing about the autonomies in themselves." "That is to say, we didn't have an autonomous map." "The fact of turning up 17 is a coincidence." "Why must Cantabria be an autonomy?" "Why can Rioja, with 200.000 inhabitants, be next to Andalusia with 8 million, or Catalonia with 7?" "On the autonomous map it is basic to know the territorial structure." "Which are the Federated States, if you will." "This isn't in the Constitution." "And then, the gravest thing about this Constitution is that it doesn't establish the specific legal powers of the different autonomies." "The creation of communities in 1977 is absurd because they are so tremendously different that it almost seems grotesque." "Just saying that the Constitution must be blocked to a maximum and can't be touched or the building will collapse, shows up to what point the structure of the Constitution of Spain is weak." "Why was everything blocked?" "For one reason." "Because we were forced to accept the monarchy and it cannot be modified." "Which is what they feared we'd want to modify." "An exceptional figure enters our history." "The name of Francisco Franco will be a marker of events in Spain and a milestone impossible to avoid mentioning to understand the key to our contemporary political life." "Once upon a time there was a pretty and sunny country where a very good and good-natured prince lived." "But one day the prince became the king, and then some wanted him, others preferred the previous dictator and some really dumb people wanted a republic, which is something very ugly." "But then the king gathered them all together and when they say how good-natured he was, then he convinced them." "And then they all lived happily ever after for 50 years." "You've told her the story of the transition again!" "So?" "I've been living off that story for years." "There are three unnegotiable conditions." "The first is the monarchy." "The monarchy cannot be subjected to any plebiscite." "It must be accepted in the person of King Juan Carlos." "That's unnegotiable." "The second unnegotiable subject is to not have political reprisals for those who collaborated with Franco." "Therefore there are no processes of checking neither the military nor the civilians who participated in a repressive policy." "And the third is the single sovereignty." "Therefore, what is not conceivable or acceptable are the self-determination processes." "They thought we'd have no problems with the statutes because they had no idea about the State of Autonomies." "No one had the slightest idea." "Any politician who's lived the Transition, even the most moderate, will tell you that while negotiating the Bylaw and the Constitution, we Catalans were evidently naive." "Everything has "la grande histoire et la petite histoire"." "There is a "petite historie" that may be relevant, negotiated more by lawyers than economists." "Let's not fool ourselves, politicians test the public opinion, like doctors take your pulse," "and the Catalan public opinion at that time..." "First, because you wanted what was easiest to achieve." "Then, the horizon of speaking our language was incredible, an unthinkable horizon." "That Suárez came to Tarradellas as a legitimate member of the Spanish Republic..." "This has a huge symbolic value." "In the Constitution that was drawn up, the way it was done, amongst other things, it was to resolve the issue raised by fitting the Catalan nation into the State." "Into a common State." "I think that after, the autonomous pacts of '82, generating and standardizing the autonomies, seriously adulterated the Autonomous State." "The military did not accept, in any way, the subject of the autonomous regimes, and specifically, the Catalan autonomous regime." "That was a very serious problem that made us see the need to take the helm to avoid a military coup, as evidently they were preparing." "What is not achieved by the coup of the 23-F is achieved pacifically through the "LOAPA"." "The "LOAPA" is a law to tell the Spanish right wing, the military, and what remained of the Francoists:" ""No, sir, no." "This is the end of the line." "No one will be treated differently." "No privileges."" "So I think we have to go back to the roots and allow the development of an asymmetric situation, because the Spanish situation is asymmetric." "That is to say, Catalonia is a nation, Madrid isn't." "The Autonomous Community of Madrid and Catalonia are not the same." "The government's generalization of 17 autonomous states has become a huge cover-up by the absurd." "Catalonia cannot receive what it probably deserves due to what is reflected by its parliamentary arc, because the rest of autonomous communities cannot be generalized." "Decentralization doesn't mean that." "It means adjusting to the needs and demands of each territory." "Territories are very different." "When Catalonia has claimed certain rights, other regions have wanted the same rights without the same needs, and not being better or worse, but because they're different." "If we, in Madrid," "I'm a practicing native of Madrid, if in Madrid we would want to have a sovereign cultural policy like Catalonia needs, it would probably be a serious mistake, because we don't have a native culture on a linguistic, cultural, legal, etc." "Level to protect, promote and defend." "PROPOSAL TO REFORM THE AUTONOMOUS STATUTE OF CATALONIA" "Pasqual, I will support the reform of the Statute of Catalonia that the Catalan Parliament may approve." "The Catalan Parliament exploded in this ovation that few could have remembered." "The maximum expression of the popular sovereignty applauds that 120 of the 135 representatives have just approved the new Catalan Statute." "In the year '77-'78, the Constitution creates, in the 8th article, the Autonomous Communities, that have given rather positive results." "But in the 2nd stage of the Popular Party the president begins to criminalize everyone and brutally opposes anyone who speaks about Autonomous Communities." "The others get upset and begin to make unbearable statutes." "The so-called Ibarretxe Plan and the Catalan Statute of September 30th." "Everyone knew they were unbearable." "But, of course, you can't go over and above the Constitution because one group likes it more and another less." "We polished off Ibarretxe's before we entered the Commission." "Yes, that's true, why use euphemisms, hell?" "And the other one we polished off like a polisher during the Commission." "I've been accused, or whatever, of having written the introduction." "A very short introduction that I wrote and that disappeared from the negotiations totally." "The thing is that my introduction, as" "Maragall wanted, on the other hand, was short and memorable, something to remember," "it was an introduction that was very... how could I say?" "Very liberal." "It read:" ""After all, this is a Statute for free people." "Never should the political freedom of a country go against the private freedoms of who live here." "Because true freedom is a country in which everyone can unite diverse identities, as being a member of a party, religion, ideology... and many more things." "Identities without hierarchy or dependence amongst them." "And the task of this Statute is Catalonia's political freedom and protecting all intimate and private freedoms of the citizens."" "Some content of this proposal to reform the Statute is doubtfully constitutional." "The Constitution of 1978 is being broken." "Neither frontal rejection nor exaggerations, as I've been hearing, nor simple acceptation." "Having obtained a favorable vote from the absolute majority of the members, the text is approved, and therefore will be sent to the Senate." "With the new Statute in my hands," "I think I can confirm that victimism in Catalonia is over." "PP (RIGHT WING) CONTESTS THE STATUTE" "AND DEMANDS AN "EXEMPLARY" DECISION FROM THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT" "The Catalan Statute comes about like all nationalisms, for the purpose of continuing to move away from Spain." "And so, since its very conception, it goes against the model of living together of both parties, if there were 2 parties, which is not so." "We initiated the States of Autonomy with 3 nationalities and 14 regions." "Now we have 7 nationalities and less regions." "I'm sure that all statutes reformed from now on will also have national identity." "The power of State, the central government or the central power is practically disappearing" "due to an excess of never-ending transfers and can harm all Spaniards." "It will harm Catalans, Galicians and Andalusians alike." "It will harm all of us because Spain will lose strength worldwide." "It won't be able to defend our interests." "The problem is that it is difficult to define what is Spanish, and we're constructing Europe." "The Spanish government has lost the defense, the safety, the control of the borders, of many aspects of economic politics, the currency..." "In fact it is no longer a sovereign state, although legally it still is." "But not a sovereign state." "It's lost power in favor of the EU and other international organisms." "Today, the size of the government in fiscal and human terms is equal to or less than 25 years ago." "But what has grown is the European Union, the autonomous communities, the city halls..." "We have a structure of multi government levels in which no level is sovereign, nor can be again, so the idea of a sovereign Spanish state is obsolete, it will never exist again." "Basically, the government centralism conceals economic interests." "There is a power residing in Madrid and struggles to continue living there, to continue benefiting from its privileges." "All central government superstructures, all Ministries, the Courts, the Royal House..." "This is there." "Slowly we find out that some investments in Madrid, like the airport, the T4, the Madrid subway, the M30... have such tremendous figures on their own that they equal investments in Catalonia over 2 or 3 years." "The T4 at Barajas is an incredible case of government centralism taken to paroxysm." "Barajas is the only airport in the world with a 50% efficiency capacity." "It's like an automotive factory planned to produce 300.000 cars a year, in a plant for producing 600.000." "No other large airport in the world has such a surplus of capacity." "Why was that done?" "Why didn't they make several intercontinental airports?" "Barcelona not having an international airport is very bad for businesses, the tourist trade, for everything." "Catalonia has nearly 3.000 multinational companies." "Half of all of Spain." "A very important fact that many times is not told." "We could lose these multinationals without an international airport." "And those we are creating here, the few great companies that are becoming international." "Without an international airport they move elsewhere, and we cannot allow that in any way." "And those 15 million tourists that come to Catalonia could go elsewhere without an international airport, or change their point of arrival." "The same goes for the port." "It's absolutely indispensable." "If right now something is absolutely necessary for the Catalan economy, it is the Barcelona airport." "These last years the government has invested in Barajas 4 times more that in El Prat, disproportionally to the number of flights of both airports: 15% in Barcelona and 22% in Madrid." "All we claim is the right of the El Prat airport to compete in equal conditions." "The objective of this meeting is noble and fair." "To have our airport come back home." "That means to manage the airport like the European autonomous federal and regional governments, except for the governments of Spain, Rumania and Portugal, although in the last 2 cases the volume of flights is much lower that Barcelona's." "Over 900 planes take off or land at El Prat airport daily." "This figure makes it the 9th European airport, for now, because as per the two professors, both AENA and government investments don't seem to want Barcelona to grow, but all the contrary." "Iberia Airlines has designed the strategy of concentrating all its value added flights in the Barajas airport, making it Iberia's base in Spain." "So, there is a centralization of flights that is due, on the one hand, to business interests of a company not wanting to take up relevant space in the Barcelona airport, and, on the other, to the extent it promotes" "Barajas as a huge international hub, it coincides with the interests that the airport managements have been claiming for years," "AENA, a public company, that depends upon the Ministry of Infrastructures." "The idea of a man at the Ministry of Public Works in Madrid who is preventing flights to New York from El Prat..." "This doesn't work that way." "Perhaps there's been a bit of paranoia." "From 1991 to 2003, the Socialist and the Conservative governments have made 111 international treaties prohibiting the landing of planes in Barcelona." "From Miami, from Mexico or from Bangkok." "The Spanish PP and PSOE governments have wanted to achieve in the XXI century what they couldn't in the XIX." "A radial network of trains, of airports, of roads, to shatter the economic dynamism of the outskirts, reinforce the central part, and create a sort of great Paris to "provincialize", so to speak," "all nations and regions of the Spanish State." "There could have been a different policy when distributing investments." "To favor a network, a network system, a system to favor the economic growth poles of the country:" "Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao." "But that wasn't done." "The picture of the map of Spain is radial in terms of road and railway infrastructures, even airports." "They are centralized more and more." "Catalonia and Valencia have a commercial volume that triples Madrid's with the Valencian country." "So, that the Catalan and Valencian businessmen want to claim joint infrastructures, to coordinate as one entity to access the European market is extremely logical if you look at economic geography maps, industry distribution maps or export maps." "I do believe that the policies of infrastructures must probably be less redistributive than up to now, more concerned with efficiency, and it also has to be a less radial policy, a policy more in terms of network connections throughout the country," "linking economic centers, and not everything through the central point." "The Madrid-Barcelona AVE was to be the first constructed, and will possible be the last inaugurated in its stretch with the French border." "It arrives 20 years late from Madrid to Barcelona to maintain the profits of Iberia's air shuttle, which is the most profitable in the world." "It is more profitable for Iberia to fly passengers from Barcelona to Madrid and embark the large planes in Madrid, with more frequency in Madrid, that the profits it would get having operations in Madrid and in Barcelona." "We should talk about the Barcelona-Madrid-Barcelona shuttle because 70% of the users are Catalans who go and return from the capital of Spain." "The AVE is fantastic but on another level." "Not on the level that interests all of us." "Because workers use, basically, the commuter rail, and they go to the factories, the offices." "That's what interests us." "Commuter rails from north to south and east to west." "If we also have the AVE, great because it'll be used, but the basic subject which we cannot deny is the commuter rail." "Why this concern over Catalan infrastructures?" "This concern began, simply, when the infrastructures began to shatter, to collapse." "Not before." "Unfortunately the majority of our politicians have not had a long term point of view that could understand which were the objective needs of this economy to be able to grow." "Surely neither ones nor the others have done enough." "Then they began to worry about the infrastructures." "But, was there any concern 15 years ago?" "Perhaps we should ponder the part of blame of the regional administration." "They can't hide behind "Madrid doesn't give us" forever." "FOR 8 YEARS THE NEW COMMUTER RAIL TRAINS WENT TO MADRID" "CATALONIA AT THE TAIL END OF GOVERNMENT INVESTMENTS" "What is happening in Catalonia is the result of years, decades of insufficient government investment in Catalonia." "Catalonia has received few European funds." "Logically, there are other less developed communities that have received these funds, and now, approaching 2013, the scoreboard will be reset to 0, so to say, regarding the balance we receive from Europe." "Catalonia deserves this effort because, for years, it has had low investments below its own gross domestic product." "Whoever gives is powerful, not the receiver." "Whoever can give what cannot be returned is powerful, and generates dependency." ""Madrid wants to be generous."" "Investments over the last 16 years have been unfavorable." "Regarding investments in Andalusia, Madrid and the average, the resources invested in Catalonia have remained low, with few exceptions." "149 euros per inhabitant were invested in Andalusia, 169 in Madrid, two over the average in Spain." "In Catalonia only 138 euros were invested, which, as per the Employer's Federation, is like having no investment every 5 years." "We Catalan employers are going through a triple crisis." "The worldwide crisis, we're undergoing the Spanish crisis and besides another crisis:" "The lack of financing established in the Statute." "The first sign of institutional loyalty is to notice the serious medium- long term political consequences, of an emotional Catalan dislike towards Spain and the institutions in common." "If we continue in the progression of insults, in the progression of lies and the progression of a series of things, we'll be in an explosive situation." "WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO DECIDE ON OUR INFRASTRUCTURES" "CATALONIA SAYS:" "THAT'S ENOUGH!" "100s OF THOUSANDS OF DEMONSTRATORS DEMAND THE RIGHT TO DECIDE" "One of them is telling the other:" "The Basque want to decide, the Catalans want to decide, and we Spaniards want to decide that they shouldn't decide." "Without our own state, with an opposing state that prohibits the landing of international flights in El Prat, that invests in Catalonia less than what corresponds, not only economically but also on a population level, and has the commuter rails but" "doesn't transfer them to us, as stipulated, nor invests as a government that treats all its citizens equally, the result is that in a relatively short period of time we will be in a deep social and economic crisis." "I think it's time to react and accept that we can do nothing within the Spanish State." "The only way is either to achieve that the Spanish State be the Catalan State, like the Spaniards, like in Switzerland, in Finland, or create our own state, which has been the story of the XX century in Europe." "The majority of European states or the members of the EU are independent since the XX century." "The European Union is a union of states, and to not understand that is a mistake." "Keep in mind that there are many small states, like Malta, with 400.000 inhabitants, that has a place at the large table of European associations, while Catalonia, with 7.5 million, doesn't." "Catalonia's political solution is to wonder if it's still a country." "And if it still is, to act consequently." "Take a stance before Spanish politics of which Catalan politics is a part, stating that with a Spanish nation like France, with a capital like Paris and a recovery of very central politics the practical way, through infrastructure policies," "due to questioning the space of linguistic, cultural, financial policies in Catalonia, we cannot be here comfortably, and if we can't be comfortable, it's best not to be here." "The creation of a state makes sense, as long as, really, the solution of advancing towards a plurinational state is not possible." "I understand Spain in a more federal manner." "And if I understand it more federal," "I must give the autonomous governments the capacity to decide." "And if you're wrong, its voters will say so through the ballot boxes." "If some can decide to leave if they don't like what is being said, justice becomes corrupt through a process of negotiation." "Give me what I want or I'll leave." "You can't break the rules of the game because no one was born voluntarily in a State." "I can be Catalan in Catalonia, if I want." "I'm protected by law in that sense." "But, can I be Catalan in Spain?" "To confront the Catalan and Spanish realities is like trying to separate a mother and father." "Catalonia is and has been a part of Spain for centuries." "We must aspire to being the cultural motor, the economic motor and leader of our country, Spain." "Catalonia without Spain is nothing, and Spain without Catalonia likewise, it would be a poorer country in economy, culture and history." "17 different nations and just one true single kingdom." "All the rest are family arguments." "We belong to a family, Europe, where the Portuguese have to get along with the Latvians, because we, who have participated 500 years in this, can take 450 more." "I think that for the Catalans to feel being within the framework of Spain without any problem," "Spain must recognize that it is a plurinational entity with national realities like Catalonia, that it has been historically, and can continue, that we, the people of Spain, can do many things jointly." "Long live Spain!" "The idea of a nation, the nation of Spain, is of the extreme right wing, and has no possibilities." "What disappears is the traditional concept of "nation"." "I don't think independence day will come about." "Instead, a gradual process can lead us to understand that Catalonia should be a part of Europe, so complete, so identifying and so sovereign as the current state members." "If the trade of a historian teaches you something it is that the prophecy exercise is an absolutely senseless exercise." "Therefore, there is no ending, and one way to go." "This direction is the way to gain and get to broaden the space of all freedoms with a daily conduct which is a conduct that should be done, if it were negotiated, also with respect" "for the legitimate interests of the others." "I believe that Spain is a property in common." "All of it." "So I'm co-owner of the thousands of hectares in Spain." "Co-owner along with a series of millions of Spaniards." "I think we should resolve all this in an economic manner." "And say:" ""Now, suddenly, a part of that garden is going to be expropriated." "What's it worth?" "What's it cost?"" "Then, if you say to the rest of the Spaniards:" ""Look, each one of you will receive 15 or 20.000 euros because a piece of the territory is no longer yours."" "And the Catalans were told:" ""You have to pay so many thousands of euros to buy this plot of land from the other owners."" "That would be a logical way to do it." "Maybe self-determination wouldn't be mentioned so often." "But it seemed completely reasonable to me." "It's strictly a matter of ownership." "The choice of why Catalonia, and not Girona, for example, is the relevant community, we should pinpoint the borders of the relevant community." "There are two possibilities." "Or we do it from features in common, which is a presumption of cultural, social and historical features... of a biographical weft, or from willpower." "This complicates things because no one registers in a State voluntarily." "Article 2 says that we are indissoluble, some other article says the army guarantees integrity, and all that's fine." "There should be an article "X" saying:" "If 80% of the inhabitants of a community want to be independent, we'll sit down and talk without armies, without killing anyone." "You cannot deny a community the majority of which wants to begin a process, saying that that is not within the law." "That is a direct lie." "It's in the Legal System, in international treaties, in the UN conventions to which Spain belongs." "2 self-determination referendums have been carried out in Quebec." "After the second, the Supreme Court was consulted, there it's Supreme and Constitutional, in 1998, as to if there were a majority decision, a clear response, the obligation was to negotiate, in good faith, the separation" "by democratic principle, because nothing is above people's democratic will." "I thought we were at the end of something but we're at the beginning of I don't know what." "I like that." "What I don't know includes the state, what the states will be." "Whatever those states may be, I say: "I want one."" "I think I'll need one." "It's not a whim, I'll need it." "So as not to be marginal and get rid once and for all of these Catalan crying fits, resentment, unwillingness, irony, bitterness, that is more annoying than the Castilian arrogance." "Translation:" "Edward M. Ledden" "Subtitles:" "LASERFILM"