MADRID: The leader of Spain’s economically powerful region of Catalonia vowed yesterday to press ahead with an independence referendum during talks with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy who insists the poll is illegal.
“My message was exactly the same as a year ago, we are absolutely determined to hold the consultation,” Artur Mas told reporters following a two-hour meeting with Rajoy.
He said Rajoy reiterated his long-standing position during their talks that the referendum would be illegal under Spain’s constitution.
Mas, who has headed the Catalan government since 2010, began pushing for the referendum after he failed to clinch a better financial deal from the central government for Catalonia in 2012.
His conservative Convergence and Union party formed a political alliance after regional elections that year with the separatist Esquerra Republicana party (ERC) which has kept up the pressure for the referendum.
Mas upped the ante in December when he set November 9 as the date for the poll -- two months after Scotland votes on independence from Britain in a referendum authorised by London.
Rajoy has insisted the vote would be illegal since under Spain’s constitution referendums on sovereignty must be held nationally and not regionally. He has vowed to block any referendum.
But Mas points to polls that show a large majority of Catalans backing his planned referendum.
He told reporters he would like the referendum to have the backing of the national government.
“We want to do it within a legal framework, like the British vote,” he said in a reference to the referendum in Scotland.
With an economy roughly the size of Portugal’s, Catalonia and its 7.5 million inhabitants -- 16 percent of the Spanish population -- have long been an engine for the country as a whole.
AFP
