BARCELONA – Sunday, 06/09/2019 | Updated at 14:09 CEST
Artur Mas, in a photo from an image archive. / JOSÉ LUIS ROCA
The government of Artur Mas negotiated with China a loan of up to 11,000 million euros to create the future Catalan central bank, claiming that it was “militarily occupied in 1714” by French and Spanish troops and since then has maintained its “national dignity” and has made efforts to achieve its independence.
This is explained in a recent Civil Guard report accessed by Europa Press and presented to the Court of Instruction No. 13 of Barcelona, which investigates the preparations for the referendum on October 1, 2017. This report includes the slides of the presentation in English prepared in October 2015 by the government of Artur Mas, to explain the viability of the unilateral declaration of independence of Catalonia.
The document found in the analysis of the pendrive seized from the former Secretary of the Treasury of the Generalitat Josep Lluís Salvadó is entitled ‘Presentation of Catalonia as a state’, whose second point would deal with its History. In this sense, it begins by saying that “thousand years ago, Catalonia emerged from the Carolingian Empire as an independent country and maintained its own political organization until the eighteenth century”.
It also states that “Catalonia reached its peak as an economic, political and cultural development power in the Mediterranean between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries”, but that three centuries later it was “occupied militarily” by France and Spain “losing its political independence and its self-government institutions”, because their “language and culture was persecuted”. “Since then, it has maintained its national dignity and has strived to regain independence”, concludes the presentation.
The breakup with Spain
The power point underlines the possibility of a break with Spain after the elections of September 27, 2015 thanks to the fact that a “48 percent” voted in favor of independence and therefore the Catalan Parliament “could create its own legitimacy through the legislation”.
Thus, they would present two avenues for independence: through a referendum – which “cannot be avoided” by the Spanish Government, despite its opposition, the document says, or with the decision of the Parliament to make a “unilateral separation”, so the Government would act “as if Catalonia were not part of Spain”.
In the event that the second way was chosen, the Generalitat explained to the Chinese authorities that the Spanish Government would have the option of acting as if Catalonia were still remaining in the State and therefore “the infrastructures would not be boycotted, movements would not be interrupted across borders”, they would continue “paying pensions and transfers of Social Security” and “violence would not be resorted to”, the report said.
On the contrary, if separation was accepted, they considered in that document that Spain “would suffer a debt crisis with a contraction of 20% of GDP and a reduction of its income due to the reduction of taxes and social contributions from Catalonia”. The presentation of ‘power point’ concluded by stating: “The most resistant will win”.
One of the civil guards who examined the documents seized from Salvadò declared last March in the Supreme Court in trial for the ‘proces’ and stressed that the search for international financing in China was due to the “concern” of the members of the Government about “surviving economically” from the declaration of independence and the implementation of the Catalan Tax Agency.
Add comment