MAS, CITADO POR EL WALL STREET JOURNAL

"Catalonia Wants to Leave Spain, Stay in EU" (Wall Street Journal) Posted: 07 Nov 2012 02:22 PM PST Recommended article in the Wall Street Journal: "Catalonia Wants to Leave Spain, Stay in EU". Some excerpts: (...) Just like many people in Scotland and Flanders, Mr. Mas wants Catalonia to split from the nation state that has long been its home and determine its own political, cultural, and economic destiny. But unlike the more than a million demonstrators that took to Barcelona’s streets in September, Mr. Mas doesn’t use the word “independence.” Instead, he’s lobbying for Catalonia, one of Spain’s wealthiest regions, to become “its own state within the framework of the European Union.” Catalonia will hold snap elections on Nov. 25, which Mr. Mas hopes will give the necessary momentum for a referendum or consultation over the region’s future within the next four years. (...) Another question is why Catalonia, according to Mr. Mas a proud “net contributor” to the EU budget, would feel so much better about sending money to other European regions when it wants to leave Spain partly because of the transfers it has to make to the government in Madrid. The Catalonian president said he shared Commission President José Manuel Barroso’s vision of a “more federal” Europe, where states cede more sovereignty to European institutions. “Catalonia would like to be one of the single and normal states of that federation,” he said. Such a federal Europe would leave Catalonia with less power than an independent state, but, Mr. Mas stressed, “more power than we have today.”