Either Democracy or Democracy
By Oriol Junqueras
There
are just two alternatives for Catalonia: either democracy or democracy.
While all of the Spanish State's shameful secrets come to light little
by little, with a huge scandal played by the Minister of the Interior on
center stage, they've started recommending that we invest privately
because the social security system is teetering; meanwhile, they're
setting the stage to delay retirement age while they rapidly drain the reserve
retirement funds. And they're not spending it on hospitals and schools.
They're wasting it on investments that go against economic logic, on
building a State at the service of a subsidized, centralized and
nationalist concept of Spain. Meanwhile, we discovered just the other
day that the EU funds for the Mediterranean Rail Corridor—which indeed
is essential infrastructure and which serves a productive economy!—has
been spent on construction projects in Madrid, as if they are simply
deceiving us instead of responding to historic demands that are
necessary for the economic future of such a prosperous region. At the
same time, the resources allocated by Europe to the Spanish Government
in order to welcome and settle refugees are being used to turn away
those very same refugees or to consolidate the internment centers (the
“CIE”). And while Catalan institutions and civil society are scrambling
to step up to accommodate refugees, the Spanish Government undermines
those efforts without compunction, putting all manner of obstacles in
the way of our success.
