Slowly the events are unfolding. Facts seem to be going in one direction while words go in another. We are witnessing the most openly “Catalanist” CiU so far, with more independentists than ever inside of it and holding the power in all the institutions in Catalonia: the Generalitat, the town halls, etc.. While in the meantime President Mas appears on the Wall Street Journal wanting to lead the recovery of the Spanish economy and agreeing with PP to approve this year’s Catalan budget in exchange for closing down, without any hesitation, some of the Generalitat’s foreign offices, cutting their budget by half and subordinating them to the Spanish embassies and consulates. Those offices were supposed to be the core of what should have grown to be the future Catalan diplomatic corps.
In Madrid CiU has saved the Spanish Government several times in the last few weeks and hasn’t been able to negotiate anything substantial in exchange. Barcelona airport is still managed from Madrid, Spain hasn’t paid the 1.5 billion euros it owes Catalonia, etc. To top it up last week Mas made a speech in Spanish with the occasion of the visit of the Spanish Prince.
Mas commitment with Catalonia seems to have vanished and there’s no trace of the man who voted Yes on April to the popular referendums of independence
While in Catalonia 10% of the Generalitat’s budget is being cut in the meantime in Madrid, Spanish Minister José Blanco declared that now that Spain will stop receiving Europe’s money from the cohesion funds they “will have to start thinking about infrastructures viability before building them” (link in Catalan) and Madrid are considering organising a candidacy for the Olympic Games in 2020, even though Madrid Town Hall owes the astronomical amount of 7000 million euros.
CiU attitude is reinforcing PP. A party which since May have hardened their attack against Catalan language on all fronts on a prelude of what we can expect once PP wins the upcoming Spanish elections. In the Valencian Country with the closing down of the broadcasting of the TV3, the Catalan Public TV, and the Catalan language immersion in schools. Even though every year an increasing amount of parents were choosing it for their children. In the Balearic Islands, laws are being changed so that Catalan becomes residual. Catalan speaking Radio and TV of Mallorca have been closed down. In Aragó the law that was approved in 2009 which recognised Catalan as one of the region’s own languages is going to be abolished by the new PP government.
Gone seem the days when Mas claimed that this term would be the start of a “national transition” towards the right to decide of the Catalans, which in CiU’s jargon meant that they’d lead Catalonia to exercise the right of self detemination.
Mas seems to be forgetting that most of the independentist votes went to CiU lured by these promises and especially to achieve the new fiscal deal so that Catalonia collects and manages its own taxes but up until now all their actions seem to be heading in another direction.