Artur Mas has the right from now on to collect the life pension as former president established by Catalan law.
Mas, who turns 65 this Sunday, assures from his office of
expresident
at the Palau Robert in Barcelona who has no plans to return to business or politics.
He accepts the responsibility of having started the
independence
process
, but ignores the unilateral path taken by the one he chose as his successor: Carles Puigdemont.
The political space that both shared has been divided in two: Mas has remained in the PDeCAT and Puigdemont is a candidate for Junts per Catalunya.
Question.
Will your vote be for PDeCAT?
Answer.
I will vote for PDeCAT, that is why I have stayed in the party.
But I am one of those whose heart is broken by the lack of unity within sovereignty.
I made the ultimate political sacrifice to ensure continuity, which was to leave.
Q.
The CUP said that they were sending you to the history bin.
Has gone out?
R.
The CUP boasted of that and I say it with a smile because it did my mother and someone else a favor, but there is a misinterpretation: it was to leave or repeat the elections.
I left because of that and not because the CUP fired me.
Q.
And now you vote for a party that does not appear in the polls.
How does it feel
A.
I feel frustrated.
Not because of voting for PDeCAT, but because my people have not been able to guarantee unity, which is an essential requirement to continue this project with minimal guarantees.
I feel like a victim of the rupture, not the author, but I also feel challenged to do everything possible after the elections to rebuild that unity.
Q. It
has been 10 years since you mentioned the word
procés
in a speech.
Do you feel responsible and indebted to the part of Catalonia that did not want you?
R.
I feel responsible between 2012 and 2016: until I leave.
I feel
co-
responsible until October 2017, because
President
Puigdemont asked me to collaborate side by side.
I do not feel responsible for what happened after October 2017. I would have acted very differently from how it was acted.
Do I feel responsible for all those people who have been left helpless because their position was no to independence?
Well, no.
I always stressed the possibility of voting for or against.
The elections that were held in September 2015 and December 2017 were legal, no one disputes them.
The independence movement obtained the majority.
P.
In seats, not in votes.
R.
In votes it is not known.
Because to find out, either a pure referendum is held or all the parties that stand for elections admit to being counted as yes or no.
Neither thing has happened in Catalonia.
P.
Junts says that a 50% pro-independence vote would legitimize taking certain steps.
Do you share it?
R.
If in eight years we have gone from 15% to 50%, that huge jump should make one think of Spain.
With 50% independence can neither be given nor blocked.
The exit exists, if you will.
Q.
Would the solution have been that in 2012 Rajoy had accepted financing for Catalonia similar to that of the Basque Country?
R.
Rajoy had the exit in his hand and did not see it.
Q.
Can Illa be the solution?
A.
I don't know him, but I think he has three handicaps: the first is that he has abandoned ship in the middle of the worst storm;
Can such a captain be trusted?
Also, does it make sense that someone who wants to preside over an autonomy at the time suspended it?
He agreed with 155. And finally, let's imagine that he wins the elections: what support will he have?
Obviously it doesn't add up.
That he wins can lead us to repeat the elections.
Q.
Do you take it for granted that if ERC and Junts can, they will inexorably repeat the coalition?
R.
I want to think so.
I have no doubt that the Junts will do so and the PDeCAT will continue to support a sovereign majority by setting conditions.
I am not as certain with ERC, which may be tempted by a third tripartite.
And the CUP is not to be trusted.
Q.
When David Fernández was there, did he trust you?
A.
Yes. David Fernández is not the CUP or not all the CUP is David Fernández.
The CUP has stopped voting for two sovereign presidents.
My purpose is that the one who guarantees the sovereign majority is PDeCAT.
Q.
Your mentor was Jordi Pujol.
His successor, Carles Puigdemont.
How do you handle it?
R.
In the end, those who have been presidents transcend the borders of a single party and must preserve that more institutional figure.
I feel more like a collective heritage for better and for worse.
Q. You
know you have a lot of disappointed people.
A.
I'm not saying no.
I tell you equity, which has assets and liabilities.
I also assume the liabilities.
Q.
Do you speak with Puigdemont?
A.
The last time I was able to speak calmly was four months ago, in Perpignan [France].
Q.
Would you have left, like Puigdemont?
R.
I have no answer to that question because I think I would not have found myself in that dilemma.
I would have handled things in a way that that last moment surely wouldn't have happened.
The problem is not Puigdemont or Junqueras, but the repression of the State.
Q.
Is pardon the way out?
R.
I prefer clemency to prison or exile.
But the best way out is amnesty, putting the counter to zero.
Q.
Is the PSOE of Sánchez the same as the PP of Rajoy?
R.
Not in terms of forms, because the PP is more extreme and prevents any type of agreement.
Similar in that no one puts a solution on the table to redirect the conflict with Catalonia.
The PSOE says that we must dialogue, but never says about what.
P.
Has the ERC and PSOE dialogue table served?
R.
I prefer the dialogue table than the non-table, but I do not see the fruit of that dialogue.
Q.
The
3% case is
pending
.
Does it help the accused Germà Gordó because he is afraid of what he might tell?
R.
I do not help Gordó, but the truth.
There was a false version that ran in judicial circles and that was that Daniel Osácar [former CDC treasurer] had been put by Gordó.
He didn't put it, I put it.
Proposing a person to perform a function does not mean being legally responsible for how he performs that function.
And I'm not saying that Osácar did it wrong.
Q.
Are you afraid of an accusation?
A.
No. I have always denied the existence of the
3% case.
In order for it to exist, there should be favorable treatment in public works awards and so far it has not been analyzed.
If at any time someone individually made a mistake, that person does have to pay the consequences.
P.
Convergència was sentenced for the
Palau case.
A.
In that case, attention, the blame has been placed on Mr. Osácar, who ended up in prison, but if you want to know where the relationship between the Palau and Convergència comes from, you have to go to the nineties.
Q.
And what people?
R.
I will not talk about people who surely are no longer.
But if you want to get to the truth, you have to see who at the time thought of the collaboration between the Palau de la Música and the CDC foundations and I can assure you that it was neither Mr. Osácar nor me.
Q.
Could you enter the private sector?
R.
I have no offer nor have I looked for it.
As of February, I will be able to choose, and in principle I will, to have the pension that the law establishes and that requires me to give up any private activity.
It is clear that I owe nothing to anyone, that which you imply.
Q.
Will there be someone to make you an offer?
Grifols [pharmaceutical entrepreneurs], for example.
A.
When the Grifols brothers and I talk about it, we get messed up.
There has never been and never will be anything.
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