ECR’s leader in the Eurochamber warns that without a referendum in Catalonia ‘problems will continue’

The leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament, Syed Kamall, believes that a referendum on independence is a ‘good way’ to resolve the situation in Catalonia. ‘I believe in self-determination and I was very proud when David Cameron offered the people of Scotland a referendum to vote on whether they wanted to be an independent nation or remain part of the United Kingdom’, said Kamall in an interview with the Catalan News Agency. ‘Democracy is a good way of resolving these issues’, defended the British Conservative politician who believes that without a referendum ‘problems will continue and never really be solved’.  The right to decide, Kamall said, ‘is a very good principle’, but warned that he ‘wouldn’t like to lecture any other government on what they should do’.

‘I can understand why there might be concerns, but if you don’t resolve this issue with a referendum in the same way we had a referendum in the United Kingdom on membership of the EU you continue to have these problems and never really solve them’, the politician added. The experience of the negotiations for ‘Brexit’ are, according to many Catalan leaders, an interesting precedent for Catalonia.

Kamall, who leads the group with the third most MEPs in the European Parliament, refused to ‘predict’ how might other European countries might react in the case of a unilateral declaration of independence in Catalonia. However, the politician stressed that he participated in a debate in the European Parliament shortly after the referendum result and stated that it was ‘quite clear, there was shock, sadness and there was also anger’.