14.06.2021 - 19:13
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Actualització: 14.06.2021 - 21:13
Alex Mas, son of former Minister of Economy Andreu Mas-Colell, has denounced in a series of tweets the persecution of the Spanish Court of Auditors against his father and other Catalan government officials in relation to Catalonia’s foreign action. “In two weeks my parents home, his pension and his bank account may be seized by state authorities, without due process” warns Mas.
Alex Mas is a professor at Princeton University and he was associate director of the Budget Office of the Barack Obama administration. Mas explains that his father left his position at Harvard in 1995 to come to Catalonia to start the Pompeu Fabra University and, later on, he became Minister of Economy due to his commitment to public service.
The tweets, written in English, have had a lot of resonance among academic and economy sectors, as Andreu Mas-Colell is a highly prestigious and world-wide known economist. Mas-Colell has collected support via Twitter from people like British Conservative politician Ian Duncan, New York Magazine editor Benjamin Hart and American economist Tim Kehoe, among others.
Normally I would not be posting personal developments on this website, but in this case I have a pressing concern. My dad, Spanish economist Andreu Mas-Colell, is dealing with an incredibly difficult and unjust situation. 1/
— Alex Mas (@AlexMasPton) June 14, 2021
Mas explains that “last month, a politicized, non-judicial court of controllers (Tribunal de Cuentas) made personally responsible 39 former government officials for the bulk of the expenses (back to 2011) of an entire section of the Catalan government: that concerned with foreign relations”.
And he adds: “Though not stated, he seems to be targeted because he was, in the last resort, responsible for implementing the budgets voted on by parliament. It appears that for that he is now being held personally liable for a total amount that may add up to tens of millions of dollars”.
Mas also underlinmes the discrepancy of one court member: “In what I understand is highly unusual, a member of the tribunal issued a written dissent against the decision. She says that the tribunal was not impartial, the decision was based on unproven allegations and contains exaggerations”.
