Raül Romeva: ‘Europe and the world are watching us while the Spanish government threatens’

The ‘Junts pel Sí’ independentist candidature yesterday presented itself in public in the Parc de la Ciutadella in Barcelona. It was the first public act of the coalition of parties and entities for the plebiscitary elections of 27 September, two days after the President of the Government of Catalonia, Artur Mas, signed the decree to call elections. Other members of the list, Lluís Llach, Germà Bel, Josep Maria Forné, Muriel Casals, Eduardo Reyes and Oriol Amat gave brief speeches at the event, which Raül Romeva closed with a longer speech on the significance of the list.

Romeva said, ‘What is happening here is extraordinary, exceptional, it is priceless. Here there is a will to rise; this collective hope is what brings us here, that which drove us to vote on the 9-N. Just like the day we shook hands for the first time’.

Romeva explained why he accepted the proposal to head the list. ‘If I am here today it is because a lot of people have made every effort and continue to do so. This is fundamental. Let’s not be deceived, being here requires an effort, and this effort is that made by Oriol Junqueras being on the same list as his political rival, or Artur Mas, who agreed to be number four having me as number one’.

He also said that the 9-N consultation had ended badly. ‘It ended with a lawsuit and on 27-S we have to finish the work we were unable to do on 9-N’. Romeva was firm about the reasons that had brought him here, ‘We need this wave of hope to expand. We want to win, and above all we want to win a country for everyone, without exclusions, we want to recover the dignity they have tried to take away, to do real politics; we need to decide whether Catalonia is a political subject. They have crushed us. They have crushed us with unfair laws, with indecent lawsuits for setting up polls, and they threaten us continuously’.

He also made it clear, ‘We have no other alternative. We have tried everything and we have got very little of what we wanted. And we also have a long history behind us. We pulled through the long night of Francoism. We overcame a transition that turned into deceit. A court prevented what we had voted for in elections. For five years, we have asked to be listened to and have said that we want a legal referendum. We are not alone; this list is a wave of collective hope’.

Romeva ended his speech with a call for support and firmness. ‘We have to pick up that feeling of the 9-N. If we do so, we will have an exceptional result. Europe and the world are watching us while the Spanish government threatens. We will do it with the force of the polls. The best thing we have is our democratic firmness. The Spanish government cannot overturn a clear result in favour of independence. They will not be able to prevent anything done with the force of the polls. This is why they have tried to stop us voting. We will win this state which is possible. Together we will win!’