CATALUNYA has responded to Spanish president Mariano Rajoy's assertion that Europe will 'never accept a one-sided declaration of independence' by reminding him that 25 years ago, many of the countries in the European Union did not exist.
“International politics are constantly changing,” insisted Francesc Homs, regional minister of the presidency in Catalunya.
“It's a shame the president of Spain cannot show an approach closer to the essence of democracy and respect what the people of Catalunya feel,” Homs stated, referring to Rajoy's categoric refusal to enter into any discussions or negotiations and blocking any type of referendum, or even informal opinion poll, on Catalunya's secession.
“Rajoy only talks about laws – but does democracy actually count, or not?”
Homs says the government of Catalunya is not expecting any response from the European leaders to whom it has recently sent a memorandum explaining Rajoy's 'lack of willingness to discuss the issue', in the words of the region's president Artur Mas, but says Catalunya has had an 'intense schedule of officious contacts' with all EU governments and main global powers of late.
“There hasn't been a week gone by when we haven't had one contact or another of this nature,” according to Homs.
World welcomes 34 countries since 1990
Homs is quite correct insofar as the decade of the 1990s saw an upsurge of new countries being created, and several more followed in the first 10 years of the 21st century – in fact, in the 25-year period Catalunya's minister for presidency refers to, a total of 34 countries have appeared which were not there before.
And eight of these are now in the European Union.
Curiously, Catalunya has indeed been an independent State already in recent history – from 1932 to 1934, and again during the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939 - meaning it has already experienced seven years of sovereignty in the 20th century alone.
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