The Vice President of the Generalitat, Jordi Puigneró, has replied that he will attend "the demonstration on September 11" organized by the ANC. "What's more, as long as there are still exiles I will go to each demonstration," he explained from Brussels on the occasion of the Day, and after the announcement that no ERC Minister, nor the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, will attend the Dyad.
“I, as well as the ministers of Junts, will attend the demonstration for the Diada of September 11, as long as there are exiles, I will always be at the demonstrations, every year, as long as there are reprisals, as long as there is fiscal spoliation, centralization and injustice for Catalonia, I will continue to attend the demonstration on September 11", Puigneró assured. "In fact, as long as the independence of Catalonia has not been achieved, I will be at the demonstration," he added.
Asked about the decision that the Republicans, including the President of the Generalitat, will not attend the demonstration that they consider "exclusive", Puigneró has avoided criticizing him. "Each one who makes his decisions, I want to state that the vice president and the ministers who are part of Junts per Cataluña will attend the Diada demonstration," he insisted.
The Minister also attended the celebration of the Diada that is commemorated every year in the Generalitat Delegation in the Belgian capital, which was also attended by the Minister of Foreign Action, Victòria Alsina. Catalan politics has recalled that Belgium has always been a host country for exiles.
During the act at the Generalitat Delegation, he read a passage from the poem by the Catalan poet Josep Carner —who spent a large part of his exile in Belgium— in a clear allusion also to the Catalan politicians who have also resided in Belgium since his departure in October of 2017, such as former president Carles Puigdemont, and former ministers Toni Comín, Lluís Puig and Clara Ponsatí.
The Catalan Delegation today also opened an exhibition on the relationship between Catalonia and Europe over the last four decades (a "love story", as Puigdemont described it), and which Alsina has referred to as a relationship based "on a commitment ”, and that this is “unquestionable”. “Because Catalonia is Europe and we all make Europe together”. Likewise, he has recalled that, despite the fact that Brussels describes the Catalan conflict as a Spanish "internal matter", he has assured that yes, it is an "internal matter", but "of the European Union".
Carles Puigdemont was also present at the celebration, who recalled the reason for the celebration of the Diada, and compared how the Catalans have always "remade themselves", since "the loss of freedoms in Catalonia in 1714" dictated with the Decree of Nueva Planta de Felipe V, and how the Catalans "suffered" in recent years, also with the speech "by Felipe VI on October 3, 2017".
Puigdemont has also had a reminder of that plenary session of the Parliament five years ago, on September 6, 2017, in which the laws that would culminate in that October 27 in which the unilateral independence of Catalonia was declared were prepared. For Puigdemont, then "we were not satisfied with surviving", and that now "we want to live, live with dignity and freedoms and that Spain still allows us". "Nothing has changed for us to back down, the reasons have increased since then, that we should not make concessions”, he argued.
