Artur Mas (Barcelona, 1956) attends La Vanguardia while Pedro Sánchez and Pere Aragonès meet at the Palau de la Generalitat. Assess the political scenario after the investiture and the negotiation. The former president warns of the weakness of independence and states that "the big issue" to be negotiated is the fiscal pact.
How do you see the political situation?
It's a great opportunity. Of these that happen a lot from time to time, and you have to take advantage of it.
With?
We must do what is already being done [negotiate]. Together they could have done something else. If Carles Puigdemont had said that he only wanted to talk about the referendum, he would have been consistent, but Pedro Sánchez has invested. If independence was ready to take the final step, I would not have recommended investing in it. But with the disarray that the independence project has now, we cannot punish the country in the coming years by hiding the inabilities of independence and pretending to be what it is not, gesticulating excessively in front of the gallery.
It is forceful.
The pro-independence project today does not have the conditions to move forward. That doesn't mean I won't have them again in the future.
You had a large majority in Parliament, but in Madrid you had no strength.
I will always prefer a significant majority in Parliament in exchange for more weakness in Madrid. In my political scheme, I prioritize Catalonia and its institutions. If it turns out that there are very small majorities here, it would be better if they were accompanied by a great capacity for influence in Madrid because many important decisions that affect Catalonia are made there.
Sánchez and Aragonès have met.
It is part of the institutional normality. I repeat what I said: whoever says that independence will be resolved in the next four years either doesn't see the game or is deceiving. We have a golden opportunity, and if that requires meeting as many times as necessary with Sánchez, it must be done. And nothing happens. You need to get all the juice out of the situation.
Shall we go back to the beginning of the process?
We are in post-processing.
So, does the process end?
Yes, and I think it's better that way. In these ten years, since we have not achieved the goals we set for ourselves, we must learn the lessons. As we know it, the process is over. This does not mean that the sovereign aspiration is over.
What do you think of the negotiation?
The investiture has been very focused on the amnesty and the verification mechanisms. There are those who hope with delight that in the coming months, in addition to this - not in opposition to this - we will have a basket full, not of fish [laughs], but of things that benefit the country beyond itself the beneficiaries are pro-independence or not.
Sánchez calls for pragmatism to talk about self-government and calés.
Independence must not give up on the referendum. In the end, one day or another, if the Catalans do not give up, this will be the solution and it will come. But it is very clear that it will not happen in the next few years and now the basket needs to be filled. What I defended in 2011 and 2012, a fiscal pact along the lines of the economic concert, is the big issue.
Is this the big opportunity?
In the same way that I say that independence has an opportunity, so does the PSOE to promote the idea of real Spain, which is not unitary, no matter how much the Constitution says so. It is plurinational, pluricultural and plurilingual.
We have three negotiation tables. Can they join?
The problem is that there is no common approach on the part of the negotiators. There must be a shared goal.
How do you see Together?
More and more orderly, with a clearer line and playing reasonably well the positions that arithmetic has given him. This takes place in a context of loss of electoral support, which mainly affects ERC, but also Junts. If we don't say it, we don't read it correctly.
There is a general retreat of independence.
It's alarming. It is the great touch of attention in the coming months. There is a year left until the elections and the risk is that the sovereignist parties will not gain a majority in Parliament. If this happens, everything changes, because it would be the Catalans themselves who would say that the independence project is, at the very least, parked. With a government led by Salvador Illa, the enormous opportunity we have in Madrid is losing steam. The pro-independence parties will not have the same incentives and everything will be more complicated.
He looks pissed off.
I'm not saying this will happen for sure, but it's the big risk. A road map and a style of doing things that restore people's confidence must be recovered.
It seems difficult. Relations between Junts and ERC are not good.
A lot, but it is the most important challenge. I'm not saying that we need to repeat Junts pel Sí, but we need to have a common goal.
Do they agree new leaderships to achieve it?
More than leadership, the fundamental issue is the project. First the country, then the project – your party – and then the person.
It's not always like that.
If we get to the elections with Junts and ERC throwing their dishes at each other and fighting like monkeys, they will be blamed for not having achieved independence and for having lost their majority.
JxCat still has no candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat.
Puigdemont will make the decision. If he wants to be a candidate, no one will argue with that. If not, the candidacy must be defined. I say this from the outside because I support Junts, but I'm not inside, I haven't taken the step.
Planning to join?
I feel close, but I want to have some distance from the matches.
PDECat lowers the blinds. Was it a mistake to bury CDC?
I still don't have a definitive criteria. I think about it many times. At the beginning I was clear that it had to be done, especially following the confession of former president Jordi Pujol. The differential fact was this. After a few years, I'm not so clear anymore. Good or bad, it's done. The idea was not to liquidate Convergència, it was to maintain and guarantee the convergent project by sacrificing some acronyms.
Together it moves towards pragmatic positions. Is there a way back?
In politics, always. I do not see this turn 100% guaranteed because it is impossible in politics... Who was to tell us that CDC would end up leading the independence process? Very strange and very curious things happen in politics.
Can the restoration of the figure of Jordi Pujol be completed with the commission of inquiry into Operation Catalunya?
I hope, I wish, and I trust that it will be so. It would be good for the country, beyond the ethical judgment about what he explained. From a political, institutional and country point of view, with a historical footprint, rehabilitation is completely healthy and even essential.
