More alert in the U.S. that too much solidarity “can also break Spain”
The president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Artur Mas, today claimed in New York the need to achieve a fiscal pact and warned that, as can happen with Europe, too much solidarity “can also break Spain.”
“A lack of solidarity can break Spain, but too much solidarity as well,” More told reporters as he left the CNN studios in the Big Apple, where he gave two interviews for international service and its Spanish channel within the framework of his visit to the U.S..
Catalan President emulated and the words made a few days by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, Guido Westerwelle, applied to the European system and moved “to the Spanish context.”
“What is perhaps true for Germany from the rest of Europe, it is to the rest of Catalonia in Spain,” said More, who said his region has “long” in a situation of excessive solidarity.
“We never said that do not have to have solidarity, we have performed comfortably and now I do not argue, but also breaks the solidarity too and so we model a long time,” said the president.
The prosecutor did not claim the pact is due to “greed, but the need for Catalonia to fulfill its role of economic engine” within the Spanish state.
“We need the tools at hand to boost the economy, good for Catalonia but also for the whole Spanish State,” said Mas.
Before talking to the press, More told CNN that “if you compare the money we send to Madrid each year and we received, there is a difference of 20,000 million dollars, which is a great burden.”
“Up we say we are responsible for the total debt and that’s not true. If you look at the debt of the regions, will conclude that it is only 13% of the total”, defended But for whom “Catalonia is the great economic engine these days. ”
The head of the Government argued that, although financial institutions have been problems Catalan, there are others that have demonstrated their creditworthiness, as the case of Bank or Bank Caixa Sabadell.
On the financial system crisis in Spain, Mas regretted that measures are undertaken now would not have taken before, as did “three years ago the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Holland and other countries.”
The Catalan president said to reporters that the previous government, the socialist president of and Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, “did their homework,” when it should, but boasted that “the Spanish banking system was the best in the world and it turns out now needs help. ”
“If they had done their homework, demanding accountability, now may not be in the situation we are” clinched But today attending the opening dinner of the XVII Forum Spain United States, with the presence of Prince Felipe de Borbon and where they will be representatives Administrations of both countries and prominent CEOs on both sides of the Atlantic.
The president of the Generalitat ends tomorrow, Saturday, his journey to America, where he visited Boston and New York to promote the Catalan economy and the “Barcelona brand.”
Category: Investing
