politics
Rajoy erupts at “threats and intimidations”
Wanting to see Artur Mas isolated, Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy could not contain his anger yesterday at the mass support the Catalan president has received. “The demonstrations, threats and intimidations outside court are absolutely unacceptable. It is unworthy of a democratic country like Spain!” Rajoy blurted from Brussels, where he was further internationalising the conflict and putting the Catalan case on the European agenda. Ironically, it is the very same PP leader that has turned a political problem into a legal one and controls the Spanish judiciary who is now demanding the separation of powers be respected.
“Justice is independent” and “ensures compliance with the law,” said Rajoy, even if in its reports Brussels puts Spain at the tail end of Europe in terms of judicial independence. The 400 mayors, councillors, MPs and political leaders of CDC, ERC and CUP and thousands of Catalans who filled Passeig Lluís Companys with independence flags, polling urns and shouts of “Independence!” or “We are all Mas” are, according to Rajoy, an “intimidatory presence”.