Call for EU mediation

“In a very short time my life has changed completely; it has become complicated and come under a scrutiny which I believe no one is ever prepared for. Especially if is not something you ever wanted. A series of circumstances and decisions have altered things with frightening intensity. In a short time I have been taken from almost anonymity in the Catalonia where people greet each other in the street to becoming breaking news and part of the world’s media.”

Puigdemont’s book La crisi catalana (La Campana), details the key events of his mandate as the 130th president of the Generalitat. In 238 pages, he gives his own account of those days and provides fresh details about the negotiation with the State, the referendum, the proclamation of the Republic, exile in Belgium and his detention and imprisonment in Germany.

The main objective of the book is to explain the “radically democratic”, popular and pacific character of the independence movement and offer it as an opportunity to help Europe move towards a model where citizens and their needs are above those of the states.

In the book, which grew from conversations with Belgian political journalist Olivier Mouton, the president calls on Europe to help Spain find its way out of “the hole in which it finds itself” with “discreet”, not public mediation. Puigdemont sets no conditions nor demands to take part personally in talks and is aware the process could “take a long time.” The answer, he says, is in a referendum and although it would be “very unusual”, Puigdemont does not rule out the possibility of that involving all of Spain.