“In political terms, I am a minister.” This is the blunt statement that begins the interview that the Italian newspaper La Stampa conducted with the Catalan minister of foreign affairs, Raül Romeva. “We do not issue passports and we sign no international treaties, for the moment,” adds the man who headed the Junts pel Sí (JxSí) electoral list. “For the moment?” the journalist asks. “Yes, because we want to be an independent State, and sooner or later we will be,” he said.
The journalist, Francesco Olivo, continues, asking: “Sooner or later?” And Romeva tells him: “The sooner the better. Our government answers a social demand in Catalonia. We have asked to vote dozens of times. Some 80% of Catalans want a referendum. Europe knows that we will continue to want one, but not forever.”
??Romeva said he was convinced that most international parties are aware that the Catalan case “is a civic, democratic and peaceful movement, and they have understood that the process is irreversible.”
Asked about the bus accident in Freginals, in which a number of Italian students died, and about the attitude of the Spanish and Catalan governments, Romeva responded: “We did what we had to do. That’s it. The Spanish State was absent, and I do not know why.”
