Today democracy is a bit stronger in Europe. Catalonia has spoken and it wants independence. With a turnover of almost 30% and 95% vote in favour of Catalonia to become a state within the European Union a clear message has been sent to the world and to Catalan politicians.
The Catalan society has organized itself in an unseen way with no official support, barely no budget but with the combined effort of an army of 20000 volunteers it has managed to organize in just a few weeks a voting that …

Today the referendum starts in Sant Jaume de Frontanyà, the smallest village in Catalonia but a very beautiful one. The little village has decided to advance the referendum one day to give it a little publicity, which I find fantastic.
By the way, I’ve installed a widget that allows to see the results of the referendums in real time, thanks to Reagrupament.
Go Catalonia!

Next sunday 700000 Catalan citizens in 170 municipalities across Catalonia will vote if they want their country to become a state within the European Union following the popular initiative started in Arenys de Munt las September. More referendums will be hold in March and April and yesterday the platform Barcelona Decideix announced in front of La Sagrada Familia that Barcelona will hold a referendum next April the 25th.
Several personalities like Alfons Godall, vicepresident of FC Barcelona, or Carles Móra, mayor of Arenys de Munt gave support to the initiative …

The best video I’ve ever seen that explains in very plain (pardon the pun) terms the financial reasons for Catalonia’s independence is Emili Valdero’s presentation, you don’t need to be Catalan to understand it. Emili Valdero is a catalan economist, university professor and former member of the catalan government. And he repeats this speech in every act of the Catalan independentist political association Reagrupament.cat (link in catalan).
Below is a 5 minutes excerpt of Emili’s presentation with english and catalan subtitles (although Youtube allows you to instantly translate it to …

One of the easiest ways to understand something is to have someone explain it to you from your point of view. That’s why I think the text “Life on the receiving end” by Matthew Tree is so good. It is based on a speech he gave on November 2008 at the London School of Economics.
Matthew Tree is an english writer who has lived in Catalonia for 25 years and speaks and writes in English and Catalan and he explains the Catalan situation in such a way that it is …