Recommended article in the Financial Times: "Catalonia demands new deal from Spain"

We want to recommend Victor Mallet's article in the Financial Times "Catalonia demands new deal from Spain".

Some excerpts from the article, mostly based on an interview to President Mas:

“Catalonia cannot carry on supporting the fiscal drainage
that we have at the moment, which is roughly equal to 8 or 9 per cent of gross domestic product [some €17bn] every year,” Mr Mas said.

“So our project in the short term is fiscal sovereignty ... In the longer term, we’ll see.”

(...) says he sees no reason why Catalonia should not be a self-governing state like Finland or Denmark.

“We want to be the Holland of the south, and we can be the Holland of the south,” he said. “Holland is a very open society, with an industrial base, and it has made a big effort in innovation and science.”

Mr Rajoy’s government has threatened to rein in the Spanish regions, blaming them for swelling the country’s overall public sector deficit and making Spain miss the fiscal targets agreed with Brussels. But Catalan leaders insist their administration was among the first to impose strict austerity measures when they took power a year ago.

You can read the full article by clicking here.