The former president Artur Mas has participated this Wednesday for the first time in an act of Junts per Catalunya in the campaign of the general elections of July 23. In recent months Mas has approached the formation of Jordi Turull and Laura Borràs and before the municipal elections he already participated in the presentation of some JxCat candidates. In addition, he was also present at some Xavier Trias rallies in Barcelona.

At a lunch at the Hotel Gallery in Barcelona, ??the ex-president has called on the Catalan formations to obtain the maximum possible resources for Catalonia in the negotiation with the central government, when addressing the problem of the fiscal deficit, and has shown his support for the Junts candidate, Míriam Nogueras.

On the other hand, Mas lamented that since the last financial crisis “the value of the productive economy has been lost and eroded” and that now “talking about initiative and entrepreneurship is not fashionable and is being fought in public discourse and in public politics”. For this reason, he has asked that the Catalan forces once again “give prestige” and “introduce the productive economy, which is the only real wealth.”

Likewise, Mas has indicated that the problem of the fiscal deficit is “chronic and structural” in Spain and has pointed out that it is almost as “difficult” to solve this situation as it is to achieve the independence of Catalonia.

On the abstentionist movement in some sectors of the independence movement, the former president has stated that “it is a legitimate position, but wrong”. “That you can not go to vote does not mean that you are right, you can not go to vote and you are wrong,” added Mas, who stressed that in this way “what you consider worse ends up coming out” and “no one remembers 48 hours later of the elections” of abstention.

Mas has also justified his support for Junts. “I am here in terms of Catalan utility, I want my vote to be useful in terms of Catalonia”, she asserted. “If we can choose options that we know will defend the interests of the country, we have won a lot,” added the former president, who has called for the Catalans to get out of the Pedro Sánchez-Alberto Núñez Feijóo dichotomy.