Carlos Mazón, president of the Generalitat Valenciana, receives La Vanguardia on Thursday, a day after his visit to Catalonia, where he staged a remarkable collaboration with the large Catalan employer Foment del Treball. “I think it has been a very good starting point for this new stage of business relations with Catalonia”, he says in this interview after stressing that “I am satisfied to take care of my main client, because the main client of the Valencian Community in commercial terms is Catalonia”. “I believe that many new and important possibilities for collaboration, even investment, are opening up”, he adds after assuming that he had gone to Catalonia to, among other things, open the doors of the Valencian Community to Catalan companies: “It’s a generic offer, it’s not a political offer”, he points out. And he goes on to say that he will soon receive the Catalan chambers of commerce “to improve our relations and continue working on business opportunities”.
The president is aware of how “singular” it is that an autonomous baron of the PP and, on top of that, from Valencia, is open to “reopening bridges” with Catalonia and, moreover, in Catalonia. And he acknowledges that this understanding with employers, who applauded his intervention, has not been possible between the two governments. “The relationship with Pere Aragonès did not start well”. He remembers that the Catalan president went to Valencia a few months ago without warning him: “He neither shared his agenda nor proposed any meeting… not even a greeting”. And he criticizes that he went to an event “where he clearly advocated for the Catalan Countries and then said that he would subsidize Catalanist Valencian entities”. Mazón regrets that “the sovereignist spirit has presided over what is direct, indirect and induced in each and every one of the relationships that have been set in motion”. That is why, before talking to Aragonès, he claims to apply “the principle of reciprocity, or at least a little education”.
On the very day that Mazón was in Catalonia, in the afternoon the Catalan elections were called for May 12. He does not believe that a Catalan government with a non-independence president will change the scenario much: “For me, what is separatist is as much separatist as what consents to it or what kneels before it.” But he admits that “a non-independence government in Catalonia would be desirable to be able to talk about doing more things together, with the Valencian Community; of many more things that unfortunately cannot be discussed now”. But he insists: “Honestly, it makes me feel that the thing is difficult, in any case”.
On the day this interview took place at the Palau de la Generalitat Valenciana, the Congress of Deputies approved the Amnesty law, unfortunately for Mazón: “It is a fake way of pacification that wants there to be winners and losers ; it is to turn the world upside down so that the winners are those who broke the law, and the losers are those who defended the Constitution. It is not a pacification. It’s a surrender.”
Mazón believes that there is no concrete measure or political decision to solve the Catalan problem. “This dream has gone so far that it will take us a long time to be able to work again with some normality between the Spanish regions. It will take us a long time, but we have to start.” How?: “With a long-term strategy, fostering links from the cultural, business, commercial and even sports fields”. But Mazón is also clear that the problem cannot be solved by counter-attacking with ferocity. “We work every day with messages of harmony and normality, like what I tried to give during my recent visit to Catalonia or like what we gave with water to promote solidarity”.
In the midst of a week marked by journalistic revelations about Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s partner, the popular representative does not hesitate to defend the president from Madrid and denounces “a situation of harassment by the Government of Spain” to his colleague match “As Pedro Sánchez said, who does the Prosecutor’s Office depend on?”
He also does not avoid the controversy over the Guillem Agulló prize in the Courts: “As president of the PPCV, I have asked my party and my parliamentary group to look for meeting spaces to avoid the figure of Guillem Agulló being seized with political opportunism. The PP has been, is and will be consistent with this. And, without a doubt, what we are not willing to do, and we don’t think it is serious, is for the memory of Guillem Agulló, who died in a fascist attack, to be played with.
