The leader of Spain's Popular Party in Catalonia, Xavier García Albiol, has admitted in an interview that Catalonia could achieve its independence in a period of 15 years. The PP politician warned the conservative Madrid newspaper ABC that this would happen "if the Spanish state does not react".
"The great error of the Transition", said Albiol - referring to the period in Spanish politics following Franco's death when Spain established its current political system - "was to act in good faith with the [Catalan] nationalists. If the state, across all its political and administrative dimensions, fails to react and take suitable corrective measures in Catalonia, in 15 years there will not be a '155' that can have any effect against the independence movement. and Catalonia will achieve its independence", he affirmed.
With regard to the application of 155, the constitutional article which enabled Madrid to impose its direct rule over Catalonia, Albiol recognised that the measure applied by the PP government with the support of the other major unionist parties, PSOE and Cs, was a failure. "If we are thinking of applying the same 155 now, we needn't bother because it didn't achieve anything. I don't know if the solution is to apply it again, but what is clear is that the independence movement doesn't need to control the institutions in order to misbehave, and if the state wants to avoid independence it has to take back competences in education and security, and to have much more presence in Catalonia", he concluded.