Rajoy criticizes the "populism" of the 'procés' leaders and says that their promises "crashed reality"

Remember what Ortega said: "Ignored reality always prepares its revenge"

MADRID, 17 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The ex-president of the Government Mariano Rajoy has criticized this Monday the "populism" of the leaders of the 'procés' with promises to the Catalan citizens that they could not fulfill and that they later saw "crash against reality".

"As Ortega y Gasset very well said in his day 'the ignored reality always prepares its revenge'", Rajoy declared during his speech at the conference 'Political leadership and reglobalization in Latin America, Spain and Europe' at Casa de América, which organized the consulting firm 'Thinking Heads'.

In his speech, Rajoy pointed out that one of the characteristics of the populists is that they promise an "idyllic future" and a "happy world", and he stressed that they have seen this in Greece with the Alexis Tsipras government and in the United United with Brexit. Regarding this last case, he has indicated that the promoters of Brexit have realized that "not only have they not reached paradise but they are much closer to hell".

Then he cited a "Spanish" example with the "called 'procés'". "What did they say to the citizens? When we start the procés, thousands of companies will come, we will enter Europe in a jiffy and Madrid will stop stealing from us," he stressed.

At this point, he has quoted Ortega's phrase because "the companies did not arrive but left" and Europe said that "they did not enter in any way" because in the EU it is necessary to "follow the law". "And Madrid had to fix the economic pre-bankruptcy of the Generalitat of Catalonia," she emphasized.

Having said this, the former Prime Minister has concluded his reasoning by stressing that "child populism" is "treating people like children, promising what cannot be fulfilled and then crashing into reality".

Rajoy has pointed out that another note of populism is the "lack of respect for the law and institutions." And he alluded "to the support that has been given in Spain to groups such as 'Surround Congress', the famous squatters, the so-called anti-eviction platforms, the escraches and those who, as has happened in Catalonia, have dedicated themselves to opposing democracy and the law".

In his opinion, all of them have done "a lot of damage" because "this breaking the law is the worst thing that can happen to a democracy." "When one breaks the law, what is liquidating democracy and when there is no democracy, as you all know, we go west, to the law of the strongest."

In his speech, Rajoy called for "greater political consensus", such as what happened with the Transition, the Constitution, Spain's entry into the euro or the application of article 155 of the Constitution in Catalonia. "We applied 155 with a political consensus and it was not easy. And it turned out well," he stressed.

Of course, he has admitted that it is difficult to reach agreements with an Executive like the one headed by Pedro Sánchez, who is supported by parties like ERC or Bildu. In his opinion, one of the "worst decisions that were adopted in Spain was the constitution of what some call the Frankenstein Government because it makes consensus difficult."

"It is difficult to reach agreements with these people because they deny the Constitution, the Amnesty Law...", he assured, adding that he would like the future government to return to a stage "in which there are parties that do not want check everything."