Saül Gordillo www.saul.cat

The match between the Catalan and Basque national teams last Sunday turned Camp Nou into a festival of pride, a cry of national self-affirmation and a call for the sides to compete in international tournaments. Pasqual Maragall and Juan José Ibarretxe, the Catalan and Basque Presidents, both gave their support, together with a crowd of around 60,000 spectators. The heated reaction from certain sectors of the media and Spanish parties shows that the Catalan and Basque way is the correct one. Catalonia and the Basque country, stateless nations in Europe, simply want Spain to act like Great Britain, where Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have an official national status separate from England. Now that Zapatero is following in Aznar‘s footsteps in his admiration of Tony Blair, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for him to copy the British model. Pity that the political offensive of the PP and Ciutadans de Catalunya, with the aid of the courts, has placed all possible obstacles not only in the way of the game against the Basques, but also the TV advertisement in favour of the Catalan team. Useless judicial censorship.

Bitllet d’opinió publicat avui al setmanari en anglès Catalonia Today.

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