Articles by Jordi Pujol
Ideas, Values and Attitudes
December 13, 2005
Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Centre d’Estudis Jordi Pujol (CEJP) is hosting a conference entitled “Building the responsible society”. This bulletin contains complete information on the event (the speakers, details of the subjects to be debated, the schedule of events, etc.).
We will not save Europe, or Catalonia, with politics alone
November 29, 2005
We will not save Europe, or Catalonia, with politics alone, or with economic measures or mechanical social reforms based on statistics.
The July 5, 2005 editorial on this website started with a statement by Otto Schily, Minister of the Interior for the German government (at that time a coalition of socialists and green politicians). It said: “Without an urgent and confrontational debate on values, we run the risk of allowing the strengthening of egotistical tendencies: the enemies of life and the negators of the future.” It was followed by a statement made by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Horst Köhler, saying that Germany would not find a way out of the crisis using economic measures alone, and that it was necessary to strengthen people’s sense of responsibility, promoting a climate of effort and the ideal of working for the common good, and consolidating people’s self-esteem so that they would not become afraid and lose heart. Also, very recently, Wolfgang Clement, then German Minister of Economy and Labour, said that Germany’s problem was not unemployment but fear. All of these men put special emphasis on the state of mind of the country’s population, its fighting spirit and its morale.
A second opportunity
November 26, 2005
Due to the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the conference of Barcelona on the Mediterranean, Jordi Pujol has published an article in La Vanguradia recalling the need to promote the cooperation in the Mediterranean. In this process, the Spanish sate should play a main role.
Things and ideas are changing
November 15, 2005
There is a call prevalent throughout Europe for a debate on values (and for re-establishing our values and even certain priorities). And there are many who have to modify certain personal or political beliefs.
This is particularly palpable in Germany because there is a general feeling that the country is in crisis. But this is also true to a greater or lesser extent in many European countries, and all of them will have to address this issue. This is also true in Catalonia and in Spain.
With the Estatut, is not enough
November 05, 2005
Though, the approval of a good Estaut in Madrid contributes to the catalan progress, we will have not enough. On one hand, because the social, patriotic, and civic responsibility are exclusively a citizen’s competence, and on the other side, because we will always have to surpass well permanent challenges as the identity, immigration, competitiveness or improving of the welfare state.
To López Burniol: Do not quit
November 04, 2005
In response to the letter of López-Burniol published in El periódico last October 27th, in which he complained of the nationalist project that promotes the Estatut and his personal sense of feeling toward the catalanism, Jordi Pujol answers him to not to renounce to this feeling, because the proposal of Estatut is good for Catalunya and good for Spain. Therefore, it is not necessary to be afraid, nor to have a radical attitude of refusal.
Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
November 01, 2005
Nowadays constant references are made to the Declaration of Human Rights. But one article in the Declaration, article 29, has been systematically silenced. This would be surprising if we didn’t already know the reason why.
What does article 29 say? It says “Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.”
Why should an article as important as this one – concerning no less than the free and full development of the person – be suppressed?
Essential components (all necessarys) of catalanism
October 18, 2005
The daily political, intellectual, and also the social defence of Catalonia as an identity and a society has its main doctrinal basis in the Herder school, namely, in German Romanticism and the idea that the individuality of a people is based on a foundation of language, of culture, of collective outlook, and of memory and awareness prior to any political constructions. And all of them are considered to be far more substantial than any constructions. This is how it has been and I don’t believe it should be renounced.
A view of the world
October 13, 2005
Despite that Catalonia is facing an historical crossing and its maximum priority is the approval of the Estatut and its relation with Spain, we cannot forget that “Our world is the World”, because all what happens affects us. It consists, as Pujol writes in the Catalonia Today, in knowing how to conjugate the maintenance of the identity with the globalisation and the opening towards the world.
Spain's time has come
October 04, 2005
It’s the title of a lot of editorials and numerous articles. They all seem to be agreeing with each other. And indeed, it’s true: Spain’s time has come.
Catalonia has done what it had to do. It has created an ambitious statute, which is at the same time serious and well worked. Ambitious, yes, but not rash. A statute that addresses the three principal themes that over time we have seen were not resolved adequately in ‘79, at least in terms of the way that various Spanish Governments have sought to apply them. They are: the recognition of Catalonia as having a separate identity, funding and the competence limits. And all with the guarantee that they will not be watered down or ignored.
