Colau on ANC’s Diada event: "There are more reasons to attend than not to"

BarcelonaBarcelona Mayor Ada Colau does not rule out attending the Barcelona rally on Catalonia’s National Day (the upcoming Diada on September 11), an event hosted by the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), the main pro-independence grassroots group.

In fact, presently she is leaning towards attending. "As Mayor, there are more reasons to attend than not to", she said in an interview on Catalonia’s public TV broadcaster Canal 3/24. In fact, even though both Lluís Rabell, president of Catalunya Sí que es Pot, and ICV have stated that they would not participate, the city's deputy mayor Gerardo Pisarello announced that there would be some institutional representation from Barcelona’s local government.

Colau argued that this is a time for Catalonia to “voice its demands" and that, despite her party's disagreement with the pro-independence roadmap, it is important to "uphold" the rights of Catalans and the legitimacy of Catalan institutions. Especially, she added, at a time when there are "unacceptable legal challenges" to the Catalan political process and the Constitutional Court's "threat" of disqualification of Carme Forcadell, the Speaker of the Catalan parliament. "Although I don't agree with the roadmap, we must get our priorities straight, and that is to defend our rights and institutional legitimacy", she said, while insisting that the independence movement has always been broad-based.