SPAIN: Catalan leaders defended their demand for the region to be called a nation within Spain yesterday as their controversial plan for more autonomy looked set to pass its first hurdle in Madrid's parliament.
The right-of-centre opposition Popular Party, which sees the plan as an assault on Spanish unity, says the statute is actually a constitutional amendment and has gone to the constitutional court to seek its ruling.
Catalan leaders, presenting their proposals in the Madrid parliament, defended the plan.
"I speak to you in the name of Catalonia with its seven million inhabitants, of the real Catalonia of flesh and blood . . . a Catalonia which knows and feels itself to be a nation because it is," said Artur Mas, leader of centre-right Catalan party CiU.
The issue is particularly tricky for socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero - who spoke broadly in favour of the reform yesterday - as the parties in Catalonia who created the plan are his allies.
The Catalan wing of the Socialist party governs in Barcelona in coalition with nationalists while the nationalists lend Zapatero necessary support in the Madrid parliament.
Spain's regions have varying degrees of autonomy, with the Basque Country and Catalonia - which endured particular repression under Gen Francisco Franco - enjoying broadest powers.