I'll be going to vote.

To my knowledge, no other European newspaper has devoted as many pages, as much imagination and as much journalism to the May 25 polls as ARA has. On the other hand, I don't perceive a great deal of enthusiasm in the streets or around me. Quite frankly, anywhere I look I fail to see the urge to go to the polls. Besides the media, the politicians and the keen types who hum the Ode to Joy while driving, nobody is talking about the election. Only yesterday Jordi Muñoz, our go-to political analyst, wrote a two-page piece titled "The Ghost of Abstention Looms over Europe". There is no consolation in the knowledge that euroskepticism as a trend is not just a Catalan phenomenon. But it is distressing to see that, while disaffection towards all things political is growing, the number of people who have no interest in Europe is multiplying exponentially. In Catalonia the voter turnout in the 2009 European elections was just below a meagre 37 per cent. In the whole of Spain it came to -surprise, surprise!- nearly 45 per cent.

Mr Terricabras is a peculiar candidate in that he still says things with the spontaneity of someone who finds himself in politics when he never thought he would end up there. This week, when interviewed by Lídia Heredia on TV3, he stated that Catalonia can't afford to embarrass itself now. Nobody would understand us Catalans crying out that we want to vote but not doing so on the one day when we are actually allowed to. Nobody would understand so many speeches and so much talk about wanting to be in Europe, about being a part of Europe and a much-needed partner if, when the moment of truth comes, we couldn't care less about the Union. Mr Terricabras would be in heaven if we had a 50 per cent voter turnout. Privately, Artur Mas prays for a higher turnout in Catalonia than in Spain. I appreciate that a high voter turnout would give us strength. That's why I'll be going to vote. However, I am well aware that, despite the efforts by the partisan demagogues, this is neither a plebiscite nor the general rehearsal of a referendum that we'll never be allowed to hold.

"Por consiguiente..." (1)

Felipe González's words this week prove that they will never allow a referendum nor will they change the Spanish Constitution for Catalonia to have a legal foothold to exercise its right to self-determination. The former Spanish President asked to meet the King of Spain. Donning his Savior-of-Spain superhero costume, González told the King that, presently, Spain needs a broad-based, bipartisan coalition government to face up to the grave challenges that he himself can glimpse. What does Mr González intend to stop with such a coalition government? Catalonia's independence. Or, to put it in his own words, Artur Mas' ever-increasing separatist drift. Mr Gozález's only good guess from his diagnosis and solution is that the phenomenon is growing. With words like his, more and more starred flags (2) are guaranteed to be sold every day.

What's happened to Felipe González? Josep Maria Martí Rigau, TV3's parliament reporter, has recently written Presidents de prop (Presidents Up Close). In his book, he recalls an informal conversation that some journalists had with Mr González on the 1996 campaign trail. Martí asked him if he thought that Catalonia was treated fairly and adequately in every instance and according to its contribution to the whole of Spain. Mr González was quick to reply: "Frankly, no. Catalonia as a region contributes 20 per cent of Spain's GDP and has been treated poorly for a long time. Besides, I feel that many of the criticisms Catalonia gets are unfair. Many times those who speak on behalf of Catalonia are right to complain". He was either lying unashamedly then or, as he has grown impervious to change, he has also developed the "3-C syndrome": conservative, cynical and comical. The real issue here is not that he has changed his views, but that we are still asking the same question twenty years later. It seems that, for that very reason, we have had to find an exciting way to resolve the matter.

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(1) “Por consiguiente” (Therefore) is a adverbial phrase which former Spanish President Felipe González used frequently while in office, in a verbal mannerism that many in Spain and Catalonia came to associate with him and he is still remembered by.

(2) Supporters of Catalan independence typically wave Catalan flags with a star within a triangle.