Dear colleagues,

Tomorrow, September 11th, is the National Day of Catalonia. Thousands of people will be in the streets with a clear demand: that Catalonia become a state integrated into the European Union. This is a public outcry that has bypassed, by far, the political parties to become a general demand. Hundreds of senyeres (catalan flags) will march alongside the European flags. The state model that emerged after 40 years of Francoism is clearly perceived as exhausted, and there is a growing perception that the EU should step up and assume that there are new social and national realities in this dynamic project that insist on an accomodation different than the current one.

Many of the people who will be tomorrow on the street had not felt the need to make this demand before. And yet tomorrow they will join a demonstration that is expected to be massive and peaceful. These people have put high expectations in the European project and in its values. I hope that the European institutions will live up to these expectations, and will respond responsibly and fairly.

Therefore, dear colleagues (of the EP), I ask you to listen carefully this legitimate and democratic demand. And I urge you to be prepared and ready to face a process that is surely going to be complex, but that also seems to be unstoppable.

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