[Grem] Autonómia - Erdély, Kárpátalja.kilátások Josep Borell-el

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Autonómia - Erdély, Kárpátalja.kilátások Josep Borell-el

https://www.ft.com/content/8540cba2-44a6-11e9-a965-23d669740bfb

	Spanish foreign minister warns of ‘existential’ election
Josep Borrell says rivals are inciting conflict in dispute over Catalonia
Josep Borrell, Spain's outgoing foreign minister, says the government has tried to change the tone of the dispute over Catalan separatism or 'reduce the inflammation' © AP

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David Gardner in Madrid March 13, 2019
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Spain’s election next month will be of “existential importance”, the country’s outgoing foreign minister has warned.

Josep Borrell said Spain’s democracy was being undermined by a culture of insult and incitement, in particular by ever more radical rightwing and Catalan separatist parties that feed off each other.

“We are playing with fire,” Mr Borrell told the Financial Times in an interview in Madrid. “There is a systematic exacerbation of tension and conflict, incited by people from both sides because that is what they live off.”

Spain will vote on April 28 in a general election precipitated by the failure of Socialist party prime minister Pedro Sánchez to win backing for a budget. Mr Sánchez formed a minority government last June when Mariano Rajoy of the Popular party lost a confidence vote following a corruption scandal.

Mr Borrell was regarded as a heavyweight in the Sánchez administration, having been a minister under Felipe González in the 1980s and ’90s, a former leader of the Socialist party (PSOE) and president of the European Parliament. He is expected to move to the European Commission in Brussels if the Socialists can form a new government after the election.