This morning, the President of the Government of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès i Garcia, referred to the declassification of CNI documents that justified its espionage, assuring that “it is regrettable the lies that have been included”. “If part of national security is in the hands of an intelligence service that justifies the violation of fundamental rights based on lies, then I would worry about national security,” he said from the town of Vilablareix.

Aragonès revealed that the information provided is incomplete, that no details are given to justify the spying and that it includes “assertions that are out of touch with reality and common sense”.He said the scandal was akin to “a comic farce of the likes of Mortadelo y Filemón”. “We will go all the way, behind the lies is the political intention of spying, of invading privacy and having access to our communications and our entire lives, of destroying a legitimate political project like the one we defend, that of Catalonia’s freedom,” he said.

In statements to the media, the President defended his position and his political career and called “mentioning things like clandestine actions is absurd”. “We don’t need to act surreptitiously. We defend in broad daylight and in front of the whole world what we want for this country, which is independence,” he stated.

Finally, he welcomed the fact that today’s statements by the former director of the CNI will make it possible to give “order and limits” to espionage by the Spanish intelligence services. “This is the first time there has been such a procedure and we will take advantage of it,” he said.