Pro-independence departments of British universities pocket 200,000 euros The Catalan university sector is in full crisis; however, the Institut Ramon Llull grants aids to the London School of Economics and the University of Liverpool, which have hosted lectures by Guardiola and Ponsatí

María Jesús Cañizares @MJesusCanizares

Internationalizing the procés is the main objective of the Catalan diplomacy.
 



José Ignacio Torreblanca, Alfred Bosch, Paul Preston, Clara Ponsatí and Aamer Anwar (from left to right) in a debate at the London School of Economics, one of the pro-independence departments/institutions subsidized by the Govern / EVENTS LSE



Internationalizing the procés is the main objective of the Catalan diplomacy. Hence, the Government grants subsidies to international university departments predisposed to host conferences and symposiums led by pro-independence leaders. According to the data that Crónica Global has had access to, the Generalitat has allocated nearly 200,000 euros to fund English universities that sympathize with the secessionist cause, while the Catalan centers still suffer the great budget cuts of 2011.

Since 2011, the year in which the Government applied the budget cuts in social spending, the Catalan university system has lost 10.000 students due to the price of enrollment, the highest in Spain, together with fees that increased by 67%. Far from reversing this situation, the Government of Quim Torra has resigned to lower university fees in the budget of the Generalitat of 2019. However, these accounts have not been approved in the Consell Executiu or processed in the Parliament, in a procedure never seen before and very much criticised by PSC and Catalunya in Comú-Podem. The government blockade provoked by the procés has not prevented the Generalitat from maintaining its policy of secessionist promotion. Also internationally.

The pressure of Forum of Professors

Thus, according to the data obtained through the Freedom of Information Request by Alfonso Valero, founder of the Professors’ Forum, the Government has paid the London School of Economics (LSE) a total of 129,000 euros since 2000 through the Institut Ramon Llull.

Forum of Professors is a platform of professionals that rejects the "lies of separatism" and defends the unity of Spain and the Rule of Law. It watches closely the diplomatic movements of the independence movement. At the beginning of February, this association managed that a debate organized by the LSE, to which only the former minister of Education Clara Ponsatí (fugitive in Scotland), her lawyer Aamer Anwar and the minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfred Bosch, had been invited, included the presence of the professor of Political Sciences of the UNED José Ignacio Torreblanca.

The complicity of Paul Preston

The historian Paul Preston is the director of the Cañada Blanch Center for the study of contemporary Spain at the LSE. This center, funded by the Valencian foundation Cañada Blanch, dedicated to the "boost of Spanish culture, education and economy", co-organized that conference of Ponsatí and Bosch. The Cañada Blanch Foundation, according to the data compiled by Valero, has paid the LSE a total of 73,487 euros. However, it also protested against the initial "little plural" format of that colloquium.


The historian Paul Preston

In an interview with The Beaver, the newspaper of the LSE, Paul Preston defended the right to self-determination and assured that Spanish intellectual life "tends to be Manichean", because it is a country where "it is easy to make enemies because either you are with them or you are against them”. Preston was one of the international observers proposed by the pro-independence leaders for the trial of 1-O, a petition rejected by the Supreme Court.
In addition, the Institut Ramon Llull has paid a total of 21,148 euros since 2008 to the University of Liverpool, which in November 2008 hosted a symposium in which the former Barça coach and self-confessed supporter of independence Josep Guardiola participated, who referred to the "repression" Catalonia suffers for holding a referéndum of independence. He also assured that the president-elect, Carles Puigdemont, "is in exile" and there are political prisoners.

https://cronicaglobal.elespanol.com/politica/catedras-inglesas-proindependentistas-embolsan-200-000-euros_225831_102.html