Maragall has announced that 1) he is kicking the ERC counselors out of his cabinet but keeping on ERC political appointees at lower-level spoils-system administration posts 2) the referendum on the statute will be June 18 and 3) regional elections will be held this fall, presumably in September. He did not say 4) that he's out as premier and will be replaced by either Jose Montilla or Manuela de Madre as the PSC's candidate. Carod-Rovira's response was to threaten to retire ERC's support for the Zapatero Socialist administration, which will merely force Zapatero into the arms of Mas and Duran Lerida.

The following is from Iberian Notes on March 30, 2003.

Catalunya TV is reporting that Pasqual Maragall, jerk, Catalan Socialist leader, and ex-mayor of Barcelona, has spouted off again. This time he compared Prime Minister José María Aznar with Hermann Goering. Now, that seems a bit excessive to us, but, you know, comparing Goering and Maragall doesn't seem at all unreasonable. Let's try it.