11/12/2017 (Agence Europe) – In an interview with British daily The Financial Times on 11 December, Marta Rovira Vergés, Secretary General of the Centre-Left ERC, the leading Catalan independence party, said that it was time to put an end to symbolic declarations of independence and unilateral attempts to break away from Spain. She said she wanted to open dialogue with Madrid and the international community on organising a legal referendum on independence. The ERC number two said she was not giving up on achieving independence but was changing tactics. Rovira is a frontrunner for the Presidency of Catalonia after the elections called by the Spanish government for 21 December, the newspaper says. (PH)