Catalan president complains of Spain's handling of Catalangate espionage affair in Brussels

Catalan president Pere Aragonès was in Brussels on Thursday, where he met with EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders to express his concerns over Spain's handling of the Catalangate espionage affair in which over 60 people with ties to the independence movement were targeted with government-grade phone spyware Pegasus and Candiru.

Speaking to the press after his meeting with Reynders, Aragonès celebrated the Spain-Portugal-France deal to create a green hydrogen pipeline between Barcelona and Marseille, and also claimed that Brussels was "interested" in and "concerned" about the espionage cases.

Reynders, meanwhile, expressed his "strong condemnation" of the espionage "if confirmed" to be true. He also said he would "follow the conclusions closely," in reference to an EU Parliament inquiry committee on the use of Pegasus spyware. 

Aragonès and Reynders are said to have discussed the 2022 Rule of Law Report, which mentions the use of Pegasus, and its recommendations. 

First meeting since 2015

This is the first time a Catalan president meets with an EU Commissioner since 2015, before the heightened push for independence that culminated with the 2017 referendum deemed illegal by Spain: former president Carles Puigdemont traveled to Brussels five years ago to speak to MEPs about the vote but was not granted a meeting in the EU Commission, nor was his successor Quim Torra. 

"We view the restoration of normalized relations very positively," Aragonès said, while presidency ministry sources argued that this has much to do with the Catalan government's strategy to pursue talks with Madrid about the independence issue.

The same sources stated that the meeting had been arranged in May, months before former junior partner Junts per Catalunya, which was against said talks, decided to leave the coalition cabinet.