Exiled official claims Spanish diplomatic moves to bar him from event in Belgium

The former Catalan minister Lluís Puig, now exiled in Brussels, has denounced some Spanish diplomatic moves to bar him from inaugurating an exhibition in the Belgian capital.

According to him, he was set to inaugurate an event in the Free University of Brussels on Thursday evening, but “pressures” from the Spanish embassy in the country led the host organization, the architecture faculty, to suspend the planned speeches.

Puig is now director of the Catalan government program to develop cultural projects in the international sphere, but he claims not being let in the opening as such.

“We feel threatened, vilified, and strangely pursued, when speaking about architecture and promoting the Catalan architecture seems a noble task to us,” he said to the Catalan News Agency (ACN).