Spanish Prime Minister and Catalan President attend the same event but avoid each other

Barcelona (ACN).- Mariano Rajoy, Prime Minister of Spain, and Artur Mas, President of the Catalan Government, both attended a business forum in Barcelona on Thursday. However, their attendance did not coincide at the event, since Rajoy did not come to hear Mas' speech and the Catalan President did not wait for the arrival of the Spanish PM. Both politicians were making visible the lack of dialogue between them regarding Catalonia's self-determination demands. In recent weeks, Rajoy has been repeating his demand that Mas give up the intention to organise a self-determination vote totally as the sine-qua-non condition for him to start talking. However, Mas considers Rajoy's condition "an imposition" and demonstrating a lack of political will, since Rajoy refuses to discuss the issue a majority of Catalans want to talk about. The Spanish PM indirectly praised the unity of Spain and insisted on the costs of going it alone, in an indirect reference to Catalonia's self-determination process. An hour earlier, the Catalan President had praised Catalonia's economy as Spain's main engine and criticised the Spanish Government for "running down a geographic brand". The focus of the business forum was on Spain's most-recognised commercial brands at international level. It was chaired by Josep Lluís Bonet, President of the Catalan wine cellar Freixenet, who urged public authorities to foster the internationalisation of the Spanish economy, by developing "the necessary political and economic conditions". In addition, Bonet praised Catalan companies for having created this forum and for taking the lead in the internationalisation of the economy in Spain, since they are the ones exporting the most and opening more to the global economy.

Mariano Rajoy and Artur Mas were at the same event in Barcelona but missed each other by 30 minutes. In fact, Rajoy travelled to Barcelona and did not meet officially with any member of the Catalan Government. On top of this, yesterday, coinciding with Sant Jordi's Day, the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, was in Barcelona for a meeting and photo opportunity with representatives from the publishing industry to discuss the sector’s situation and main challenges, a meeting organised on their busiest day of the year. While in Barcelona, Sáenz de Santamaría met with members of her own party, the People's Party (PP), but did not talk to any member of the Catalan Government. In fact, leading members of the Spanish Government and the PP have increased their visits to Catalonia in the past few months, but they are not meeting with the main Catalan authorities to talk about the self-determination claims of a majority of Catalan people. Instead, they tend to highlight their presence in Catalonia by meeting the press and they stress the dreadful consequences that independence would have for Catalan citizens and companies, according to them. Today's visit of Rajoy was not an exception, although the apocalyptic message was much more veiled than usual.

A calculated protocol to avoid each other

Rajoy announced on Wednesday that he would be arriving at the meeting half an hour after the Catalan President had finished delivering his speech. And the Catalan President announced also on Wednesday that he would not wait and would leave before Rajoy's arrival. Events went as planned and they managed to avoid each other and make obvious the lack of dialogue.

The "absolute failure" if someone goes alone

At Thursday's event, Rajoy praised "the success" the Spanish economy has achieved by "going together", without explicitly mentioning the Catalan case in all his speech. Rajoy added that this success "path […] should not be obstructed by anyone who does not at least explain the costs of walking in the contrary direction". He also warned about the "absolute failure" of any political or business project that goes it alone and not together with others. In addition, Rajoy stated that "in order to go faster maybe it is better to go alone, but in order to go further it is better to go with company", in an indirect way of praising the unity of Spain.

Barcelona is Spain's most powerful brand and probably that of Southern Europe as well

At this business event concerned with the most-recognised commercial brands of Spain, Mas praised the Catalan economy. He did so about an hour earlier than Rajoy's speech. In front of more than 200 Spanish business people, Mas stated that "the best brand Spain has, and probably the south of Europe as well, is Barcelona's brand". He praised Catalonia's "capacity to attract investments and tourism" in the global market. In addition, Mas compared Barcelona's "strength" and positive "impact" at international level with the "ease" by which the Spanish Government "runs down a geographic brand", such as Spain. The Catalan President regretted this situation, since "geographic brands", such as the Spain brand, are an important factor "to help" companies in their effort to reach new markets, export their products and attract foreign capital.

While Barcelona's brand has a positive image worldwide, Spain's is probably not helping companies when they internationalise their activities. In this vein, Mas wanted to highlight "the job done in the last 20 years" with Barcelona's brand, a marketing activity that has not counted on support from the Spanish Government. "It is not easy to create a business or a geographic brand", said Mas. However, "if we take Spain's experience, we can see how relatively easy is to run a brand down and how complicated is to consolidate it", he concluded.