US congressman shows ‘interest and concern’ for Catalonia in meeting with minister

The US republican congressman Mario Diaz-Balart has shown “interest and concern” for Catalonia in a meeting with the Catalan foreign minister, Ernest Maragall, in Washington DC.

Diaz-Balart is member of the subcommittee on European Affairs in the US congress and he met Maragall on Thursday, a few hours before the Catalan government office in the US capital was reopened.

Direct rule

The foreign office in the US is the fourth to reopen after the Spanish government closed all but one of them down on the day it imposed direct rule on Catalonia in October 2017.

This unprecedented measure was lifted in June 2018, when a new Catalan government took office.

Soon afterwards, Maragall announced that the government's dozen foreign offices  would be reopened, which has already happened in Germany, the UK, Italy, and now the US.

The rest of the offices are expected to be reopened in the coming months, including in France and in Switzerland, while the ministry also intends to launch new ones to expand the network to other regions, such as the Maghreb and Asia.

Spain’s opposition

This is despite Spain's opposition to the reopening of new offices and its challenging of the Catalan government initiative in court, arguing the Catalan executive has not followed all the legal steps required.