international

Ireland’s ‘Houses of the Oireachtas’ will create a friendship group on Catalonia in order to get a deeper understanding of its political situation, as well as enhancing trade relationships and promoting cultural exchange. The initiative gathers together members of the Irish Assembly and the Senate representing Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, and Sinn Féin, the main parties in the bicameral parliament. Thus, Ireland is following the example of other countries such as the United Kingdom, Finland, Switzerland, and Estonia, who also have discussion groups on Catalonia. Catalan Minister for Foreign Affairs, Raül Romeva, will travel to Dublin on Wednesday to attend the presentation of the cross-party group and explain Catalonia’s referendum roadmap to the participants.

International personalities such as Nobel Peace Prize Rigoberta Menchú, Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams or US actor Viggo Mortensen have joined the ‘Let Catalans vote’ manifesto. The document, first published in 2014, supports the Catalans’ “democratic right to vote on their political future” and warns that “preventing Catalans from voting seems to contradict the principles that inspire democratic societies”. The manifesto now boasts 40 signatures, including Nobel Peace Laureate Ahmed Galai, vice-president of the Tunisian League for Human Rights and a member of the National Quartet Dialogue;South African archbishop and Nobel Peace Laureate, Desmond Tutu; and American linguist Noam Chomsky, among others.

The number of international tourists which visited Catalonia during the first trimester of 2017 grew by 4% in comparison to the same period last year, totaling 2,988,238. Thus, Catalonia continues to be the second most popular destination for international tourists which visit Spain, after the Canary Islands, which welcomed 3,661,246 visitors during the first three months of 2017. Indeed, one out of four international tourists in Spain went to Catalonia. In March alone, 1,151,664 visitors from across the globe travelled to Catalonia, 7% more than in the same month in 2016. Most of them (22%) came from France whereas 14% came from other countries in Europe.

Catalonia will have three new delegations abroad and their directors have already been appointed. Manuel Manonelles, International Relations’professor at the Universitat Ramon Llull, will be the Catalan Government delegate in Geneva, one of the cities that boasts the highest number of international institutions. The relationship between Catalonia and Poland and with the Baltic countries will be strengthened with a new delegation based in Warsaw led by Ewa Adela Cylwik. Specializing in Constitutional Law and Human Rights, Cylwik was born in Warswaw and speaks German, Russian, English, Spanish, and Catalan, in addition to Polish. The Catalan delegation in Scandinavia will be located in Copenhagen and will be led by Francesca Guardiola who has more than 30 years experience in public administration. Counting these new delegations, Catalonia will have a total of ten offices abroad; in the UK and Ireland, Brussels, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Portugal, the United States, Canada and Mexico.

DocsBarcelona International Festival celebrates its 20th Edition between May 18th and May 28th. The festival now lasts ten days instead of five, so that this year’s edition can include a record 90 documentaries. One of the most outstanding films is the Catalan-German production ‘Hacking Justice’ which tells the story of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who fought to prove the innocence of ‘Wikileaks’ founder, Julian Assange. DocsBarcelona received over 500 projects from 65 different countries worldwide, a figure which represents a 14% increase in the number of submissions in comparison to last year, consolidating the festival at an international scale.

Two Catalan researchers, Gemma Galdon and Isabel Trillas were amongst the finalists at EU Prize for Women Innovators 2017, an initiative promoted by the European Commission's Directorate General for Research and Innovation together with the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality. Galdon is a policy analyst working on the social, ethical and legal impacts of data-intensive technologies while Trillas is full Professor at the Faculty of Biology at Universitat de Barcelona and developed a pesticide based on a natural microorganism to control crop diseases. The ceremony, held on Women’s International Day at the European Parliament, awarded four European researchers for their outstanding contribution. They were Michela Magas, Petra Wadström, Claudia Gärtner and Kristina Tsvetanova.

Catalan director Carla Simón’s opera prima ‘Estiu 1993’ has won Best First Feature Award at the Berlinale Film Festival. Moreover, the International Jury awarded the film with the Grand Prix of the Generation Kplus, ‘ex aequo’ with Chinese film ‘Become who I was’, by Chang-Yong Moon. ‘Estiu 1993’ tells the story of Frida, a 6-year-old girl who faces the first summer with her new adoptive family, after her mum died from AIDS. The film, whose main character played by young actress Laia Artigas captivated the jury, is based on the director’s own childhood. Ildikó Enyedi’s Hungarian drama “On Body and Soul” won the Golden Bear for best film at the 67^th Berlinale. The international jury, headed by Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, handed out prizes far and wide, awarding a broad range of international works. 

Music and arts festivals fill Catalonia throughout the summer season. In recent years, the number and quality of them have grown exponentially, to include the participation of international artists who sometimes choose these festivals as their only Spanish tour date. So far, Jamiroquai and Pet Shop Boys are amongst the main names announced for Cruïlla Festival, to take place from the 7th to the 9th of July at Barcelona’s Parc del Fòrum. One of the most long-standing festivals, the International Festival of Porta Ferrada, which takes place in the coastal town of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, will have in their line-up Jamie Cullum and UB40, amongst many others. Beyond the festivals, no other than Sir Elton John has also confirmed that he will perform in Barcelona his only concert in Spain. This will be on the 3rd of December. 

Tourists from outside of Spain spent 17,328 MEUR in Catalonia in 2016, which represents 3.7% more than in 2015. According to the Tourist Expenditure Poll (Egatur), published by the Spanish Statistics Institute, Catalonia achieved its best result in the historic series and became, once again, the region which takes in the highest amount of tourist expenditure in the whole of Spain. Indeed, Catalonia was the focus of 22% of tourists’ total expenditure in Spain, followed by the Canary and the Balearic Islands. Those tourists who spent the most were the British, followed by Germans and the French, according to figures corresponding to the whole of Spain.  

The Catalan Department for Foreign Affairs, International Relations and Transparency will promote a seminar to share the main experiences of participative democracy worldwide. The initiative will start on the 9^th of March at Barcelona’s Centre of Contemporary Culture (CCCB) and will consist of eight sessions focused on the constitutive process which took place in Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile. According to the Department, the aim of these sessions is to share recent experiences which took place in different countries in Europe and Latin America where citizen participation was not only innovative but key in the elaboration of new constitutions. The seminar will include the presence of international professors and experts in this field.

Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder and Julio González are the protagonists of ‘Art revolutionaries’, a major exhibition which opened in London this Wednesday and will reproduce the Pavilion of the Spanish Republic from the 1937 Paris International Exposition. Catalan gallery Mayoral is the name responsible for the initiative, which aims to pay tribute “to those artists which were committed to democracy and freedom in the middle of Spanish Civil War”, Mayoral’s director, Jordi Mayoral, told the CNA. The Republican Pavilion displayed works by these artists and became a strategic platform to vindicate the tragic situation the country was going through. The exhibition includes archival documents to contextualise the artworks and “immerse the visitor in the Republican atmosphere”, added Mayoral.

Spain’s so-called ‘dialogue operation’ with Catalonia has had “zero” impact at international level. This statement was made this Tuesday by the Secretary General of the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia (Diplocat), Albert Royo, during the conference ‘Catalan Public Diplomacy in a changing world’. The talk was organised by the Federation of Internationally Recognized Catalan Organisations (FOCIR, going by its Catalan initials). According to Royo, what is transcending abroad is the “persecution of 400 Catalan elected officials being carried out by Spain”. “Until now the dialogue operation has not materialised and been translated into concrete facts, we neither see it in Catalonia nor abroad”, he added. Furthermore, he warned that with the dialogue promises Spain is “paving the way to legitimate future coercive measures [against Catalonia] at international level”.

The prosecution carried out by the Spanish justice system against Catalan Parliament President, Carme Forcadell for allegedly violating the law when allowing a debate on independence has aroused international concern. In Switzerland, a group of 15 Swiss MPs from the six parties represented in the Federal Chamber have called for their government to take a stance and express its “concern” over Forcadell’s trial. According to the MPs, which represent the six parties represented in the federal Parliament, the proceedings against Forcadell disturb “a country such as Switzerland, which is used to direct democracy”. Also this Friday, former Slovenian Minister for Foreign Affairs and MEP, Ivo Vajgl also admitted to being “worried” for the reputation of Spanish democracy and another Slovenian MEP, Igor Soltes, said that he considered Forcadell’s prosecution “scandalous”.

Thousands of citizens have expressed their support for Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, who faces trial on Friday for allowing the pro-independence roadmap to be put to vote amongst the Catalan MPs. The main civil society pro-independence associations, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), Òmnium Cultural, the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI) and also the Catalan Association of Municipalities (ACM) have called on citizens to hit the streets throughout Catalonia to support Forcadell. One of the main rallies took place on Barcelona’s Sant Jaume Square, which is between the Catalan Government’s headquarters, Palau de la Generalitat, and the Catalan capital’s City Hall. The prosecution of Forcadell and the judicial response of the Spanish Government to Catalonia’s pro-independence aspiration have also provoked international rejection and criticism across Europe.

Autonomous Communities in Spain should have “greater power to mobilise their own revenues”. This is one of the main pieces of advice the International Monetary Fund (IMF) gives in its monitoring report of the Spanish economy. The text stresses that “without reforms”, the Spanish regional financing framework remains “a risk for the achievement of fiscal targets”. “Reforms should aim to improve regions’ incentives to comply with fiscal targets while accounting for their different economic capacities”, adds the report. In this regard, it proposes a “more automatic and stricter enforcement of targets” and giving the regions greater autonomy to mobilise their incomes. Furthermore, the IMF urges Spain to reduce value-added tax exemptions and excise duties and environmental levies.