international

The former European Commission’s Spokesperson for Economic Affairs during the Eurozone crisis, Amadeu Altafaj, is to become Catalonia’s Permanent Representative to the EU institutions. This position has been created as a way to increase the political weight of the already existing Catalan Government Delegation in Brussels in the middle of the debate about independence from Spain. Altafaj, who has also worked as Deputy Chief of Cabinet of the Commission’s Vice President for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn, since 2012, will now direct this delegation and become Catalonia’s voice in the EU institutions’ offices. On many occasions, Altafaj has been vocal about Catalonia’s self-determination, supporting it and emphasising that an independent Catalan State would be economically viable.

The Disciplinary Commission of Spain’s Judicial Power Council (CGPJ) has finally stated that the 33 judges who signed a manifesto supporting Catalonia’s right to self-determination in March did not break any norm. According to the CGPJ’s statement released on Thursday, from “a strictly legal” point of view, the 33 Catalan judges – some of them very senior – were expressing “an opinion on an issue of legal, social or political interest” and such an action “is protected by fundamental freedoms such as the freedom of expression and opinion, guaranteed by Article 20 of the Constitution”. Therefore, the CGPJ has filed the case and will not take disciplinary actions against them, after an extreme-right and Spanish nationalist organization, Manos Limpias (which has nothing to do with its Italian homonym), had filed a criminal complaint against them. 

On Wednesday the Catalan Parliament passed two important bills. With 74% support, it has approved the Law of External Action and Relations with the EU. Only two parties voted against it, the Spanish nationalist People’s Party (PP) – which runs the Spanish Government – and Ciutadans (C’s). A third party, the alternative left and radical independence party CUP, abstained because it considered that the law was not “ambitious enough”. All the rest supported the bill, which mainly puts in order the existing bodies and mechanisms, although it also creates some new ones, in line with the Catalan Government’s powers in this area, recognized by the Catalan Statute of Autonomy. The other bill is the tax on Internet suppliers, which aims to fund the Catalan audiovisual sector, affected by Internet piracy. No party voted against it. The new tax aims to collect some €20.5 million per year and it is welcomed by the cinema industry, and rejected by the main Internet suppliers.

Catalan parties considered the non-binding participatory process to be "a total success" since it sends a strong message: in the near future Catalans want to hold a legal vote on independence. Around 2.25 million people gave their opinion in Sunday's participatory process in a peaceful way, in a symbolic vote without remarkable incidents. With 88% of ballot boxes counted, 81% of them voted for independence, according to figures gathered by the more than 40,000 volunteers and announced by the Catalan Government. An international delegation of observers considered the vote had "been conducted successfully" in "challenging circumstances". In fact, turnout cannot be compared to regular elections (when the total census reaches 5.4 million), since this Sunday's participation process is a non-binding way to gather opinions and it took place in difficult circumstances, with the Spanish Government's total opposition and even threatening attitude. Before knowing these results, the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, asked the rest of the world for "help" in convincing the Spanish Government of organising a mutually agreed referendum. Pro-self-determination parties asked Madrid to negotiate while Spanish nationalist parties downplayed the vote and consider it "a fraud".

More than 200 elected members of the European, Spanish and Catalan Parliaments and municipal councils from Catalonia have presented and started to sign on Wednesday an international complaint against the Spanish Government that will be sent to the United Nations, the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Council of Europe and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). They are formally accusing the Spanish Government of "violating the right of the Catalan people to decide on its own political future" and "banning the exercise of democracy ". They list reasons of democratic legitimacy, stress the sustained self-determination demands and highlight the manifold Catalan attempts to negotiate and hold a legal vote. They also emphasise the Spanish Government's total blocking attitude and they announce that Catalan representatives "feel legitimate to launch all the necessary political and legal actions". Finally, they also ask those international organisations to act in order "to guarantee that Catalonia's citizenry can democratically decide on its future".

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Argentinian activist Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, both of whom were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as UK film-maker Ken Loach, Dutch sociologist Saskia Sassen, UK historian Paul Preston, American sociologist Richard Sennett, US writer Harold Bloom, Portuguese writer António Lobo Antunes, Irish activist Bill Shipsey and US former ambassador Ambler Moss have issued the 'Let Catalans Vote' manifesto. "A majority of Catalans have repeatedly expressed in different ways the wish to exercise their democratic right to vote on their political future" the document starts. Mentioning the positive examples of Quebec and Scotland, the signers stress that "to prevent the Catalans from voting seems to contradict the principles that inspire democratic societies". Finally, they urge the Spanish and Catalan governments to agree on a vote and "to negotiate in good faith based on the result".

After the cancellation of the original consultation vote scheduled for the 9^th of November, parties are preparing for hypothetical early elections, transformed into a de facto referendum on independence. The parliamentary stability alliance between the governing centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU and the opposition left-wing Catalan independence party ERC is seriously damaged. This affects the approval of the Catalan Government's budget for 2015 and a potential electoral alliance in such a plebiscite on independence. CiU, formed by the Liberal CDC and the Christian-Democrat UDC, and social-democrat ERC were the three main parties within the pact for the consultation vote scheduled. As preparations for the 9^th of November would have required breaking Spanish law, tensions between them were raised. After the pact was broken, there have been efforts to work together again on different fronts, while UDC is looking for new allies.

In Girona there are 65 music festivals and more than 250 performances scheduled throughout the year. Often, however, these festivals are not marketed effectively abroad and there is a lack of international promotion. Therefore, the Costa Brava Tourism Board has facilitated the creation of a single brand, through a website that brings together all of the different musical delights on offer in the region, in order to make these events more accessible and better advertised. For now, the site costabravagironafestivals.com gives the music festival programme for Girona, but has a goal to expand to include theatre, circus and dance events.

The University of Geneva hosted on Friday a debate on the future of Catalonia and the question of self-determination, in the first activity of the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia (Diplocat) in Switzerland. The event, organised by the Global Studies Institute of the University of Geneva in collaboration with the Swiss daily newspaper 'Le Temps', was attended by more than 150 people, who actively participated in the debate. Guest speakers included Francesc Homs, Catalan Minister for the Presidency Office and Spokesperson for the Government of Catalonia, Mercè Barceló, Chair of Constitutional Law at the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona (UAB), and the Director of the Global Studies Institute, Nicolas Levrat.

The Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, compared the independence referendums in Donetsk and Lugansk with Catalonia’s self-determination process. The Spokesperson of the Catalan Government, Francesc Homs, rejected the comparison and stated that García-Margallo “is making a mistake” since “he is putting Spain’s image in a place that should not interest him”. “In any case, Catalonia does not compare itself” with Eastern Ukraine, Homs added. On previous occasions he has drawn attention to the peaceful demands from Catalonia, which could fit into Spain’s constitutional framework if there was the political will. Besides, the Catalan Government issued a statement in which it did not recognize the legitimacy of Donetsk’s and Lugansk’s referendums but expressed its full support for the EU decisions.

CataloniaVotes.eu is a new website set up to present the independence referendum, related news, a chronology of the last few years and facts about Catalan society, culture and economy to a foreign audience. The new webpage is in English, French and German and will also follow the day-to-day evolution of the referendum process, a consultation vote scheduled for the 9^th November. It has been launched by the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia (Diplocat), an organisation backed by the Catalan Government, the four Provincial Councils, universities, chambers of commerce, the main business-owner associations, trade unions, FC Barcelona and other public and private institutions.

In its editorial on Wednesday, the prestigious ‘The New York Times’ has dissociated the current situation in Crimea and its secession from Ukraine from the independence processes in Catalonia, Scotland and Quebec. The editorial article, which demands European Union countries to impose economic sanctions on Vladimir Putin's Russia, states that the Catalans, Scots and Quebecers “have shown there are legitimate ways to raise” the secession issue. The American newspaper criticized Crimea for its “phony referendum” with a “foreordained” outcome, organised in an express way just as Russian soldiers were being deployed in the peninsula. The newspaper admits secession is a “difficult” matter but recalled that the invasion of Crimea is “illegal”, calling on the international community to react to Putin’s actions.

On Monday, Barcelona launched its term as first European Volunteering Capital, which will feature more than 30 events spread throughout the year, combining activities created especially for the occasion and traditional celebrations. Among the most noteworthy are the promotion of volunteering in schools and the creation of a mobile app connecting volunteers and organisations in need. The Catalan Minister for Social Welfare and Family, Neus Munté, and the Deputy Mayor of Barcelona, Joaquim Forn, stressed that volunteering has always been one of the defining features of the city. Furthermore, Munté announced that the Catalan Government had already completed the drafts for a future volunteering law and action plan.

The Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia (Diplocat) has launched its first call for applications for ‘Grants for the International Projection of Catalan Civil Society Organisations’, designed to cover the participation costs of such organisations in international meetings. The grants will be managed by the Federation of Internationally Recognized Catalan Organisations (FOCIR) and applications can be submitted until the 27^th of March. The Secretary General of Diplocat, Albert Royo, detailed the call on Wednesday evening. He stressed that activities aimed towards international public opinion could have a significant impact on presenting Catalonia to the world.

The prestigious publication reacted to the speculations on the inclusion of independent Catalonia and Scotland in the EU. “It is wrong to insinuate that newly independent states could never join the EU”, stated ‘The Economist’ in its latest edition. However, the British magazine also stressed that these two cases have no precedents in Europe and therefore warned that it would be “dishonest to pretend that accession would be quick or easy” for the two nations. Indeed, according to the EU officials quoted in the article, “it would take at least four to five years to negotiate and ratify” Catalonia and Scotland’s EU full-right membership. ‘The Economist’ also scolds the President of the European Commission for having compared the “peaceful referendums in western Europe” to the “violent break-up of a Balkan country”.