summit

Catalan minister Damià Calvet and Barcelona mayor Ada Colau are in New York this week

Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau will go to UN climate change summit in New York on Monday

Thursday and Friday sees the EU-Startups Summit 2019 held in the Catalan capital for the second year in a row

"Mini-summit": Madrid open to including ministers in presidential reunion

Spanish government rules out independence vote in meeting marked by "great discrepancies" 

Opposition skeptical as governments are set to meet on Wednesday after 7-year break

Catalan Government Spokeswoman, Neus Munté, complained about the Spanish Government's “gross ignorance” of the reality of the situation in Catalonia and considered its “lack of responses” to be the reason why Catalans are calling for a referendum on independence. “We are here as a result of the Spanish Government’s lack of responses and its lack of a project for Catalonia,” said Munté, lamenting Spain’s repeated refusal to negotiate on a referendum. The Catalan Government spokeswoman also emphasized the need to "set the date and the question of the referendum". She made these statements on Monday, after attending the cross-party meeting to assess Spain’s refusal to negotiate a referendum with Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont.

Spain’s call for Catalan leaders to attend the upcoming Autonomous Communities’ summits to discuss regional policies has not changed the Government’s plan for the meetings. The Catalan Vice President and Catalan Minister for Economy and Tax Office, Oriol Junqueras, have refused to attend the Council on Fiscal and Financial Policies (CPFF, going by its Catalan initials) this Thursday, citing other political commitments. Catalan Secretary of Economy, Pere Aragonès, will go instead. For his part, Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, has already announced he will not attend the Conference of Presidents convened by the Spanish President, Mariano Rajoy, for the 17th of January. “Catalonia has won the right to a bilateral relationship as the demands of the Catalan people have nothing to do with the requests of other Autonomous Communities”, Puigdemont said in October, when he announced that he would not be attending the conference.

The Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, has summoned the members of the National Alliance for the Right to Self-Determination to meet on the 23^rd of December to start organising the referendum on independence. The summit, in compliance with the resolutions adopted at the general policy debate in October, will be chaired by Puigdemont and the President of the Parliament, Carme Forcadell. As sources close to the presidency have told the Catalan News Agency, the meeting will be held in the Parliament just after it has given green light to the 2017 budget. The aim of the meeting is to find political and social consensus around the organisation of the referendum to be held next September 2017. According to the Spanish Government spokesman, Iñigo Méndez de Vigo, the meeting is a “symptom of unilateralism”, resulting from requests from “the radicals of the CUP”.

Radical left pro-independence CUP have formally asked Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, to convene a summit at Catalan Government headquarters in order to agree on the terms of a unilateral referendum on independence. This is CUP’s preferred formula, since in view of the last Spanish Election results, they consider ultimately holding a referendum in Catalonia agreed with the Spanish State to be no longer possible. CUP has suggested inviting to this summit all groups which are for holding a referendum, meaning pro-independence cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’, alternative left alliance ‘Catalunya Sí que es Pot’ and also alternative left ‘En Comú Podem’, which is not represented in the Catalan Parliament but won the recent Spanish Elections in Catalonia. According to CUP, the unilateral referendum on independence should be “binding” and take place within a year.

Catalan Minister for Planning and Sustainability Josep Rull is at the UN Headquarters in New York, together with over 100 representatives of local and regional governments from around the world, in order to prepare ‘Habitat III’, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, which will be held in Quito, Ecuador in October. In his intervention, Rull emphasised Catalonia’s push for independence and the legitimacy of such a process in front of the international community. I am a member of a democratically elected government that is working to become an independent state. Earlier, Rull greeted the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon “on behalf of Catalonia”. The Catalan Minister also expressed the Government’s point of view regarding the draft of the New Urban Agenda, a compilation of pledges and new obligations which set in place a new global strategy on urbanisation for the next two decades and which is expected to be approved at the Quito summit. 

Under the slogan ‘Defend refugees. Achieve world peace’a dozen Nobel Peace Laureates, professors, students and worldwide organisations will tackle the refugee humanitarian crisis and try to offer practical solutions. At the presentation of the 15^th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Barcelona, current Catalan President, Artur Mas, assured that the Catalan capital and the whole of Catalonia “are ready”to welcome those who run from war. He described Catalonia as “a good laboratory”of social cohesion and reception experiences on an international scale, as it has repeatedly welcomed people from all over Spain and was the point of departure for many Civil War exiles. Barcelona City Hall’s First Deputy Mayor, Gerardo Pisarello, highlighted Barcelona’s efforts to become a world leader in peace and in respecting human rights.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has assured that her position on the process of sovereignty in Catalonia is "very similar" to that of the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, addressing the issue at a bilateral summit held on Monday and Tuesday. In a joint press conference, Merkel emphasised the necessity to "respect" EU treaties that "guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each state". "It is very important that international law is respected. Here there is no difference", she said in response to journalists' questions. For his part, Rajoy guaranteed that whilst he is Prime Minister, there will be "no split" between Catalonia and Spain.

The Euromed ministerial conference held in Barcelona on Monday 13 April has ended with agreement on a number of initiatives to fight jihadist terrorism. The informal meeting gathered together the foreign affairs ministers of 22 European Union Member States and 10 southern Mediterranean countries and is the most important Euromed conference since 2008. They discussed irregular immigration, trade and Islamic terrorism. In regard to the latter, they agreed on increasing cooperation and information exchange between them to face this threat, as well as improving the education offered to young people, so as to avoid recruitment by jihadist activists, explained the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and European Commission Vice President, Federica Mogherini. Besides this, the Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, also insisted on his proposal to create an International Penal Court for Terrorism.

In front of the foreign affairs ministers of 22 European Union Member States, those of the southern Mediterranean countries and the Spanish PM, Mariano Rajoy, gathered in Barcelona for a summit on trade and the fight against jihadism, the Catalan Government President, Artur Mas, said in his opening speech that "Catalonia and Barcelona were born as Mediterranean and have developed as both Mediterranean and European". The Catalan President, who addressed the audience in Spanish, English, Catalan and French, also stressed that Catalonia's future horizons are "always Mediterranean and European", underlining "the umbilical cord with Europe and the Carolingian Empire that has never been broken". "We have the vocation of being a Mediterranean and European capital city", he added. In turn, Rajoy highlighted that Barcelona is "the Spanish capital of the Mediterranean".