The visit to Brussels of Catalonia’s top cabinet ministers—President Puigdemont, Vice President Junqueras and Foreign Minister Raül Romeva—has fulfilled both their objectives. For their domestic audience, they demonstrated the Executive’s cohesion and their capacity to bring, once again, a common message of commitment to the independence referendum by the end of September. To their foreign audience, they condemned Spanish democracy at the heart of Europe, in its political and administrative capital, for its lack of quality and for its persecution of pro-independence politicians in the courts. They called for international assistance before the attitude of Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy’s government, requiring Europe to become an active part of the solution and reiterating Catalonia’s historical European vocation.
Puigdemont was tempered in tone, but forceful at the root. He used a diplomatic language that is very well understood in Brussels, dressing an iron fist in a silk glove. He distanced himself from the disagreement between Catalonia and Spain and situated the point of no return for most of Catalan society at the ruling of the Constitutional Court on the Estatut, Catalonia’s Basic Law. For dignity, said the President of Catalonia’s Generalitat government. “Catalonia’s Dignity” was the title of the joint article the Catalan press published before the ruling of the TC and which, over time, proved so clairvoyant. Carles Puigdemont's words will undoubtedly have consequences, however much Esteban González-Pons, the spokesman of Spain’s governing Partido Popular at the European Parliament, tried to set a firewall to reduce the impact and ridicule the conference in the hours before.
While Puigdemont transmitted the existing political concord in Catalonia, Vice President and Minister for Economy Oriol Junqueras described the pivots of the Catalan economy today and assured the viability of an independent State. In contrast, he highlighted the financial abuse suffered by the Generalitat while unsustainable multi-million euro investments were made in the rest of the country, while discrediting Spain for its historical failure to comply to European legislation. Junqueras emphasised Catalonia’s GDP growth over and above the EU’s and the reduction in unemployment rates, even with one hand tied behind its back.
A visit such as this, whose intention was not to be received by the European authorities, can only be evaluated in one way: the attendance at the event and the impact on the media. The success of the former was shown by the largest room in the European Parliament being filled to the rafters. For the latter, it will be necessary to follow-up on the information published in following hours