Minister Borrell is a politician who tends to barge straight ahead and who is ideal when you want to express malaise with an adversary. A smooth talker with strong positions, he's a minister thanks to the support of the pro-independence parties who contributed to Pedro Sánchez's arrival to the Moncloa government palace. And he's not happy about that, not happy at all. The minister would be more comfortable with the votes of PP or Ciudadanos, but it turns out that the deputies of those two parties are in opposition to Sánchez. This Monday, Borrell, the Jacobin Borrell, has made a gesture of exaggerated hostility towards the president of Catalonia, Quim Torra, by not inviting him to the third regional forum of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) held in Barcelona and which brought together representatives of 43 countries from both sides of the Mediterranean.
Beyond minister Borrell's bad manners, the gesture is inappropriate from the point of view of the least institutional respect for the figure of the president of Catalonia. Torra is the first institution of Catalonia, he's the ordinary representative of the state both according to the Spanish Constitution and the Catalan Statute of Autonomy, and the UfM's headquarters are in the Pedralbes palace, which belongs to the Catalan government. Even in January 2017, for the second symposium, the then Spanish foreign minister, Alfonso Dastis, of the Partido Popular, enabled the Catalan president to address the attendees, although relations between the two governments were already very difficult due to Carles Puigdemont's promise to hold an independence referendum. Despite everything, Puigdemont could speak before those present and speak about Catalonia as a welcoming country of immigration.
Borrell claimed, as reasons for preventing president Torra from speaking, that this way he couldn't "blackmail" the Spanish government with the announcement he would withdraw his support in the Spanish Congress in November if Sánchez doesn't make any gestures towards a negotiated referendum, he couldn't go and say the Spanish state is his enemy and that he is "the ringleader of the agitators of the CDR [Committees for Defence of the Republic]". It's plain to see that Borrell doesn't like criticism and good manners aren't worth it for him with those who gave him the office he enjoys. Today there are mechanisms for Quim Torra to communicate the speech they've blocked him from giving to the attendees and I'm sure he'll do so. But the topic is of much greater substance than this unread message and I don't know, even, if the government is aware of it. Accepting such a snub without official protest and an adequate response is to not exactly understand why you hold certain offices. And the history there is behind each of them. Because, when one holds an office, offence is never individual, it's collective.