Whilst Josep Borrell, in Lleida after the Catalan Parliament blocked Miquel Iceta's path to become speaker of the Senate, brought back one of his classics about "disinfection", a true hit from the minister in the past although now a little dialed back (now he's only calling for the wounds to be disinfected so they can close and heal), something very unusual and important was happening 2000 kilometres away. This type of motion doesn't often thrive in the Bundestag and the initiative from Die Linke, fifth largest party in the chamber with 69 of the 709 deputies, will now face a stage of intense debate in three commissions: Foreign Affairs, European Affairs and Human Rights.
The motion from Die Linke, a political party which would be comparable to Podemos in Spain, not only opens a debate on the political situation in Catalonia and the repression of the Spanish state in a Parliament as important as the Bundestag, but also means that the Catalan cause should have greater visibility in German public opinion. Something which, as we know, Borrell and his team, starting with the head of the failed Global Spain, have tried in vain to prevent. Now that Borrell is leaving the ministry and returning to the European Parliament, perhaps he should take stock of his management of international politics. It's difficult to find anything that wasn't a row or a commotion, curiously the furthest thing possible from the diplomacy that can be required of international politics. In terms of reducing the prominence of the Catalan conflict, he's far from having had any success and his time at the ministry will be remembered for his quarrels in international interviews and with consuls in Barcelona. Or the sad role of Spain's ambassadors who, at a blow of the whistle by the ministry, have tried to short-circuit the acts abroad of the exiled members of the Catalan government.
In the curious ranking of Spanish foreign ministers lost in the Catalan conflict (since 2012: José Manuel García-Margallo, Alfonso Dastis and Josep Borrell), even PP's Margallo acted with greater care and rather better judgement when it came to finding complicity for Spain abroad, even if it was in exchange for, as he himself said, many outstanding debts in the form of favours to attract good will. That the two most important parliaments in Europe, Berlin and London, should have Catalonia on their legislative agenda and that in Paris 41 senators should sign a document in support of the Catalan political prisoners shows that, with all the difficulties in the world of the always long, hard fight of David against Goliath, the Catalan cause remains alive and well.