The political and diplomatic crisis between Spain and France over the topic of Catalonia and the pronouncement by 41 Gallic senators in favour of the Catalan procés and in defence of the Catalan political prisoners, far from cooling off, is growing. And now, added to that is a crisis with the Spanish judiciary, as an irate Supreme Court has joined in the debate. As was unavoidable, the not at all diplomatic acting Spanish foreign minister, Josep Borrell, has managed to turn a document from 41 French senators published on Sunday into, 72 hours later, a conflict between the two countries with Gallic senators denouncing pressure from Spanish authorities to withdraw their signatures from the manifesto, public complaints about Manuel Valls for meddling in the argument with his French half, a public statement from the French government attending to their Spanish counterpart's complaints and, to top off the day, the Parti socialiste's candidate for the 2017 presidential election, Benoît Hamon, expressing his wish to visit the nine political prisoners in Soto del Real and Alcalá Meco. He'll do that on Monday.
Spain's permanent diplomatic ineptitude with the Catalan procés continues to cause certain amusement. Always stumbling over the same stone with authoritarian bearing and devoid of allies other than those awarded by being a member of the club of countries that is the EU, or those inherent to a state, like the security forces and the justice system. Doubtlessly, that's a lot, as we've seen, when the battle is being fought within the borders of the peninsula, but insufficient when the tussle spreads to a much wider territory: opinions are much freer and the defence of fundamental rights is very important.
The exceptional statement from the chair of the General Council of the Judiciary and the Supreme Court, Carlos Lesmes, addressed to the president of the French Senate, Gérard Larcher, and the official complaint is along the same lines. Lesmes is the third-highest official in Spain and should know that a message like the one sent is inappropriate. This closed, united and corporative defence of a situation which, obviously, can clearly be examined by parliamentarians from other countries does Spain no good. Considering the French senators' statement and what they write in it to be unacceptable is at least a little arrogant, the action of someone who feels that they're in possession of the truth and against whom nobody argues.
It's not the first time that the Spanish justice system and the Supreme Court have had such an angry reaction. It's now been a year since the president in exile, Carles Puigdemont, was arrested by German authorities. The way in which that Spanish extradition request was resolved and the ruling from the Schleswig-Holstein court leaving him free, dismissing the charge of rebellion and even questioning that of misuse of public funds, received an equally choleric response from the Supreme Court and the government of the time, which was headed by Mariano Rajoy. The thing is that things happen in Europe which the Spanish authorities don't like; and they have no option but to put up with them.