Francisco Javier Dago Elorza, number two at the Spanish embassy in Denmark, based in Copenhagen, has a curious understanding of diplomacy, and it would be for the best if his professional criteria do not become widespread. When Dago Elorza was asked about the visit of acting Catalan president Carles Puigdemont to the Danish capital in response to an invitation from the University of Copenhagen and another from a group of Danish MPs, he replied: "we do not like the fact that people might listen to him".
Whether deliberately or not, the second ranked diplomat at the Spanish embassy in Denmark has hit the bullseye in his definition of the Spanish attitude to absolutely all the requests they receive from Catalonia: we don't want to listen to them. And that is what has made any progress impossible. Hence the perversion of the language used. First, Catalonia wanted to negotiate, and all channels for this were closed to it. There is nothing to negotiate, was the insistent message issued from the Spanish government. Then, dialogue. The request was dropped down a notch and Catalonia offered its willingness to take part in dialogue. Just dialogue.
There was no path opened for that. At every request for dialogue, the answer was always the same: dialogue about what? Not to mention every time the need for dialogue was raised in a public forum. The response was automatic: with the independence movement there is nothing to talk about. Surprising but real. The most moderate of them had to erase the words negotiate, dialogue and talk from their vocabulary.
But even that wasn't enough, and Dago Elorza has just offered us the bluntest version of Spain's position: we do not like the fact that people might listen to him. It's that simple: we shall silence the word of the representative of more than two million Catalans. The leader of the Catalan independence block. He can't be allowed to speak!
How easy it is to conduct politics like that: you make the opponent disappear, you simply eliminate him politically and that's it. People shouldn't listen to him, unless of course international public opinion has its own criteria which might not be to Madrid's liking.