There is a point of stubbornness in Catalonia's Maragalls* which means they have often ended up getting things their way. Despite threats of court action from Spain's foreign affairs minister, José Borrell. Despite the Spanish government's strong opposition to anything that could mean the restoration of Catalonia's state structures which had existed prior to the application of article 155 and the consequent suppression of Catalan autonomy. The reopening of the Catalan 'embassy' in Berlin on Wednesday by Catalan foreign minister Ernest Maragall is good news and provides support for Catalans who operate in Germany. Waiting for permission from Madrid right now had a point of humiliation about it, since apart from the Spanish minister's huffy reaction about the administrative procedures not having been completed, there was no other reason to delay the decision. As if a Catalan embassy abroad should depend on a document in an administrative registry.
On September 27th it will be London's turn and soon after will come Ireland, Switzerland and Italy. Then France and the United States in the second phase, and the Nordic countries, the Balkans, China and all the states of the Middle East after that. An authentic parallel diplomacy which, together with the office already functioning in Brussels directed by former Catalan minister Meritxell Serret, exiled in Belgium, gives the Catalan government an important margin for action abroad. It is not strange that Ernest Maragall declared at the reopening of the Berlin delegation that they were back, after 155 and the efforts of the Spanish government to prevent the moment from arriving.
The international judicial battle that the exiled members of the Catalan government have fought has not only yielded enormous victories in the legal field in several countries, but has also internationalized the Catalan cause wherever courts have had to make a decision on it, including in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Scotland. In addition, there is the multiplier effect achieved through the media impact made in many other western states. It is obvious that today the cause of basic freedoms and the lack of rights in Spain has acquired a force that has undone much of the Spanish executive's strategy.
In Europe there are bodies of public opinion favourable to Catalan independence and there are others against, but there is a wider consensus that Spain is in many respects not the country they had imagined. The police violence on October 1st last year did great damage to Spain's image, as the Spanish government now openly recognizes after denying it for many months. The Catalan embassies must do the job of explaining Catalonia, its political and social reality and what a very important part of its society is trying to do democratically and peacefully, impeded by the Spanish government.
*Translator's note: Ernest and Pasqual Maragall, brothers, have both been high-profile Catalan politicians, with Ernest currently serving in the Catalan government as foreign minister, while Pasqual is a former president of Catalonia and mayor of Barcelona. Their grandfather was the celebrated Catalan poet Joan Maragall.