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Austria's new Foreign Affairs minister, Karin Kneissl, who took over the role on 18th December, has shown her sympathy for Catalan independence in an interview (paywall) published yesterday in Austrian newspaper Die Presse. In other comments a few days ago, the minister had already said that the question in Catalonia "is to know how we can resolve this stalemate" and urged everyone to respect the results of the election. It appears that Kneissl has supported Catalan independence since 2012.

In the interview, Kneissl notes that "maps change constantly". The minister quotes Leopold Kohr, one of her favourite authors, creator of the "small is beautiful" philosophy to refer to the importance of "historically evolved" regions. She also called on Madrid and all the players in the independence process to "think about all scenarios" and not limit themselves to a single solution. She said that such processes have happened throughout the history of Europe and called on politicians to consider history and international relations "from a wider point of view".

Kneisll is a former diplomat, a specialist in the Middle East, who has worked in the Austrian embassy in Madrid. For some time she had been a freelance journalist and had taught at Viena University as a professor of Political Science. Maybe because of that she has a reputation for making a show of sincerity, something with explosive statements.

Although she presented herself as a conservative political analyst, in recent months her positions have become more radical and she's joined Sebastian Kurz's coalition government nominated as an independent candidate by the Eurosceptical, populist FPÖ. She speaks Spanish well, as well as French, English, Arabic, Italian, Hebrew and Hungarian.