The government of Flanders considers it a very hostile act that Spain should have revoked the diplomatic status of the Flemish delegate to Madrid, André Hebbelinck. The decision is "unprecedented in the history of the EU", the Flemish minister-president, Geert Bourgeois, said, adding that it's a "very unfriendly" act. Bourgeois was speaking in a interview with Flemish public VRT Radio 1.
Flanders has said that it will summon the Spanish ambassador to Belgium. The issue started following statements by the speaker of the Flemish Parliament, Jan Peumans. Peumans has commented a number of times in recent week about Catalonia and the situation of the political prisoners which haven't gone down well with Pedro Sánchez's Spanish government.
Borrell: "It's now a diplomatic conflict"
Spanish foreign minister, Josep Borrell, has admitted this Wednesday that the Spanish state is in a "diplomatic conflict" with Flanders and, in turn, with Belgium. "It's now a diplomatic conflict, let's not play down things", Borrell said in comments to journalists.
"Spain cannot allow, time and again, that the speaker of a Parliament should say that we're a country that has to be expelled from the European Union," Borrell said. The minister also repeated that Spain will not accredit anyone else from the Flemish government as a diplomat, as his ministry had already announced: "If tomorrow they present us with another representative, we won't give it to them either."