On Monday, January 22, like many other people, I followed president Puigdemont's remarks at the University of Copenhagen, organized by their Center for European Politics, a debate in which you, professor Marlene Wind, were one of the other participants. The debate was broadcast live in its entirety on the Catalan public news channel 3/24 and partially by some private Spanish networks; but not followed at all, on the other hand, by the Spanish public broadcaster, TVE, which can give you an idea of how information about Catalonia is treated by the Spanish government.
After president Puigdemont's speech, you gave your own, which contained elements of great interest, such as respect for the law and the Spanish Constitution, which I will refer to later. But you also made statements that, with all due respect, reflect a deep ignorance of the social and political reality of Catalonia, and abound with certain ideas which, however much they've been spread - and repeatedly so by Spanish authorities and media - are still serious inaccuracies, when not just lies.
But let's get to the point.
You claimed that president Puigdemont had compared Poland and Hungary with what is happening in Catalonia. No, what both president Puigdemont as well as a large majority of Catalans complain about is that the EU should publicly criticize certain behavior by the authorities in those member states, while shamelessly staying silent over violations of the civil rights of Catalan citizens: violent repression of peaceful demonstrations, violence against tens of thousands of people who were peacefully defending ballot boxes, violation of correspondence, an assault on the media, a ban on a demonstration by senior citizens for the release of our prisoners, banning of banners calling for "democracy", a ban on wearing yellow items (the colour used as distinctive symbol of our peaceful struggle), imprisonment of the leaders of civil organizations –still in jail more than 3 months later-, imprisonment of our ministers –still in jail more than 2 months later-, etc. This is what we are denouncing right now, not that Spain is just like Poland or Hungary. Although, after what I have told you, perhaps Spain looks, in some ways, more like Turkey than a member of the European Union.
Puigdemont is denouncing the EU shamelessly staying silent over violations of the civil rights of Catalan citizens
You also said that Spain is a more decentralized country than the Federal Republic of Germany (the country, in fact, which my family comes from). Well, no, I don't think so. The Bavarian Free State, for example, has a large delegation in Brussels, right in front of the European Parliament, while in Spain the right of Catalonia or the Basque Country to have delegations abroad is in question. The German federal states participate in the creation the positions which the whole state argues for to the EU authorities, and regional ministers can even end up presiding over EU minister meetings representing the state as a whole, something which doesn't happen in Spain. And, of course, I doubt that, in Bavaria or in any other German federal state, the German central government dedicates itself to suspending, one by one, the laws passed in its regional parliaments, something which happens, time and again, in the Catalan Parliament. And in Spain, as you note, 40 years ago (also in Catalonia, not in the Basque Country, where the abstention was 55,3% and the NO was 23,5%), a Constitution was passed by a wide majority which only knew a brief period of "broad interpretation" –until the 1981 military coup-. Since then, everything has been about recentralization and a restricted reading of the constitutional text, giving rise to the paradox that those who today govern in Spain and dismissed a Government and a Parliament in Catalonia are the ones who voted No to the Constitution in 1978.
There is an important event which explains what president Puigdemont wanted to communicate in Copenhagen. In September 2005, Catalonia passed, with 90% of votes in its Parliament, the proposed new Statute of Autonomy; that proposal, although very trimmed down, was approved some months later by the Congress and the Senate of Spain, before being ratified by referendum in Catalonia in June 2006, and finally signed by the King. However, four years later, the Constitutional Court, at the urging of PP (Popular Party) and many "leading lights" from PSOE, declared large parts of that new Statute unconstitutional. That decision, which some Spanish constitutionalists, such as professor Pérez Royo, described as a "constitutional coup d'état", unleashed the great, large-scale, peaceful demonstrations in Catalonia of the last 7 years, as well as the so-called "Catalan process" that wants to exercise the right to self-determination.
Polls published over the past 8 years reveal that 80% of the Catalan population (supporters of both Yes and No) wants to be consulted about its future
Therefore, when we talk about respecting the laws and the Constitution, ask yourself how it is possible that a European region which placed its trust in the 1978 Constitution is today demanding, by a large majority, the right of self-determination. I have to inform you that polls published over the past 8 years reveal that 80% of the Catalan population (supporters of both Yes and No) wants to be consulted about its future, and that the republican parties in favor of the right of self-determination in the Parliament totalled 55% of the vote, and those who agree on holding a referendum under conditions negotiated with Madrid reach 69% (according to the data from the election on December 21, 2017).
You spoke of "only 43% of voters" in the referendum on October 1. But what do you think about that happening in a country occupied by the Spanish police, with 10,000 members of the National Police and the militarised Civil Guard (who do not have jurisdiction over public order in Catalonia) hitting the people who were peacefully defending the ballot boxes, firing rubber bullets in Catalonia (whose Parliament banned them in April 2014), leaving more than 1,000 injured, suffering the violence reflected in images that moved the whole world?
You also talked about the stability of Europe, saying that it is in danger due to the Catalan process which could hypothetically expand to other European regions, even saying that this would make Putin happy. What Europe can not do is bury its head in the sand and avoid the internal problems of its states, especially when the rights recognized in the European Convention on Human Rights are called into question. Proposals have been made for years, for example, to the Constitutional Commission of the European Parliament, to carry out the "internal enlargement" of the EU. The answer has always been rejection, absolute opposition to any proposal. And let me ask you something: is there some European region where, for 7 years, between 1 and 2 million people have taken to the streets (imagine demonstrations, 7 years in a row, of about 5 million people in Rhineland-Westphalia, or, to give you an example closer to home, of more than 1.5 million in Denmark)? Do you think that in Germany or in Denmark, a government would not have initiated, at least, a process of dialogue? Let's not caricature the situation, in the way Jean-Claude Juncker already does, covering the backs of the Spanish government; there is no other European region where the same thing is happening as in Catalonia and, more over, it is precisely the decision to not confront its problems which can lead, among other factors, to EU citizens becoming ever more distrustful of the EU institutions, something we absolutely do not want.
The statement that speaking Spanish is banned in Catalonia is not only a great lie, it's truly offensive
You also spoke about "dividing Europe into 200 ethnically pure states in the sense of having a single identity", which reveals your deep ignorance of the reality of Catalonia. The Catalan independence movement is many things, but is never based on ethnocentric proposals, but rather on the defense of Catalan culture and language, never in contradiction with the hundreds of cultures that live together in harmony in Catalonia. Barcelona hosted the first large demonstration in support of refugees (another European shame), which was attended by more than 500,000 people, in February 2017; the Catalan government has been training for years people to be able to protect the refugees and urges Madrid (which has power over the issue) to enable the Catalan government to welcome those refugees who, for example, with European money, are abandoned to their fate, dying on the Mediterranean Sea. Catalonia is a land where multiculturalism exists completely freely and naturally and where, by the way, no one is forbidden to speak in Spanish. When you said that in Catalonia speaking Spanish is banned, that is not only a great lie, it is something truly offensive, something that can only be said in complete ignorance of the reality.
I think, Mrs Wind, that you need to go for a walk around Catalonia. Let me offer to welcome you personally, so that you can freely form your own opinion. I also think that the Catalan Parliament itself would be delighted to invite you to Catalonia, to speak freely with all its political and social representatives, in order to be able to form a clear opinion of today's Catalan society. However, Mrs Wind, to visit the most significant non-political leaders, Jordi Sanchez (former president of the Catalan National Assembly) and Jordi Cuixart (president of Òmnium Cultural), you will have to travel to the prisons near Madrid in which they are imprisoned. That is something that does not happen in either Poland or Hungary. To find something similar, you would have to go to Turkey or the very democratic People's Republic of China.
Yours sincerely,
Gorka Knörr
Former Member of the European Parliament