Romeva in Italy: speaks about Catalonia, meets political leaders

BarcelonaRaül Romeva, the Catalan Foreign Affairs Minister, travelled to Italy last Thursday. Government sources told the Catalan News Agency that in the afternoon he was to give a lecture entitled “Catalonia looks at Europe: proposals and opportunities” within a seminar held by La Parabola Centro Studi at the Luigi Sturzo Institute in Rome. As reported by this newspaper earlier on, Romeva will be travelling to the UK at the end of April.

While in Italy Romeva met a number of political leaders. These were private meeting that did not show on the minister’s official schedule. While in Rome the Catalan minister also met the local expat community and visited the Catalan government’s office in the city.

On Friday Raül Romeva attended the meeting of Spain’s Fiscal and Financial Policy Council in Madrid, in lieu of Catalan vice president and Finance Minister Oriol Junqueras. The latter asked Romeva to take his place at the Madrid meeting because he himself was travelling to Italy on Friday in order to meet Catalan and Italian business people.

The seminar where Romeva gave his lecture was about the role of Catalonia within the EU and Catalonia’s contribution to the European debate. The seminar was attended by Italian academics, civil servants and journalists, who were invited on a personal basis.

Also speaking were Paolo Acunzo, the national vice secretary of the European federalist movement; Francesco Tufarelli, the president of La Parabola Centro Studi —who chaired the debate—; and Giovanni Dessì, the secretary general of the Luigi Sturzo Institute.

Tufarelli is a personal friend of Italy’s prime minister and used to work as a legal advisor to the minister for European Affairs. Paolo Acunzo is a member of Italy’s Democratic Party leadership. While in Rome, Romeva was interviewed by RAI, Italy’s public radio and TV broadcaster, as well as by news agency ANSA.