Romeva sends letter to Martin Schultz, calls himself Catalonia’s Foreign Minister

BarcelonaCatalonia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Raül Romeva has sent a letter in English to the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schultz, asking for his support to tackle the “formidable challenges” that the Catalan government faces and to accomplish “the task with which our citizens have democratically entrusted us”.

In his letter —which Spain’s El Mundo ran on Thursday— Romeva tells Schultz that his job will be to provide the international community with a “first-hand” account of “what Catalonia can offer as a country”.

In the opening paragraph Raül Romeva uses the English word “minister” to refer to his new position (“Conseller”, in Catalan), as some of his predecessors had done, because the original job title in Catalan has no other possible translation in English. This is also the term favoured by the governments of Scotland and Flanders. However, no Catalan government had ever included a Foreign Ministry before.

In addition, Romeva mentions that he is taking up his new government duties with “confidence and full determination” and that he is “fully aware of the responsibility that it implies, especially at this crucial time in Catalonia’s long history”.

Romeva’s letter is dated February 3 and has come to light two days after Spain’s Constitutional Court accepted an appeal by the Spanish government against some of the powers bestowed on Romeva’s ministry, which meant that some of its functions were automatically suspended.

Nevertheless, in a speech in parliament Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was adamant that his government would continue to have “a foreign policy”, an idea which he reiterated this morning on RAC1, the leading Catalan radio network. He also gave his assurances that Raül Romeva would remain at the helm of the ministry.