Spanish embassy tries to disrupt Catalan independence event in Belgium
A Spanish diplomat introduced herself as a university student at an event with the Catalan government’s representative
BrusselsIt’s not the first time. Once again, in an attempt to counter the overseas dialogue about Catalan independence, the Spanish embassy in Belgium attended a presentation by Diplocat —the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia— last Tuesday at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve, 15 minutes from Brussels.
Their representative was Laura Martínez, an embassy official who claimed to be a Master’s student at a Belgian university, only to admit later that she was a diplomat. During the Q&A, she started to criticise the content of the presentation: “I don’t believe that this is an academic debate. If you want to call it a political dialogue, that’s fine, but it is not academic”, she said sharply. She then interrupted the explanation by the Permanent Representative of the Catalan Government to the EU, Amadeu Altafaj, who was surprised that he couldn’t finish his turn. “I haven’t had the same length of time as Mr Altafaj during the debate, as a representative of all the Spaniards and Catalans who aren’t here,” she claimed. She also lamented that neither she, nor the “52% of Catalans who voted against [independence]” on the 27th September last year [1], could be heard. In an increasingly heated speech, Martínez added that she wanted to defend “the minority” of people who want to study Spanish in Catalonia.
The moderator, the chairman of the Lovain-la-Neuve Institute of Political Science, Michel Liegeois, —who was visibly annoyed— had to ask three times for Martínez to be more concise and to get to her question, as there were several people who had asked to speak. Even then, the embassy official continued insisting, holding up the event’s program, that there were “chronological errors” in the process of the last few years. The uneasiness peaked when she revealed herself as a diplomat from the Spanish embassy. The reaction of the other attendees was one of clear rejection, and Liegeois decided to end her speaking turn: “I don’t know what Spanish diplomacy is like, but clearly what you’ve done here isn’t the most diplomatic way to do things” he said to Martínez.
The Spanish embassy in Belgium has been without an ambassador since Ignacio Jesús Matellanes Martínez was dismissed in April for “workplace absenteeism” and “abuse of authority” against his own staff. None of that prevented the embassy from attending the event in Louvain-la-Neuve. It’s not the first time that they have tried to disrupt a presentation by the Catalan government, a practice which Matellanes had used before when, a year ago now and without any warning, he turned up at a meeting in Brussels between former Catalan President Artur Mas, and the Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium, Kris Peeters.
Despite the hurdle laid by the Spanish embassy, the lengthy debate took place under the title “Catalonia: A New European Country?” during which Esther Zapater, a jurist and professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Scottish professor Michael Keating agreed on the importance of the EU in future independence processes. “The European Union absolutely must declare an opinion on any declaration of independence,” assured Zapater. For his part, Bruno Coppieters, Chairman of the Department of Political Science at the Flemish Free University of Brussels (VUB) lamented that “the current EU is hostile to independence processes”. Despite this, the academics agreed that it would be difficult for an independent Catalonia to stay on the margins of Europe. “If they become independent, the EU will have a flood of demands brought before the Court of Justice by Catalan citizens,” predicted Zapater, because it would be like “going backwards” legally, as Catalan citizens are granted certain rights which would be “difficult” to take away.
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[1] Translator’s note: The last elections to the Catalan parliament were held on 27th September 2015. Pro-independence parties won roughly 48% of the vote and a majority of the seats. The remaining 52% of the vote included both unionist parties, who oppose an independence referendum, and other groups who endorse self-determination for Catalonia.
