Carles Puigdemont seems determined to play the game to countries that, like Russia, Venezuela or Iran, want to see the EU destroyed. It does so by way of revenge for the rejection of the European institutions to support their unilateral independence movement. And behind the back of the network of delegations of the Government that controls ERC, the so-called Catalan "embassies". At the doors of the 1-O trial, the former president radicalized from Waterloo his europhobia - denounced "the complete destruction of the moral authority of the EU" in a Russian newspaper - with the complicity of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), that last day 1, occupied the headquarters of the European Commission in Barcelona coinciding with the transfer of the independence prisoners to Madrid. The European club takes note of this.
The socialist PSC MEP, Javi López, explains to the Global Chronicle that "a relevant part of the independence movement is falling on the slope of Euroscepticism after having spent years proclaiming an enthusiastic Europeanism. Why? They have ended up trapped in their fantasy and absolutely unrealistic projections about the comprehensive role that the European Union was going to have with the proces in favor of secession. "
The moment of truth
In this regard, he adds that when the "moment of truth" has arrived, the European Union has shown that "it is an actor made to blur borders not to create new ones, to share sovereignty, not to divide it or to avoid conflicts that have as a root national identity, not to promote identity clashes. But this, which seems obvious to me, was either hidden or ignored. "
López believes that, after the failure of the process, "these unreal projections have finally created the perfect breeding ground for the rise of euroscepticism in part of the Catalan independence movement. And who better symbolizes this new reality is Puigdemont ". The socialist affirms that, since his arrival in Brussels "he has decided to attack the EU repeatedly and has ended up having allies and parties that despise the EU. In the European institutions and in the capitals they have taken good note of it ".
Europeanism
The candidate for the European elections of the PSC recalls the analisys that some political scientists made about the trust in the EU before and after the convulsive fall of 2017 - when the approval of the unilateral declaration of independence and the application of the 155- - "According to the data from the Center for Opinion Studies (CEO) of the Generalitat, trust between non-independentists was low and it was rising among the separatists. And my opinion is that this was not the fault of the EU, but of the independence leaders who told an absolutely false projection of what the EU was, would say and would do when the moment of truth arrived. "
Puigdemont and his team of advisers paid by the Generalitat - Aleix Sarri, Josep Lluís Alay ... -, have become a kind of diplomacy parallel to that exercised by the offices of the Generalitat abroad. These depend on ERC, which takes its distance of the exits of tone of the former president. "Puigdemont is circumscribed to his personal agenda of talks where he is claimed. The external action is managed by Alfred Bosch (Foreign Minister) ", explain sovereignty sources. And they add: "He has no idea what is being done or where delegations are opened. He has his group of propagandists and little else. " The distance, in line with the intergovernmental fight between Junts per Catalunya and ERC, is very clear, but is it enough?
Eurofobic message
"The majority of the House already knows very well who this gentleman is and what he is. He has had to explain it to some of them, but Puigdemont's approach to Putin and share the Europhobe message with the extremists is something that can not surprise anyone. His speech and the nature of secessionism have always been anti-European, they intend to destroy the EU by breaking down a Member State, "explains the liberal MEP Beatriz Becerra. Remember that the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, to his questions, said that "attacking the Constitution of a Member State is to attack the legal framework of the EU." According to Becerra, "what is behind secessionism is xenophobia and discrimination, then it is logical that it finds allies in Moscow and rejection in Brussels."
Regarding the impact of the procés on public opinion, the MEP says that "right now, Catalonia already occupies a very small place in the news outside of Spain. The moment has passed, but we must continue doing pedagogical work, without tiring, to explain the reality of what has happened and what is happening, especially if in the future the issue returns to international prominence. "
"A way of life 3%"
On agitprop facing the trial of 1-O, considers that it has two objectives, "one the purely propagandistic and another guarantee to Puigdemont and other escapees the 3% way of life to which they are accustomed. That's why they have set up CATglobal, something not serious, with the appearance of an association that aims to capture European funds for anti-Spanish activity and so that the escaped secessionist giants can give themselves a great life. " It refers to the Belgian association, based in the same villa in the town of Waterloo where the former president has fixed his residence, whose registration in the register of interest groups (lobbies) of the European Union has not been validated due to lack of information necessary. In this sense, Becerra has asked the Commission to act "to prevent the public financing of the EU from ending up financing an attack on the Spanish rule of law, which, I repeat, is also an attack on the European Union."
On the apparent double diplomatic network that involves the action of Puigdemont and the embassies managed by ERC, the ALDE MEP says that "I am not interested in the subtleties of the fight between secessionists. This fight is obvious, but it is also true that in the end they do not finish breaking; ex-combatants, the sect of Puigdemont and ERC are chained to each other and in Europe they tend to say the same lies more or less in the same style. The only thing that worries me is the response we Europeans give. "
The image of Spain
But are they curdling, not in the institutions, but in the European public opinion, the campaigns of the former president? The Elcano Institute conducted a survey at the end of 2018 on the image of Spain based on 3,790 interviews conducted in eleven European countries. The result was a very high valuation, occupying the third position, at the same level as Germany. The barometer explores the perception of the Catalan independence movement.
Survey of the Elcano Institute on the image of Spain
In most countries it is perceived as a serious problem, especially in the two countries that make a higher valuation of Spain, namely Portugal and Poland. In Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Sweden, more people believe that this is an unimportant problem. In the case of Italy, the answer may be due, according to the authors of the barometer, "to their experience with the so-called Padania, the appearance and disappearance of a separatism of the northern regions of the country, the conversion of the Northern League into a League, simply. " Also in the United Kingdom "the experience of coexistence with a Scottish separatism of already long history can lead to relativize the importance of this problem". Belgium, where the Flemish community aspires to secession, the procese is perceived as a serious problem by the majority of the Walloon population (59%), while the Flemish community is much more divided in its assessment and slightly predominate those who consider the problem is not important (42%).
barometer elcano separatism
Assessment of Catalan separatism according to the Elcano Institute barometer
However, Alfonso Valero, lawyer and founder of Forum of Professors, believes that you can not lower your guard in this matter because "in certain pseudo-intellectual sectors, it is very easy to have an opinion contrary to Spain." It refers to the Anglo-Saxon press and valuations such as the historian Paul Preston, who in an interview in The Beaver, the newspaper of the London School of Economics (LSE), defended the right to self-determination and assured that the Spanish intellectual life " it tends to be Manichean, "because it is a country where" it is easy to make enemies because either you are with them or you are against them. "
A pro-independence Europeanism that fluctuates
Forum of Professors is a platform of professionals that rejects the "lies of separatism" and defends the unity of Spain and the Rule of Law. Valero believes that Catalan nationalism "fluctuates" between the defense of "European values" that the Foreign Action Councilor, Alfred Bosch, made during a conference at the aforementioned LSE at the end of January - he said that Catalan separatists are remainers, term that in the United Kingdom is applied to those who reject the Brexit--, and the Puigdemont positions in the Russian newspaper, previously cited. However, he criticizes the fact that the rest of Catalan nationalism has not explicitly distanced itself from the fugitive politician. "It is not the first time that the former president expresses his europhobia. Before 1-O he said he was pro-European, but when the EU sided with Spain, he intensified his propaganda against the European institutions. "
A propaganda that, says Valero, includes the organization of talks, funding of university chairs, pressure on foreign correspondents or Catalan personalities who are at the forefront of international institutions, such as the PEN Club, which recently called for the release of "independentist activists" and whose executive director is the Catalan writer Carles Torner, akin to the procés.
Tremendously active
"Europe has a very sophisticated public and the images of the police intervention during the referendum fell to the point that it was feared by mediation," explains a European official to this newspaper, who assures that the independence movement "is tremendously active." And although he affirms that the European leaders have been very contudent, he agrees with Valero that "we must be vigilant so that the image of Spain does not recede".
Maite Pagazaurtundúa, MEP for UPYD in the ALDE group, states that "Puigdemont has managed to convince some 30 or 40 MEPs, limited damage for now. It was higher during the months of September and October of 2017 but the interest has decreased ". However, she is very critical of the negotiations - which he describes as "assignments" - between the Government of Pedro Sánchez and the Generalitat. "The independentists allocate a lot of money to attack Spain, but the State did not respond," he says.
Pagazaurtundúa defines the ex-president fled to Waterloo as "a brazen, eccentric character, who has aroused interest in Europe. By way of revenge, it is now positioned alongside Russia, which along with Iran or Venezuela, want to see the EU destroyed. "
https://cronicaglobal.elespanol.com/politica/europa-toma-nota-amenazas-puigdemont_220686_102.html
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