Boost for foreign relations

The mo­ment of truth for the sov­er­eignty process is com­ing, and in­ter­na­tional recog­ni­tion will be es­sen­tial for the cre­ation of a new Cata­lan state. The gov­ern­ment is aware of this and is work­ing on a new, de­ci­sive phase of in­ter­na­tional re­la­tions. The pres­i­dency min­is­ter, Francesc Homs, re­cently an­nounced the open­ing abroad of two new gov­ern­ment del­e­ga­tions this year, in Rome and Vi­enna, to join those in Brus­sels – which will be ex­panded – Paris, Berlin, Lon­don and Wash­ing­ton, which has an of­fice in New York.

The choice of del­e­ga­tion in Rome is no ac­ci­dent, as Italy is the last large EU state that has no of­fice, and the Cata­lan gov­ern­ment is keen to es­tab­lish bi­lat­eral re­la­tions with the Ital­ian gov­ern­ment and, to an ex­tent, with Vat­i­can City. Mean­while, Vi­enna, with Geneva, is the Eu­ro­pean city that hosts the most mul­ti­lat­eral in­sti­tu­tions, above all the Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Se­cu­rity and Co-op­er­a­tion in Eu­rope. Vi­enna is also strate­gi­cally placed to main­tain re­la­tions with cen­tral Eu­ro­pean states, such as the Czech Re­pub­lic, Slo­va­kia, Hun­gary and Slove­nia.

Nor will these be the last del­e­ga­tions es­tab­lished, as the gov­ern­ment plans to grad­u­ally open more in 2015, de­pend­ing on the de­vel­op­ing sit­u­a­tion and the health of the Gen­er­al­i­tat's fi­nances. In its first term, the Mas gov­ern­ment closed the Buenos Aires del­e­ga­tion with no plans to re­open it in favour of the EU.

The gov­ern­ment's for­eign pol­icy, set out two years ago, was de­signed to go into ef­fect in three phases. The first was the call­ing of a ref­er­en­dum – or now plebiscite elec­tions – the sec­ond was the hold­ing of the vote, and the third was to cul­mi­nate in a procla­ma­tion of new state. In the first phase, a se­ries of con­tacts was es­tab­lished with con­suls, am­bas­sadors and for­eign gov­ern­ments, to pre­sent the Cata­lan case and gain cred­i­bil­ity. This phase is just about over with the elec­tions due soon, some­thing which has stim­u­lated the gov­ern­ment into mov­ing to the sec­ond phase. This con­sists of re­in­forc­ing the for­eign pres­ence with more per­son­nel and re­sources to pre­pare for the de­ci­sive third phase, com­ing in a mat­ter of months. The re­cent pass­ing of new leg­is­la­tion al­low­ing more for­eign in­volve­ment helps to give the process a legal basis.

The pro­posed bud­get for 2015 re­serves 19.7 mil­lion euros for for­eign ac­tiv­i­ties, 3.2 more than last year. Funds for de­vel­op­ing for­eign re­la­tions in­crease from 10.3 to 11.1 mil­lion, which in­cludes the new del­e­ga­tions and the process of strength­en­ing re­la­tions with in­ter­na­tional bod­ies, es­pe­cially in the EU. The final act will be the cre­ation of a for­eign min­istry under a new unity gov­ern­ment.