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Interview
4 January 2015 0.00 h

'To be a state, you need a state's mentality'

Foreign affairs secretary argues for exhausting all options in convincing the international community to support a move towards Catalan independence and thus achieve recognition

The Cata­lan par­lia­ment has passed leg­is­la­tion boost­ing the ex­tent of its reach abroad.
–It is a pi­o­neer­ing law, which makes Cat­alo­nia the only place in Eu­rope with re­gional sta­tus but with a law al­low­ing us to con­sol­i­date our ac­tiv­i­ties abroad within a legal frame­work.
But is it con­sti­tu­tional?
–We have the con­vic­tion, and the Con­sell de Garanties Es­tatutàries agrees, that the law is con­sti­tu­tional. It was passed with wide par­lia­men­tary sup­port, and we'd be sur­prised if the Span­ish gov­ern­ment op­posed it.
Span­ish diplo­macy su­per­vises all for­eign ac­tiv­ity. Has the boy­cott in­ten­si­fied?
–I'm not sure it can be in­ten­si­fied, as the hos­til­ity is so great, and not only to­wards de­mo­c­ra­tic Cata­lan in­sti­tu­tions work­ing abroad. There are also Cata­lans in in­ter­na­tional in­sti­tu­tions that have had dif­fi­cul­ties in car­ry­ing out their du­ties.
Will the plebiscite elec­tions be recog­nised abroad?
–We think we need this tool to know what sup­port the gov­ern­ment has going into in­de­pen­dence. It is com­pletely le­git­i­mate to use a legal mech­a­nism to find out pub­lic opin­ion. After that, the gov­ern­ment has to see what the re­ac­tion is.
Is the State's re­fusal to co­op­er­ate un­der­stood abroad?
–There is fa­tigue with the Span­ish gov­ern­ment's han­dling of the case. There is also per­plex­ity at the pro­ceed­ings by the pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor; it is not un­der­stood how, in a de­mo­c­ra­tic sys­tem, a po­lit­i­cal con­flict can be solved by hold­ing de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cally elected politi­cians crim­i­nally re­spon­si­ble for ful­fill­ing a pub­lic and par­lia­men­tary man­date.
Could that ben­e­fit the sov­er­eignty process?
–It does it no harm. In the past two years, all ac­tiv­i­ties of the Cata­lan in­sti­tu­tions, and the neg­a­tive re­ac­tions to them from the state in­sti­tu­tions, allow us to jus­tify the path cho­sen by the peo­ple of Cat­alo­nia. A process like this can only reach its end if all op­tions are ex­hausted.
Artur Mas says a sin­gle unity can­di­dacy list is vital for in­ter­na­tional recog­ni­tion.
–The dan­ger of dif­fer­ent lists with dif­fer­ent man­i­festos is that it blurs the mes­sage. We are in a place that re­quires clar­ity be­cause often we have dif­fi­culty ex­plain­ing what is hap­pen­ing in Cat­alo­nia. It is fun­da­men­tal and vital that the tool we use to ex­press the will of the peo­ple be ab­solutely clear. Clar­ity is what a ref­er­en­dum pro­vides. Elec­tions do not, and that's why we have to turn them into a tool that sends a sin­gle mes­sage.
How would sep­a­rate lists play out abroad?
–We are talk­ing about car­ry­ing out the ref­er­en­dum that Madrid would not let us hold. We do not have sup­port abroad and nor are we a world power with great eco­nomic sway, which makes vot­ing the only tool we have. And we only have it once. The con­clu­sion is that fewer lists equal greater clar­ity.
Is there a chance of for­eign me­di­a­tion after the fact?
–We would have to see be­cause it would de­pend on the re­ac­tion of the Span­ish gov­ern­ment. If there is no will­ing­ness to talk, we would make an ap­peal abroad. It is dif­fi­cult to say at this point whether they would be pre­pared to in­ter­cede. Yet, there are signs of a will­ing­ness to find a last­ing so­lu­tion to the prob­lem, which does not cause too much eco­nomic or fi­nan­cial tur­bu­lence.
At what point does the road map look for in­ter­na­tional recog­ni­tion?
–The day after a gov­ern­ment is elected, for­mal chan­nels of com­mu­ni­ca­tion would be es­tab­lished abroad: with the Span­ish gov­ern­ment, Brus­sels and in­flu­en­tial Eu­ro­pean coun­tries. Ob­vi­ously, recog­ni­tion can only come after a for­mal de­c­la­ra­tion of in­de­pen­dence. How­ever, there is more to it; if you de­clare in­de­pen­dence that day after the elec­tions, the most likely thing is that no one will offer recog­ni­tion. The first thing they will say is that you are in no po­si­tion to guar­an­tee ef­fec­tive con­trol of your ter­ri­tory. You have to show to the world that you are sov­er­eign and that you can main­tain re­la­tions with other coun­tries.
Would ask­ing for recog­ni­tion be part of the an­nounced ac­tiv­i­ties for 2015?
–No. There is an ob­ses­sion with that. If you want to be a state, you have to act with a state's men­tal­ity and you can­not beg for recog­ni­tion. Recog­ni­tion can only come when a de­c­la­ra­tion of in­de­pen­dence has been made ef­fec­tive, and that would be at the end, when the right con­di­tions have been ful­filled.
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