1
Interview
1 March 2015 2.00 h

'We need to act in an exemplary way'

The newly appointed EU government representative argues that continuing the process by peaceful democratic means is the secret to selling the sovereignty process in Brussels

He is Cata­lan diplo­macy's star sign­ing. Altafaj was spokesman for the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion with the euro at break­point and is now the Gen­er­al­i­tat's per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Eu­ro­pean Union.

Your are an am­bas­sador but at the same you're not.
–We want to give the post a more po­lit­i­cal pro­file. Part of the work will be day-to-day man­age­ment of Cat­alo­nia's af­fairs in the EU, but we also want to strengthen the po­lit­i­cal di­a­logue with the com­mu­nity's in­sti­tu­tions.
The PP says the post is “ridicu­lous and un­nec­es­sary”.
–I re­spect all opin­ions but a re­ac­tion like that con­firms that it is a sen­si­tive point. It is not a waste of re­sources but rather an in­vest­ment in an area in which all Cata­lans, in­clud­ing those who vote PP, are im­pli­cated. Cat­alo­nia has vital in­ter­ests in Brus­sels: 80% of the poli­cies that the Gen­er­al­i­tat ad­min­is­ters are cov­ered by Eu­ro­pean leg­is­la­tion. It is in our in­ter­ests to be well-rep­re­sented, to be ac­tive and pro­ject our in­flu­ence. We want to speak for our­selves.
You were a spokesman for the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion. Rep­re­sent­ing Cat­alo­nia must seem easy in com­par­i­son.
–No, it is dif­fi­cult and com­plex. But the con­cepts are easy to un­der­stand, es­pe­cially in Brus­sels, the home of Eu­ro­pean democ­racy. It is about ex­plain­ing that a lot of Cata­lans want to de­cide their fu­ture in a de­mo­c­ra­tic way. What is more com­pli­cated is ex­plain­ing why we have not done it so far, de­spite the ex­ist­ing legal paths. But they have been ex­hausted and in the end a vote was needed, such as 9-N, with the hope that on Sep­tem­ber 27 the pub­lic will de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cally say what coun­try it wants.
But don't mem­ber states just see this as yet an­other headache among so many?
–When you look at the 28 mem­ber states, you re­alise that many, and not so long ago, were not only not mem­bers of the EU but were not even states. Think about the three Baltic states or Croa­tia or Slove­nia, for ex­am­ple. It is true that there is a feel­ing not to add to the prob­lems on the Eu­ro­pean agenda, but at the same time there is wide un­der­stand­ing of the prin­ci­ples and val­ues that have in­spired this process. And above all there is a cer­tain ad­mi­ra­tion for the ex­em­plary way this process is being con­ducted, with­out con­fronta­tion, with­out vi­o­lence.
Yet so far the EU has washed its hands. When does Brus­sels get in­volved?
–It hasn't washed its hands; it's a prob­lem of ju­ris­dic­tion. The Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion is bound by treaties that do not allow in­ter­ven­tion un­less a mem­ber state ex­plic­itly asks for it. It has not come out in favour, but nor has it against. We are talk­ing about a case with­out prece­dents, of in­ter­nal ex­pan­sion, of the in­de­pen­dence of a group of cit­i­zens that are al­ready in the EU with a whole se­ries of rights. The EU is a union of states, but also of cit­i­zens.
In Brus­sels, Jun­queras threat­ened to bring the Cata­lan econ­omy to a halt.
–We have to re­sort to those sort of ar­gu­ments to force ex­ter­nal in­ter­ven­tion. I would steer clear of that type of tac­tic. It is true that fi­nance has an im­por­tant role, it is true that what could hap­pen in the fu­ture with the man­age­ment of the Span­ish debt is a sen­si­tive mat­ter, for in­sti­tu­tions and for in­vestors. How­ever, I do not think we need to use this type of threat. What we have to do is what we are doing: carry out the process in an ex­em­plary man­ner and in-line with de­mo­c­ra­tic Eu­ro­pean stan­dards. This is the lan­guage that is best un­der­stood in Brus­sels.
Does García-Mar­gallo's warn­ing that “an in­de­pen­dent Cat­alo­nia would drift in space” have any basis?
–No. There are many stud­ies and re­ports, even par­lia­men­tary ones, about how to go about the process in an or­derly man­ner so that there is no dis­con­ti­nu­ity be­tween a 'yes' in a ref­er­en­dum and main­tain­ing all of the rights, priv­i­leges and du­ties of the cit­i­zens. These are ar­gu­ments aimed at caus­ing un­cer­tainty and con­cern rather than being based on any se­ri­ous study. I don't think any­one can hon­estly say what would hap­pen. The Eu­ro­pean legal basis has evolved, with ex­pan­sions and the widen­ing of ju­ris­dic­tions, and changes have been made to the legal foun­da­tions. And that is a good thing. The EU has shown it­self ca­pa­ble of mak­ing po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sions when faced with chal­lenges.
What would you im­prove about our for­eign pol­icy?
–Ap­ply­ing the lessons we have learned in the past few years to con­tinue re­form­ing and re­in­forc­ing all for­eign ac­tion. There is no doubt that for­eign pol­icy is one of the fun­da­men­tal state struc­tures that the gov­ern­ment wants to pro­mote.
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