raul romeva

The Government’s main priorities are the refugee crisis, Middle East and Central America

Foreign affairs minister praises country’s willingness for reinvention at Priorat meeting with foreign diplomats

"Justice has been done," says Catalan Foreign Affairs Minister Raül Romeva after Paris ceremony

The Catalan Minister for Foreign Affairs, Institutional Relations and Transparency, Raül Romeva, has defended on Monday that “everything is impossible until it happens” and that “when it happens, it is irreversible”. At the opening of the conference, ‘Sovereignty and self-determination in times of Brexit’, organized by the Catalan Public Diplomacy Council (DIPLOCAT) and the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, the Minister of Foreign Affairs noted the “capacity for adaptation” shown by the European Union “throughout history” in order to respond to “the will of the citizens”. Romeva insisted that the birth of “new and smaller” States like a possible independent Catalonia or Scotland should not “frighten anyone”, but rather should be seen as an “opportunity”.

Catalonia is seeking an agreement with Spain to celebrate an independence referendum but if Madrid continues to refuse to negotiate, the vote will go ahead anyway in 2017. This is the message that the Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, will send to the European Parliament in a conference on Tuesday evening that is expected to be attended by about 300 people, including MEPs, international journalists and diplomats. Puigdemont will be accompanied by his two most senior ministers: Vice President Oriol Junqueras and Minister of Foreign Affairs Raül Romeva, both former MEPs and both in charge of organising the referendum. The talk has caused a stir amongst Spanish unionist MEPs, who have urged their colleagues to avoid it. The leader of the Spanish People’s Party in the European Parliament, Esteban González Pons, wrote to all his Brussels colleagues saying that the referendum plans are “an unconstitutional act, which goes not only against Spain, but also against the deepest principles and values of the EU”. Puigdemont, said on Twitter that the so-called “dialogue operation” of the Spanish Government with Catalonia “has already arrived in Brussels”. In an ironic remark following González-Pons’ letter, the Catalan President regretted the Spanish People’s Party (PP) stance on the issue.