European media outlets continue to discuss the Catalan situation in depth. Les Echos, De Telegraaf, El Mundo, TG Rai 3 and Romania’s Stirile Digi 24 report that Catalan President Carles Puigdemont unexpectedly travelled to Brussels with five of his ministers on Monday morning.
In the Belgian capital, Mr Puigdemont contacted a Belgian lawyer specialising in asylum issues, Paul Bekaert. Mr Bekaert however stressed that Mr Puigdemont “was not in Belgium to ask for asylum”. Stirile Digi 24 says that the Catalan politician went to Brussels in order to meet the “Flemish leaders”. The Spanish press, also notes Les Echos, spoke of an exile that would have a very strong demotivating effect on Catalonian separatists. A Deutschlandfunk programme and Le Figaro, for instance, provide other details, reporting that, on Monday, the Belgian Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, Theo Francken, considered that it was “not unrealistic” to grant asylum to Mr Puigdemont, before being corrected by Prime Minister Charles Michel; a topic also discussed, for instance, by the Russian press.
Meanwhile, Le Figaro, Malta’s TVM, El Pais and El Mundo explain that, on Monday, Carles Puigdemont was accused of sedition, rebellion and misappropriation of public funds by the Spanish Public Prosecutor’s office. More precisely, Mr Puigdemont, his regional government and the Office of the autonomous Parliament were formally accused by Spain’s Attorney General José Manuel Maza. Mr Maza requested that judges set the bail for each accused person to €300,000; which represents a global amount of more than €6.2 million for the twenty leaders responsible. The El Mundo editorial on Catalonia argues that “decisive action” by Spain’s attorney general is “the response of the rule of law to those who have tried to break it.” Despite this, Les Echos notes that “Prime Minister Rajoy’s firmness seems to be bearing fruit”. On Monday, life returned to normal in Catalonia after a tumultuous week-end during which the Catalan region was put under Madrid’s direct guardianship and leaders were dismissed after they declared Catalonia’s independence. However, despite the calls for civil disobedience launched by pro-independent organisations, very few cases of absenteeism were reported on Monday morning among the 200,000 civil servants of the region paid by the Generalitat. Civil servants are at risk of facing layoffs and even legal action. The press also notes that Catalonia’s two main separatist political parties will participate to the regional elections – called by Prime Minister Rajoy on Friday – that will take place on 21 December. In related news, Austria’s Ö1 recall that President Juncker confirmed, last Friday, that one does not want Europe to turn into a congregation of 95 member countries. 28 EU Member States is enough, he underlined.
Many reactions are published today. La Libre Belgique‘s Francis Van de Woestyne comments on Mr Puigdemont’s visit to Brussels. Mr Van de Woestyne accuses Theo Francken of being responsible for this visit. The latter wants to support the separatists, as his party own party cannot organise such a referendum because an overwhelming majority of Flemish people want to stay in Belgium. Passauer Neue Presse’s Tobias Schmidt argues that the unilateral declaration of Catalan independence was doomed to fail from the start. Carles Puigdemont miscalculated the Spanish Constitution and the balance of power. According to Mr Schmidt, Prime Minister Rajoy is partly to blame for the escalation of the conflict due to his refusal to engage in constructive dialogue. Mr Schmidt calls on Catalan citizens to use the opportunity of new elections in December to elect responsible politicians and initiate a new start. Detlef Drewes writes in a Nürnberger Nachrichten article that many EU citizens do not understand why the EU does not mediate in the Catalan conflict. The author believes that Brussels is afraid of lending prestige to the Catalan secession movement by entering into negotiations and that this could fuel other secession movements in Scotland, Flanders, the Basque region and South Tyrol. Taking an opposing stance, Gideon Rachman considers, in a Financial Times opinion piece, that the EU is “politically and intellectually unprepared” for the crisis in Spain, and for the moment must “watch impotently from the sidelines”.
In an editorial published by adevărul.ro, Horia Blidaru stresses that the demonstration for Spain’s unity organised by Catalans in Barcelona is the best response to extremist leader Carles Puigdemont’s insurrectional actions. The civic mobilisation and the regional election to be held on 21 December can stop the escalating tension, underlines Ms Blidaru. However, she points out that this will only happen provided the international community compels the separatists to observe democratic rules and the rule of law. In an interview granted to La Stampa, Barbara Loyer, President of the French Institute of Geopolitics, believes that a defeat of Mr Puidgemont would be “a lesson for all European separatists”, deflating Catalonia’s “fairy tale”. Indeed, turning a regional border within the EU into a national boundary is not so easily done, like “waving a magic wand”, Ms Loyer stresses. In a commentary for La Stampa, Stefano Stefanini notes that the unexpected outcome of the Catalonian crisis could almost sound grotesque, with the idealistic government of an “imaginary nation” fleeing into exile. However, this triggered at least two more crises, an institutional crisis followed by a potential controversy between European regions and States.
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