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Altafaj: ‘The European leaders are taking the process in Catalonia very seriously’

VILAWEB
22-01-2015
 
The Catalan Government representative before the European Union, Amadeu Altafaj, has commented that the European leaders are taking the process of Catalonia, which is already on the international agenda, very seriously. Altafaj, who worked as assistant director and spokesperson of the Commissioner for Economic Affairs Olli Rehn, said that there is a very large call for information and that all of the European actors have an obvious interest in knowing first-hand what is happening in Catalonia.

‘Pragmatism prevails in the EU’, Altafaj, who has defended a hypothetical independent Catalonia in the EU, highlighted in an interview. ‘This is not just a legal question, above all it is an eminently political one’, he said. He also reminded that in the past, and especially in the cases of the bailouts of Greece and even the Spanish banking system, the EU took decisions that had previously been ‘legally impossible and politically inconceivable’, and believes it will do the same with Catalonia.

Altafaj, who has held the post since the beginning of the year, admitted the difficulties of foreign actions without having state resources, but said that the European embassies will also receive him to discuss the Catalan question. ‘They will see me, above all because many of them know me, and because their capitals expect them to give as much information as possible. I am a direct channel, I have considerable capacity for dialogue and I am sure they will take advantage of it’, said he who for two and a half years was the economic spokesperson of the EU in the crisis amidst the bailouts of Greece and Portugal.

Altafaj believes that although the European Commission has formally established that it will not come down on the situation in Catalonia unless a state should ask it to do so, it might change its attitude. He said that if the Catalan process produces a whole series of dynamics and even risks, for example, to financial stability, and becomes a large European problem, the European Commission will deal with it even though no state might formally request it to do so.

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