Thank you very much, madam convener and honourable members. Allow me to express first my and my Government’s gratitude for the invitation to address this committee of the Scottish Parliament in this beautiful and marvellous building that was designed by a Catalan architect, Enric Miralles. I also introduce our delegate representative to the United Kingdom and Ireland, Mr Suàrez, who is based in London.
Honourable members, regardless of the political process that Catalonia is going through, the Catalan Government has developed foreign actions since the recovery of our democracy and before the approval of the 2006 Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia, which consolidated Catalonia’s foreign and European Union activity in a text that the Spanish Parliament approved.
For the Government of Catalonia, our foreign action is an instrument that should serve the needs of Catalonia as well as its citizens’ interests. The Catalan international strategy places us in the world. It is a policy that is capable of consolidating alliances and which puts Catalonia in direct contact with the European Union, other Governments and multilateral organisations, as well as with civil society and Catalan citizens and communities abroad.
The current political situation in Catalonia has led us to use our foreign action as a tool to raise awareness of the process that is going on in Catalonia. Our main goal is to help our allies and opinion makers in other countries to understand better that ours is a democratic process whose main goal is, in the first place, to let the Catalan people vote and decide on their political future. However, that is not the only goal of our foreign action.
I will now go through the main goals and tools. First, there is the internationalisation of the Catalan economy, which is a strategy of economic diplomacy that includes the promotion of exports, tourism and attracting foreign investment as key elements to compensate for the contraction that has been suffered in Catalonia, with the overall objective of overcoming that and boosting our economy.
For the record, Catalonia’s population represents 16 per cent of the Spanish population, and Catalonia is similar in size and population to Switzerland. Catalonia accounts for 19 per cent of the Spanish gross domestic product and its GDP is similar to that of Denmark. Catalonia also accounts for nearly 28 per cent of Spanish exports and foreign trade. Internationalisation is therefore 40 per cent of the Catalan GDP, and Catalonia received 17 million foreign tourists last year.
According to the Financial Times, we were first among continental regions for attracting foreign direct investment in 2013 and 2014. One of the instruments that we have at our disposal is an important network of external representation offices. For instance, we have seven Government delegations around the world in Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin, Washington and New York—the Washington delegation is for bilateral purposes, while that for New York follows the activity of the United Nations and its system—as well as Rome and Vienna to represent Catalonia’s political, business and cultural interests abroad. The Catalan Government plans to enlarge that network in the coming months.
We have more than 60 sectoral offices that are mostly devoted to trade issues but also address cultural and touristic issues. We have offices in, for instance, Beijing, Berlin, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Casablanca, Copenhagen, Dubai, Cairo, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Mexico City, Miami, Milan, Montreal, Moscow, Mumbai, New York, Paris, Prague, Santiago de Chile, São Paulo, Seoul, Sydney, silicon valley, Singapore, Stuttgart and Tokyo, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
The second issue that I will address is bilateral and multilateral relations. A main priority of Catalonia’s foreign strategy is to create, maintain and reinforce bilateral and multilateral alliances with other actors and organisations at the international level. For example, our president, Artur Mas, has held since 2013 about 200 bilateral meetings with governmental and multilateral representatives. We work with a scale that defines priority countries, which are mainly EU member states—particularly France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy—but also include Israel, Morocco, China, Japan, Korea, the United States and Mexico. We have developed enhanced co-operation and bilateral collaboration with some of those countries through what we call country plans, which involve their embassies and their consulate generals in Barcelona.
On priority regions, we focus mainly on the European Union and the Mediterranean region. The bilateral sectoral relations go beyond the commercial and trade interests and focus on sectors such as health, research and development and development co-operation.
In our work with international organisations, we have prioritised mainly the international and multilateral organisations that are in the United Nations system, especially the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the International Labour Organization and the World Health Organization, which has a regional office in Barcelona. We also work with the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe at the parliamentary assembly level; the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which is based in Paris; the World Bank Group; and the Union for the Mediterranean, which has its secretariat in Barcelona. The Catalan Government has underlined its commitment to working with multilateral organisations by setting up a new directorate-general in the foreign affairs secretariat to deal with multilateral and European affairs.
The European Union is the third element that I will address. Catalonia has a strong pro-Europe vocation and orientation—so has Scotland, as we know. Catalonia has had a governmental presence in Brussels since 1986. We were—one of my colleagues from the Basque Government will correct me if I am mistaken—the first of all the autonomous Spanish communities to have an office there.
We have a permanent representative to the European Union in the Catalan Government’s delegation to the EU. Through them, we defend our interest. For example, we are focused very much on the European strategic investment plan—the Juncker plan—as well as the transatlantic trade and investment partnership negotiations and the multi-annual financial programme. We try to participate in the decision-making processes but, as the committee knows, sub-state Governments do not have a clear and decisive decision-making role in Brussels. We are trying to ensure that European funds are available to Catalan companies and the Catalan people at large.
The fourth element is the law on external action and EU relations, which is a pioneer law. We do not know of many sub-state Governments that come with a law as complete as that. The law was approved a couple of months ago by a large majority in the Catalan Parliament, with 100 out of 135 votes. I think that it was only the People’s Party of Catalonia and a smaller party that voted against the law, but we managed to grasp a broad consensus.
The law creates a set of new tools to promote, co-ordinate and give more coherence to the Government’s foreign action as a whole—not only internally but vis-à-vis the Parliament, other public institutions, local authorities and Governments. New elements that the law sets include the development of a strategic plan on external action and relations with the EU.
The four-year plan presents the priorities sectorally, geographically and institutionally. It establishes four strategic objectives. The first objective is promoting and defending Catalonia in Europe and the world by the internationalisation of the economy, culture and knowledge. Some examples of that are the agreements signed on research and development and on innovation issues with Israel and Massachusetts, as well as the one that our President will sign in the coming months in California.
The second objective is confirming our commitment to the European and Mediterranean projects and defending Catalonia’s interests in the EU and other European institutions.
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The third objective is contributing to the global objectives of peace, security, human rights, sustainable development and social cohesion. An example of that is participation in processes such as the COP21 summit in Paris or the discussion on visioning the sustainable development goals that will be decided in New York in September this year.
The fourth objective is practising modern and effective diplomacy by supporting, providing services to and assisting Catalans abroad and giving civil society a greater role.
Those are the four strategic objectives that are envisaged in the strategic plan. Apart from that, we have developed other instruments to co-ordinate and give coherence to the Catalan foreign policy, such as the—I am sorry for hesitating; I have the acronyms in Catalan—cross-department committee of external action and relations with the EU or the council of external action and relations with the EU, which gathers the President with a number of actors and stakeholders from civil society outside the public institutions.
I will underline two additional points. One is about public diplomacy. Especially during the past three years, we have developed a strong public diplomacy strategy. Three years ago, we created the public diplomacy council of Catalonia, which is a private-public institution that counts on representatives from the political, social, economic and academic arenas to influence the external perception of Catalonia through the organisation of visits by parliamentarians, individuals from the culture sector and professors, for example, and by binding relations with all those sectors. Basically, its role is to promote Catalonia as a trusted and leading southern European economy with its own differentiated language and culture.
Next to that public diplomacy strategy, we have been working on an internal communications strategy, which is quite important. It aims to establish permanent and fluid contacts with media from around the world, particularly in Europe—not only correspondents who are located in Madrid but those who are in their own countries—to ensure a continuous and close dialogue with international opinion leaders.
That is pretty much all. I thank you once more for the opportunity to address the committee and I hope that we will have a fruitful discussion.