After almost eight years without any high-level meeting, President Pere Aragonés and the Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), Nasser Kamel, reestablished relations between both institutions yesterday in a meeting held at the Palau de la Generalitat. Broken due to the process. The official meeting is part of the line initiated by the Catalan Executive of rebuilding bridges with the European institutions, and, in this case, with an international organization based in Barcelona, of which the 27 countries of the EU and 15 of the Mediterranean basin of North Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe.
Although the headquarters are in Barcelona, relations have been frozen in recent years and it was the Minister of Foreign Affairs who was preparing the meeting that took place yesterday. Meritxell Serret pointed out that the meeting “culminates one of the great objectives set by the Government: to recover full dialogue with the main international organizations and especially with the UfM, due to its strategic nature” in the Government's foreign policy.
Former president Carles Puigdemont attended the opening of the annual forum in 2017, as a guest, and from then on the gestures stopped. Former president Quim Torra was not invited either. The Spanish Government closed the doors of the Generalitat in its foreign action due to the process, and little by little trust has been restored.
For this reason, Serret pointed out that “the lack of formal, “clear and respectful” dialogue with this multilateral organization “was an anomaly.” The head of Acció Exterior held a preparatory meeting with Kamel at the UfM headquarters a few months ago. And, likewise, the intergovernmental organization was already present at the end of 2023 at the summit organized by the Government to promote the Euro-Mediterranean macro-region.
One of the president's objectives on the international stage is the promotion of this macro-region which, according to government sources, does not intend to replace the UfM, but rather "to join forces and strengthen Mediterranean cooperation under the umbrella of a European instrument that already works in other regions.” The aim is to get the European Commission to give the green light to the creation of this space and to define an action plan. Spain, France, Albania, Greece, Italy and Morocco signed this petition at the meeting held in November at the Palau de la Generalitat.
In January, Aragonès considered the recovery of the Generalitat's dialogue with the European institutions practically complete after almost ten years of ostracism by the European Commission. It was his second trip to Brussels since he began his mandate, on a visit in which he met four European commissioners.
Aside from the political context of the process, which led to this freezing of institutional relations, the Government and the UfM took the opportunity to channel some disagreements around the request of the international organization to expand its space in the Pedralbes palace, the Generalitat's premises. where it is based. Technical meetings have been held, according to government sources, to finalize this expansion. And finally an agreement has been reached to give up a new space that is only pending legal adjustments.
After the meeting between Aragonès and Kamel, public references to the war between Israel and Hamas were avoided, but the Government recalled that it condemns "indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population." Meritxell Serret reiterated the request for a ceasefire and the defense of the position of the European Union.
