Minister Victòria Alsina set off for Sarajevo this afternoon on what will be tomorrow the last day of a trip whose objective is to relaunch Catalonia's relations with the countries of South-East Europe. Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia are the axes of a visit that culminates tomorrow in Sarajevo, where the head of Foreign Action will discuss with the region's prime minister, Edin Forto, and the mayor Benjamina Káric, the Pyrenees' candidacy for the Games of Winter 2030, in which the Sarajevo collaboration is also planned.
Leaving aside the debate on the investments that will be necessary and without the definitive candidacy having yet been outlined, the councilor considers that, in line with the proposals of the IOC and the COE, the incorporation of the Bosnian city -which hosted the Winter Games in 1984- and the use of the infrastructure for the jumping events and those that require the ice tube. From Acció Exterior it is pointed out that the signing scheduled for tomorrow of a joint work plan between Catalonia and Sarajevo until 2024 is a framework that can help push this collaborative candidacy. A firm that is produced to commemorate 30 years of friendship with the Bosnian city.
The Government has therefore set its sights on the south-east of Europe in its strategy to recover the momentum of foreign policy with the opening of offices, whose network was paralyzed in 2018 with the application of article 155. This year, it will go from 44 offices to 63 offices in different parts of the world. Yesterday, Alsina attended the inauguration of the new Slovenian government, which is made up of center-left parties, leaving behind the skeptical Euro course of the previous Executive. She was the only foreign representative in an act that the Ministry made coincide with the preparation of the opening of a new office of the Generalitat in Ljubljana.
The councilor highlighted the deep friendship ties with Slovenia and its connection with a way of understanding "politics, identity and diversity". The offices, in addition to political representation, are being established as doors for both public and private collaboration (business, cultural, tourism...) between the different countries and Catalonia.
During the visit to these three countries and especially to Croatia during the meeting with the president of the Dubrovnic region, Nikola Dobroslavic, the Minister addressed the project of promoting a Mediterranean Macro Region within the EU (with the presence of both members of the EU like other Mediterranean regions), which strengthens cooperation between the regions that share objectives and which makes it possible to receive European funds. A project that is being worked on and where the Government considers that, due to its strategic value, Catalonia can be a symbolic capital of the Mediterranean. Projects that have been forgotten on an international political scale in recent years and that are now being relaunched.
