It remains curious that it should have been the Spanish foreign minister, Josep Borrell, who's been caused the most problems with our neighbour France over the publication of the manifesto from 41 Gallic senators asking for their country and EU authorities to intervene in the Catalan conflict. The man who boasts about the greatest contacts in the international arena and who set up the government lobby Global Spain to defend the state's interests and counter the independence movement's narrative, has suffered a goal smack in the corner of the net. One of those that hurts and which, it has to be said, neither of the PP's foreign affairs ministers received. Neither the always controversial José Manuel García-Margallo nor the inexpressive and unsteady Alfonso Dastis, that minister who was rolled over by the BBC and Sky News trying to show there was no police violence during the Catalan referendum and that it had all been fake news very well-prepared by the independence movement.
A French friend, who I struck up a good relationship with during my recent time in Paris, reminded me this Monday of the importance of the initiative from the 41 French senators due to how exceptional it is that parliamentarians from an EU country should speak out against another European partner. If, moreover, it's signed by members from all the political parties in the chamber and from all the regions, it's even more striking in a country like France, and explosive too. A foreign diplomat, from an EU country, living in Madrid grabbed my attention recently with the following sentence: "It is, alongside Brexit, the matter we're following with the greatest interest". He was referring to the Catalan conflict which, although governments are doing everything possible to distance it from the media agenda, is maintaining a permanent presence in the international media.
Emmanuel Macron's reaction in support of Spain and its territorial unity, like that from the country's European affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, along the same lines and in defence of the Spanish Constitution, are nothing other than the response of a European partner to the Spanish state's call for help. The reaction from the 41 French senators has been quite the slap in the face for the Spanish state; the reaction from Gallic authorities has been insufficient for Borrell to recover from the hit.
A few hundred kilometres away, the president in exile, Carles Puigdemont, was visiting the German prison of Neumünster, where he was held a year ago now whilst German legal authorities analysed the extradition warrant against him drafted by the Spanish legal system. Puigdemont wanted to return to the site of what was the greatest success of the Catalan exile and quite the setback from the German courts to the Supreme Court and judges Pablo Llarena, Manuel Marchena, Carmen Lamela... The Paris-Berlin axis has had its own dynamic, although Macron and Merkel would certainly have wanted something else: to come to the rescue of Pedro Sánchez and Mariano Rajoy.