The Catalan president, Quim Torra, has sent a letter to European presidents, prime ministers and ambassadors. He informs them that he has assumed the presidency in an anomalous situation of "open conflict" with the Spanish state, and vouches that his executive remains firmly committed to dialogue and negotiation as tools to overcome differences.
"Honourable and democratic Catalan politicians have been accused of rebellion and placed in provisional detention without any sentence having been passed on them", he writes in a letter which also notes that president Carles Puigdemont and other members of the government and Parliament have had to leave into exile.
He remarks that, despite these adverse circumstances, a new government has been formed, based "upon the values of solidarity, diversity and cohesion" and that he said in his investiture speech that "debate, dialogue and the ballot box [are] the only means of progression for our society". Torra also says that his government shares the EU's foundational values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, pacifism and equality.
To close, he quotes the last verse of the hymn of the United Nations, composed by Catalan cellist Pau Casals based on a poem by WH Auden, highlighting the penultimate line: "Where Fate is Freedom".