The Catalan government has publicly expressed its "support for the final deal which London and Brussels reach" over Brexit. The official statement from the office of president Quim Torra follows doubts raised in recent days by Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez.
Earlier this week, Sánchez expressed his opposition to the deal currently on the table, ahead of a meeting of heads of government in Brussels this Sunday, over the issue of Gibraltar. The Catalan government today expresses its explicit "disagreement with this position and defends the need for the EU and the United Kingdom to maintain the best possible relations institutionally, economically, socially and culturally".
They express concern over the potential of a "no-deal" Brexit, "especially in terms of the consequences it would have for the almost 18,800 Britons who live in Catalonia and for the 19,300 Catalans living in the UK". The text also notes that "more than two thousands Catalan businesses regularly export to the United Kingdom" and that, in 2017, a record of 4.031 billion euros' worth of exports was seen (£3.6 billion; $4.6 billion), giving Catalonia a trade surplus of 1.5 billion.
The Catalan government concludes by "maintaining its Europeanism and its support for a more democratic and prosperous Europe which is aware of the realities [lived by its component] peoples".