Catalan president Carles Puigdemont will meet next Tuesday with Danish MPs in the country's Parliament, a day after taking part in a debate at Copenhagen University. The meeting was announced today by one of those behind it, MP Magni Arge, of Tjóðveldi, a left-wing, pro-independence Faroe Islands party.
"We've invited him to a meeting here [at the Parliament] to be able to ask him questions and for him to talk to us about the current situation. This meeting aims to inform MPs about the state of things in Catalonia", Arge said to Danish news agency Ritzau. The meeting, to be held behind closed doors in the Parliament building, will be attended by, amongst others, members of three parliamentary commissions: Foreign Affairs, Faroe Islands and Greenland. The last two represent Denmark's two autonomous constituent countries.
On Monday, Puigdemont will take part in a debate about the political situation in Catalonia, Copenhagen University announced earlier today in a statement. "Catalonia and Europe at a Crossroads for Democracy?" is the title of the debate, organised by the university's Political Sciences department. In the announcement, Puigdemont is presented as "the 130th President of the Government of Catalonia".
The aim, the announcement continues is to "discuss the current political situation in Catalonia and place the challenges that Catalonia faces in the European context". This will be the president's first public appearance out of Belgium since he arrived in the country at the end of October last year.
Puigdemont has already been to Copenhagen, in September 2017, to open the Catalan government's delegation to the Nordic countries. At that time he met representatives of eight parties in the Parliament, including from Venstre and the Liberal Alliance, the largest two of the three parties in Denmark's governing coalition.