Germany takes for granted that the Catalan independence challenge will end at a negotiating table. Despite the crossing of letters between Mariano Rajoy and Carles Puigdemont, and with Minister Alfonso Dastis explaining to his EU counterparts the position of Madrid, the German foreign minister, the Social Democrat Sigmar Gabriel, has defended this Monday that “there is a margin” of maneuver “to try to solve the crisis in Catalonia and to lower the tensions.
“We support everyone who wants to come to the negotiating table to resolve these issues and reach a stable situation in Catalonia, as well as in Spain,” said the head of German diplomacy in statements to the press in Luxembourg, at its entry in the C Onsejo of Ministers of European foreign Affairs. Gabriel, who is in office pending the new coalition of Angela Merkel’s CDU with the Liberals and the Greens, has opened the door to a negotiation that Madrid, for the time being, circumscribes the Spanish Parliament and whenever the government returns to the constitutional order .
“We are very happy that there is now room for manoeuvre because everyone can and hope that they will be negotiating, reducing tensions and using time and space in Catalonia and Spain,” added the German minister. Dastis, on the contrary, has reiterated the Government’s willingness to “find a solution within the channels of the Constitution and through dialogue in Parliament.”
That does not seem the German position, which until now has closed ranks with the executive of Rajoy. Gabriel already warned on October 11th that a declaration of unilateral independence by the Catalan government would be “irresponsible” and warned that there is only one possible solution to the Catalan crisis “through conversations based on the rule of law and in the Framework of the Spanish Constitution “.
