Artur Mas' offensive against the European presidents ends in

Artur Mas has set himself the priority objective of internationalizing his independence demands. With that goal, he presented this week the 'Catalonia Votes' portal, with content in English, German and French. The Generalitat has launched this website after the resounding failure of the letter sent to all European presidents. “I trust that I can count on you to advance this democratic and peaceful process.” With this phrase, Artur Mas asked in a letter to the presidents of the European countries for their support for the independence referendum , called for November 9. The Generalitat confirmed the sending of the letter in January, but until now it has not offered a balance of the results obtained with that initiative. According to what sources close to the Mas Government reveal to El Confidencial Digital , no European president has responded to the letter sent four months ago. Furthermore, some diplomats have criticized the Generalitat's actions in that communication. Two big mistakes The embassies of Germany, France and Italy in Spain publicly confirmed at the time that the presidents of their respective countries had received the letter. However, none have announced a response from their governments. Privately, senior officials of these representations have conveyed, to intermediaries from the Generalitat, that Artur Mas and his team made two big mistakes when processing the letters .



They were the following ones: -- All letters were written in English . In diplomatic circles, it is considered a “serious lack of respect” to address the highest leader of a country in a language different from his own. Artur Mas chose to send all letters in a single Phone Number List language: English. This can be seen in the one sent to Angela Merkel . Like the rest of the European leaders, the German chancellor had to translate the Catalan message into her language. That detail felt especially bad in some countries with their own language, as happened in France. He skipped the embassies -- The Generalitat skipped the Spanish embassies . Another of the maxims that is always taken into account, when communicating with a foreign government, is to send the correspondence to the Spanish embassy located in the corresponding country, which is in charge of transmitting the message to the final recipient. Artur Mas, however, chose to send the letters directly to the presidential addresses of the European leaders, in order to avoid the Government of Spain. The diplomatic sources consulted confirm that “this type of communication can only occur between two leaders with a very close relationship, and this was not the case.” Former Foreign Office diplomats The Generalitat's strategy of sending letters to the European presidents asking them for support in holding the independence referendum is the work of the so-called ' Diplomat Office' , a group hired by Artur Mas to promote the independence challenge at an international level.







The sources consulted by ECD explain that this group of experts is made up of former officials of the British Foreign Office . Since 2004, these diplomats have traveled to areas such as Syria, Kosovo, Croatia, Sudan and the Sahara, to negotiate secessionist processes in those territories. The Government of Artur Mas has reserved a budget item of 360,000 euros for the ' Diplomat Office' to obtain international support for the independence referendum. A task that, for the moment, the former British officials have not achieved.TVE and the private companies are already negotiating a 'face to face' between Arias Cañete and Elena Valenciano, and a second debate with the rest of the candidates from parties represented in the European Parliament. The groups that will not participate in that space, such as Vox, Ciudadanos and Podemos, will have the opportunity to present their programs in a special 'laSexta Noche' on May 10. As El Confidencial Digital has learned , the network contacted these groups at the beginning of the month and the format and date for the program have already been set . The objective of laSexta is to offer a debate with the parties that will not participate in the special that TVE is preparing for the European elections. In this way, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Javier Nart, Pablo Iglesias , and Florent Marcellesi , heads of the list of Vox, Ciudadanos, Podemos and Equo respectively, will attend the set of 'laSexta Noche'. The network explains to this newspaper that, if the first swords do not go, representatives of these formations will attend. The candidates will be the protagonists of the program's usual debate table, which on May 10 will focus on the European elections on May 25 and the EU model defended by each of these formations.