Catalonia to open six new delegation offices abroad in 2022

The Catalan government will open six new delegation offices in Tokyo, Seoul, Dakar, Pretoria, Brasilia, and Andorra la Vella in 2022. These offices, which have the aim of strengthening Catalonia’s presence abroad as well as its ties with foreign countries, are meant to act as a gateway to Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and Andorra as well as to the broader regions of Western and Southern Africa. Once they are in operation, the Catalan government will have a total of 20 delegation offices abroad.

The Catalan government will also open new offices in Dublin, Ljubljana, and Quebec and begin to send special envoys to what are deemed to be strategic locations. There will be two special envoys in 2022: one to Warsaw and another to Edinburgh. “We are a nation that has not given up on emancipating itself and becoming a state,” Catalonia’s foreign minister Victòria Alsina told Catalan News on Monday morning when these measures were announced. “We need to be able to explain ourselves.”

Catalan delegation offices, which are part of Catalonia’s External Action Plan, have been a source of controversy as some believe only Spain should have the authority to implement such programs. These offices were forced to close when the Spanish government imposed direct rule in Catalonia by invoking Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution following the failed 2017 independence bid. The Catalan government began to reopen some of these offices in 2018, but not without objection from the Spanish authorities that argue Catalonia is overstepping its role as a political entity within Spain.