Vice-president of the Government announced yesterday the initiative./ Photo: Pool Moncloa/JM Cuadrado
The Diplomat. 30/01/2016
The Cabinet asked the Council of State to issue an “urgent” report yesterday on the conflict of competences with the Catalan Government in relation to the creation of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Institutional Relations and Transparency, chaired by Raül Romeva.
The Government thinks that the definition of powers conferred on the new Department contradicts the constitutional order and the guarantee of competences of the State, according to Catalonia’s Statute, which establishes, in its article 193, that “the Catalan Government must promote Catalonia’s image abroad and its interests in this field respecting the competence of the State as regards foreign affairs”.
The decree 45/2016 of 19 January, of the structure of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Institutional Relations and Transparency, and the decree 27/2016 of 13 January, of creation, designation and determination of the area of competence of the departments of the Catalan Government, provide for the creation of the aforementioned Department.
The vice-president of the Government, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, claimed, during the press conference, that both the Catalan Government and Catalonia’s Parliament are making decisions breaking the Constitution of 1978, since foreign policy is the exclusive jurisdiction of the State.
The Standing Committee of the Council of State must be consulted in the case of contestation before the Constitutional Court of the resolutions taken by the bodies of the Autonomous Communities, before lodging an appeal of unconstitutionality or considering a conflict of competences, as the Organic Law of the Council of State establishes.
