Constitutional Court rules against ‘Foreign Affairs’ designation of Catalan ministry but endorses external action
The Constitutional Court (TC) nullified the designation ‘Foreign
Affairs’ for Raül Romeva’s ministry on Wednesday , but endorsed the
Catalan government’s activities abroad, as long as they “do not infringe
State powers”. By nullifying the designation, which in fact is no
longer used, the court upheld only part of the the Spanish government’s
appeal against the denomination as well as certain powers of the Catalan
foreign affairs ministry. The magistrates ruled that the Catalan
government “can carry out activities of external projection, whenever
derived from its powers and for the promotion of its interests, and
always respecting the powers that the Constitution reserves exclusively
for the State in the area of external relations.” In other words, as
long as the Catalan government’s activities abroad do not clash with
state foreign policy.
The ruling is in line with the same doctrine the court used when
deliberating on the State’s appeal against the Law 16/2014 of exterior
action and relations with the Europe Union. Back then, the
Constitutional Court ratified the capacity of the government to take
action abroad as long as it respected the exclusive powers of the State
over foreign policy. Wednesday’s ruling –which passed unanimously-
justified the nullification of the term ‘Foreign Affairs’ because “it is
identical to that of the State”, which “can cause confusion and lead to
interference in the direction and execution of Spanish foreign policy”.
However, the Catalan government had already changed the name of the
ministry so as to avoid this conflict with Madrid.
With this ruling the Constitutional Court accepts only part of the
Spanish government’s appeal against the decree of the “establishment,
designation and area of powers” of the Ministry of Institutional Affairs
and Relations and Exterior and Transparency, which was initially called
the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Institutional Relations and
Transparency.
