The Government inaugurates the first delegation in the Asian continent, based in Seoul

The Government of Catalonia has inaugurated the first institutional delegation in Asia. It did so last week in South Korea, in Seoul. This office is part of the network of Government delegations abroad, which currently has 21 offices and covers 72 countries on all continents, including all European Union member states and almost all countries on the American continent. During 2024, the Government expects to open the headquarters of the Delegation in Japan, Tokyo, and later in Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent, with the aim of covering the entire region.

The President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès i Garcia, and the Minister for Foreign Action and European Union, Meritxell Serret i Aleu, traveled to Seoul last week to inaugurate the Delegation, and to hold a series of meetings that have allowed strengthening ties with institutional, economic and cultural actors in the country, with whom the Government, now that it has an office in the country, will further intensify cooperation.

"We are not inaugurating just another delegation, but taking a big leap forward in Catalonia's foreign relations and international policy," stressed President Aragonès at the inauguration ceremony. "We are laying the first stone of the Government's institutional deployment on the Asian continent," he added. This office, in the words of the president, "will allow us to have a more solid and fluid relationship with Korean institutions, companies and societies, and to open up to the entire continent."

The Republic of Korea is a strategic country for Catalan foreign action. Cooperation began in the 1980s with South Korean business investments in Catalonia. Since then, institutional, commercial and cultural ties have been increasing.

The return of the Government to the international forefront

Throughout 2023, Catalonia has recovered its international projection and its capacity to be a proactive partner on a global scale, expanding its foreign action. This is demonstrated by the high degree of international dialogue, especially in geographical areas that are priorities for the Government: the European Union and the Mediterranean.

The Generalitat has recovered dialogue at the highest level with international actors this last year, and has an unprecedented network of institutional representation in the world

This maximum interlocution has translated, for example, into 10 meetings or encounters of President Aragonès and other ministers of the Government with seven European commissioners, including the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Vice-President Margaritis Schinas. In addition, this year the Government has already held meetings with six ministers from European Union states. Another sign of the relaunch of Catalonia's international projection is the meeting that President Aragonès held with the Pope of Rome, 40 years after a similar meeting did not take place.

An institutional representation network unprecedented in the world

At the inauguration of the Government Delegation in South Korea, Minister Meritxell Serret i Aleu recalled: "We come from a very harsh 155 that tried to completely dismantle the Government's foreign action." "6 years later we can affirm that not only have we not allowed it, but we are stronger than ever," she concluded.

This is because the Government has more institutional presence worldwide than ever before. In fact, there is no other government that is not a state that has a representation network similar to that of Catalonia.

Throughout 2023, the network of delegations abroad has made a qualitative leap. The Government set as a priority to consolidate the delegations abroad and has fulfilled it: it has inaugurated delegations in the Southern Cone (based in Buenos Aires) and in South Korea; it has appointed four new delegates (in Brazil, Andorra, Japan and the Andean States); it has provided more budget and personnel to strategic delegations, and has created new figures, such as special envoys. The Catalan executive is now working on expanding the network of delegations abroad, which plans to advance institutional presence in South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Africa.

To further professionalize all this foreign action of the Generalitat, the executive has created this year the foreign action and European Union body, which should allow the various departments to have specialized personnel in international relations. All of them will be responsible for internationalizing the Government's public policies, further projecting Catalonia in the world and having a greater impact on the country and on the lives of citizens.

The scope and ambition of Catalonia's institutional presence abroad is reflected in the communication campaign 'We are in the world', launched by the Government last week, which reviews the reasons why the executive has delegations around the world. "To work, to build, to share ideas, to provide solutions to global problems, to have our say, to dialogue with all cultures," the spot points out.

The raison d'être of the Government's delegations abroad, as well as of all the Generalitat's foreign action, is to open the way for Catalan society and generate opportunities for the country in the world, in addition to contributing to responding to major global challenges.