Puigdemont appoints a grant seeker as manager of the Belgian entity CATGlobal

CATGlobal ASBL is the non-profit organization that Carles Puigdemont and his followers created in Belgium to cover the expenses of his so-called Consell per la República. This association has changed the administrator for daily management. The publicist Sergi Miquel has jumped from office and the new head is Josep Monrabà Bagán, a consultant lawyer specialized in attracting EU subsidies. It is the third administrator they have since the independentistas fled from the Spanish Justice created their Belgian corporate network in 2018.

Sergi Miquel, however, will continue to lead the day-to-day management of Catalonia Culture and Progress AISBL (CATCiP). In practice, according to the documentation of the assemblies of these two entities, what is created is a bicephaly. Monrabà will manage CATGlobal ASBL, which assumes the costs and operation of the Consell per la República, of the political structure in Belgium, while Miquel will continue to lead the daily management of CATCiP, focused on the expenses of the Casa de la República, the mansion that Puigdemont occupies in Waterloo.

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In the assemblies of both associations, the 2022 accounts and the 2023 budget for the two entities were approved. In the case of CATGlobal, it is noted that the accounts have been endorsed by “the government of the Consell per la República”, chaired by Puigdemont. In the case of the budgets for 2023, they have also received the approval “of the financial commission of the Assembly of Representatives of the Consell per la República catalana”, the parallel Parliament that Puigdemont and JxCAT set up in Belgium.

no figures. In fact, neither CATGlobal nor CATCiP have ever filed accounts.. Despite the commitment to transparency made by the Consell per la República in its day, they have never been formalized. Yes, there is in the minutes of the assemblies a reference to “the debt that CATGlobal has with CATCiP”. But it is not specified how much CATGlobal will return to its sister organization. In 2022, it was 80,000 euros. In point 8 of the agenda, the “donations for the support of the House of the Republic” were discussed.. again undetermined.

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The first of Puigdemont's administrators in Belgium was the engineer and computer scientist Jaume Cabaní, who barely lasted a year in that position, followed by the publicist specialized in digital advertising Sergi Miquel, who left his business in Barcelona to move to Brussels..

Now, the consultant Josep Monrabà assumes half of the work that Sergi Miquel used to do. Trained at Esade, Monrabà has a lower professional profile than Miquel's. After passing through Garrigues, in 2012 he created the consulting firm Eurocat Advisors in Sabadell, of which he is the sole shareholder. In theory, according to his LinkedIn, he lives in Brussels.. On its website it states: “Eurocat Advisors is a legal consultancy specialized in grants and financing for your company. Given the largest mobilization of public funds that has ever taken place in the European Union, our team in Brussels and Barcelona will help you identify those projects that are eligible for European aid and optimize the chances of getting it”.

Today with the company of the MHP @KRLS we were present at the inauguration of the External Action Group of the @JNCatalunya in Belgium. Congratulations to Josep Monrabà for taking on this responsibility! pic.twitter.com/QXebFtOWJ4

— JNC Eixample (@JNCEixample) April 7, 2019

role change

The main news is that CATCiP AISBL changes its role. The entity had been collecting fees from the more than 100,000 members that the Consell per la República theoretically has. But in reality the specific figure is not known either, because all the partners in the history of the Consell are counted, not the assets that are paying at the moment.

Now, as stated in the last CATCiP assembly, the entity “CATGlobal will become exclusively the support of the Consell”, while CATCiP “will be exclusively in solidarity with the Casa de la República”. This supposes a reorganization of the corporate network of the independence movement in Brussels and also of how the expenses of the Waterloo scene are assumed.

Legal structure

This legal structure is necessary because the Consell per la República displays political activity, but fiscally it does not exist. For that you have these two entities. In 2019, Josep Monrabà was already significant when the JNC (the youth of JxCAT, but then of PDeCAT) created the Grup d'Acció Exterior as an active collective in Brussels and as the organization's permanent delegation in Brussels. The person in charge of this Grup d'Acció Exterior presented as such in that act was Josep Monrabà, who now reappears as Puigdemont's new accountant.