Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont is not willing to miss any chance to put Spain in a bad light. Last Sunday, the fugitive called to dig all possible trenches in a videoconference connection during a rally that Junts focused on his town, Amer. He also came to the fore to attack police infiltration in radical movements or to celebrate the filing of an investigation into Oleguer Pujol Ferrusola, who was being investigated for a triangular economic operation through the Drago company..
This Tuesday, he addressed an extensive letter to his family after hearing various rulings from the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) in recent weeks that ratified that Catalan schools must teach at least one core subject in Spanish, considering that the presence of this language in teaching is “insufficient and inappropriate”.. “The Spanish Justice chose July 18 to launch another attack on the linguistic model of Catalonia. A model that sought to reverse the devastating effects that the fascist dictatorship of General Franco had on our language and provide it with the strength to overcome the damage caused and ensure the future. Spain wants to eliminate our language since the Bourbons came to power,” he wrote in the harangue..
The Spanish “justice” has chosen July 18 to launch another attack on Catalonia's linguistic model. A model that sought to reverse the devastating effects that General Franco's fascist dictatorship had on our language, and to give it the strength to…
— krls.eth / Carles Puigdemont (@KRLS) July 18, 2023
But his battle with Spain goes much further: this June, in a letter signed jointly with his partners Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí, he asked that Europe fine Spain for buying Russian gas to make energy cheaper and accuses the Executive of Pedro Sánchez of directly financing the invasion of Ukraine. The man who came to receive alleged envoys from the Kremlin to support the secession of Catalonia in his official office at the Palau de la Generalitat is now calling for sanctions against the Spanish State for commercial operations in which the Spanish Government, in reality, has not entered.
The letter from Puigdemont and his partners states: “European imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) are expected to continue to increase in 2023. In 2022, the EU imported 22 billion cubic meters of LNG from Russia, representing an increase of 38% compared to the previous year.. These imports represent 10 million dollars of Russian daily income. LNG-related profits are a key driver of Russia's brutal war of aggression against Ukraine.”.
The largest importer of Russian LNG
The fugitive president in Waterloo also assures that, “as the largest importer of Russian LNG, Spain leads this trend, where LNG reaches 6,513 GWh, that is, 17.4% of total imports in April 2023. Spain has doubled, or even tripled, its imports of Russian LNG in each of the last 12 months compared to the previous year..
These accusations coincide with those made just a few months ago by the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who accused the Executive of Pedro Sánchez of being “financing the war in Ukraine”.. Russia drastically reduced its gas pipeline exports to Europe, but, on the contrary, significantly increased LNG exports, despite the embargo decreed by the EU.
Puigdemont relies on the statistical data prepared by Enagás, but omits that the gas brought from Algeria accounted for 23.8% at that time and that of the United States accounted for 23.2%. According to the latest Enagás statistical bulletin, Russian LNG imports decreased this June compared to June 2022 (from 8,752 GWh to 7,673 GWh), although its weight in imports as a whole increased to 26.8%, as imports from the United States fell by half and dependence on Algerian gas also decreased. At the moment, LNG imported from Russia is the one with the greatest weight in Spanish demand, but this is a piece of information that was not available (it was known in July) when Puigdemont presented his brief. The United States, for its part, reduced gas shipments to Europe over the last year to preferentially allocate it to the Argentine market.
Most of the Russian gas that reaches Spain comes from long-term contracts with Yamal LNG, a consortium led by a Russian private company, Novatek, but in which there is also capital from European private companies. In Spain, Naturgy has signed a long-term contract with Yamal, which will expire in 2042. This is the only contract signed by a Spanish company regarding LNG.
However, according to the European Commission, since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian LNG imports have plummeted. According to Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), “gas flows via pipeline from Russia to Europe have plummeted 80% in just one year”, although LNG imports fell only 10% in 2022.. Spanish imports of Russian gas, however, increased by 45% in 2022 compared to 2021. According to data from Enagás, last year the United States became the main supplier of gas to Spain, displacing Algeria, which was the second supplier. Next came Nigeria and Russia.. Of the total gas imports, Spain imports 68.1% in the form of LNG through methane tankers, while 31.9% arrives through gas pipelines.
private transactions
According to statistics from the Corporación de Reservas Estratégicas de Productos Petrolíferos (Cores), in 2022, imports of Russian gas from Spain increased by 54%, while imports from the United States doubled and purchases of Algerian gas plummeted by 59% due to the crisis unleashed with that country.. This caused the leader of the PP to accuse the Government of Pedro Sánchez of being “financing the war”. The Spanish Executive, although last March asked the companies to stop buying Russian gas, argued that it could not intervene in the purchase operations because they were between private companies and, furthermore, they were due to already closed contracts that were being executed. In fact, the increase in the purchase of Russian LNG by Spain is not due to other countries buying less from Russia: simply, our country cannot receive Russian gas through pipelines, as other European states, such as Germany, do.
Be that as it may, Puigdemont takes the opportunity to poke Spain in the eye and, ignoring the fact that there are countries that import more gas than Spain, is exclusively interested in LNG. Thus, he recalls that “Commissioner Simson [refers to the EU Energy Commissioner, Kadri Simson] has urged Member States and all European companies to stop buying Russian LNG and refrain from signing new import contracts”.
The fugitive states that, “given the persistent increase in Russian LNG imports and its negative consequences for the Union's common foreign and security policy objectives, does the Vice-President of the Commission and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy plan to propose to the Council sanctions for Russian LNG imports? In the event no sanctions are proposed on Russian LNG, what other legal options is the Vice President/High Representative considering to prevent Member States from indirectly financing the war through Russian LNG imports?”. The pro-independence MEPs want community leaders to respond in writing to these questions.