Europe goes domestic: narratives on the Catalan crisis in the European Union and the Council of Europe (2012 – 2019)

Publié le 14 mai 2025 – Mis à jour le 14 mai 2025

Seminar organized by the CEVIPOL’s Europe Axis, with Antonio Manuel Alvarez Garcia, Predoctoral Researcher FPI-UAM and PhD candidate at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.

Abstract

In this seminar I will present a chapter from my PhD project: “European dimensions of the Catalan pro-independence movement: a rhetorical analysis”. Throughout my doctoral thesis I analyse how the main actors driving for Catalonian independence interacted with their European political environment. In the first chapter I acknowledged that some Catalan pro-independence arguments resonated with some other contemporary, European political movements often labelled as “populist”. In the second chapter I argued that “Europe” was a key political concept during the whole Catalan-crisis debate and I analysed how pro-independence actors used this concept in their rhetoric battle against the Spanish Government. In the third chapter I focused on the Europeanisation campaigns driven by pro-independence political actors and I acknowledged that the arguments vertebrating these campaigns were adapted to the expectations and preconceptions of their European audiences.

In this seminar I will focus on Chapter 4 (“Europe meets domestic politics…”). Here I will acknowledge how the Catalan pro-independence movement was framed by European political actors, both from the European Union and the Council of Europe. Regarding the EU, I rhetorically analyse all sessions of the European Parliament where the Catalan issue was addressed, as well as all statements issued by the European Commission on the matter. Regarding the CE, I analyse the opinions and resolutions on the Catalan conflict provided by the Venice Commission and the Parliamentary Assembly. The results dialogue with the previous chapters, as they show to what extent did European institutions frame the Catalan pro-independence movement as a populist threat (chapter 1), how they link the Catalan debate with their own conception of “Europe” (chapter 2) and, finally, results establish if EU and CE framing of the issue resonates with Catalan pro-independence Europeanisation campaigns (chapter 3)

Bio

Antonio Manuel Alvarez Garcia is a Predoctoral Researcher FPI-UAM and PhD candidate at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. He is working on his PhD project “Las dimensiones europeas del movimiento independentista catalán” (European dimensions of the Catalan pro-independence movement). His research interests focus on European integration narratives, nationalist movements and multilevel politics. He holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), Universidad Carlos III (Madrid) and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

Date(s)

Le 4 juin 2025

12:00 - 13:00

Lieu(x)

Institut d'études européennes - ULB
Salle Kant
39, Avenue F.D Roosevelt, 1050 Bruxelles