Ref. Ares(2019)3471946 - 28/05/2019
I.
JTRS request for review of information in CATGlobal’s registration
In our e-mail from 20 February 2019, we have asked CATGlobal to review the following:
(1)
a possible discrepancy between the ‘goals/remit’ of your organisation (heading 8, first
subheading) and ‘main EU initiatives, policies and legislative files followed by your organisation’
(heading 9, first subheading);
(2)
as regards ‘main EU initiatives, policies and legislative files followed by your
organisation’ (heading 9, first subheading), the JTRS highlighted that activities relating solely to
monitoring EU policies do not qualify as eligible activities for registration in the Transparency
Register (i.e. they are not activities aimed at directly or indirectly influencing EU policy and
decision-making pursuant to paragraph 7 of the Interinstitutional Agreement);
(3)
the information relating to ‘relevant policy implementation, public relations and
communication activities such as projects, events and publications’ (heading 9, second
subheading);
(4)
the information relating to ‘the person with legal responsibility’ (heading 4), in
accordance with CATGlobal’s statutes.
II.
Assessment by the JTRS
Having carefully reviewed the updated entry, we note the following:
1) CATGlobal has modified the text in heading 8 to read as follows:
‘
a) To promote, disseminate and carry out initiatives that enhance and support the civil,
social and cultural Catalan State rights.
b) To promote dialogue and capacity of building initiatives based in human rights and
fundamental freedoms.
c) to ease, boost and host all kind of democratic initiatives focused on the achievement
of the goals above.’
In this context, as regards point a), we consider it necessary to highlight that, as specified in the
legal notice, the JTRS reserves the right to delete from the Register any entity whose values,
goals, activities and/or actions contradict the fundamental values of the EU laid down in Article
2 of the Treaty on European Union. One of the EU’s fundamental values is the respect for the
rule of law.
It is worth underlining in this context that both the European Parliament and the European
Commission have taken a clear and unambiguous positions as regards the referendum on the
independence of Catalonia and its compatibility with the internal legal order of the Kingdom of
Spain.
The European Parliament’s position from October 2017 reads:
‘The declaration of independence voted on today in the Catalan Parliament is a breach
of the rule of law, the Spanish constitution and the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia,
which are part of the EU’s legal framework.’
The European Commission’s position from October 2017 reads:
‘Under the Spanish Constitution, yesterday's vote in Catalonia was not legal.
For the European Commission, as President Juncker has reiterated repeatedly, this is an
internal matter for Spain that has to be dealt with in line with the constitutional order of
Spain.’
It is important to recall that the Spanish Constitutional Court ruled that the referendum
organised on 1 October 2017 was not legal. As a result, the JTRS considers that CATGlobal’s
declared core activities relating to promoting the intended aim of the referendum, i.e. civil,
social and cultural rights of the Catalan State, are contrary to the rule of law principles and the
constitutional order of an EU Member State.
For this reason, the JTRS cannot allow the registration of an entity, whose stated objective is
‘[t]
o promote, disseminate and carry out initiatives that enhance and support the civil, social and
cultural Catalan State rights’ (underlining added). This position is reinforced by the factual
context, in particular:
(i) the CATGlobal website, whose title appears as selfdetermination.eu,
(ii) the CATGlobal website’s appearance with elements that appear to support the objectives
contrary to the rule of law principles and the constitutional order of an EU Member State:
Picture 1
2) As regards ‘main EU initiatives, policies and legislative files followed by your organisation’
(heading 9, first subheading), you now replaced the previous information with ‘European chart
of Human Rights and fundamental freedoms, multilinguism and justice & Home Affairs’.
As mentioned in our previous e-mail, in order to be eligible for registration, the registrant should
carry out relevant activities in accordance with paragraph 7 of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
This is presently not evident from the text provided under the above sub-heading. In this
context, you may find the guidance provided in the Implementing Guidelines (pages 11-12)
useful.
3) As regards the information relating to ‘relevant policy implementation, public relations and
communication activities such as projects, events and publications’ (heading 9, second
subheading), we note that you have removed the previous information, without adding any new
information.
(4) We note that CATGlobal has amended the information relating to ‘the person with legal
responsibility’ (heading 4), in accordance with its statutes.
III.
Request for CATGlobal’s reaction
In view of the above elements, we would be grateful if CATGlobal could:
•
provide us with its official position with regard to the issue raised under 1) above,
namely whether CATGlobal intends to promote the objectives currently stated under
heading 8, since those are contrary to the rule of law principles of the Union and the
constitutional order of an EU Member State;
•
review the information concerning the elements raised above under 2) and update the
registration in accordance with the Implementing Guidelines.
We would be grateful to receive your clarifications concerning the above issues within 10
working days, i.e. by xx/04/2019. If we should not receive a reply by that date, the registration
will be removed from the Transparency Register.
Once we receive your reply, we will carefully examine your entry in the Transparency Register in
the light of your comments and updated information.
Please note that while your registration is currently suspended, you still have the possibility to
access your registration using your user code and password. However, the registration will not
be publicly visible during the suspension period.
Should you have any questions, do not hesitate to respond to this email.
Sincerely,
www.defensaexili.org
Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.
ǦǦǦǦǦǦǦ Original Message ǦǦǦǦǦǦǦ
On Monday, January 14, 2019 4:06 PM, <SG-TRANSPARENCY-
xxxxxxxx@xx.xxxxxx.xx> wrote:
Dear Madam, Dear Sir,
We are writing to you regarding the registration of
your organisation in the Transparency Register.
As part of our routine quality checks our services
have identified the following inconsistencies in your
registered data:
•
Under
heading 9, your organisation has not provided
sufficient information on its activities in terms of
interaction with the EU institutions, i.e. the titles of the
particular EU policies or legislative proposals your
organisation follows or the subject matter targeted.
Furthermore, in order to understand better your
mission and structure,
please provide us with
establishment documents of CATGlobal ASBL
(statutes/official founding document/publication in the
Official Gazette, i.e. Moniteur Belge). We referred to
the website you have provided but this his information
does not seem to be available.
•
Under
heading 10 the number of persons declared
active seems to be very high (5.5 FTE). There may be
some confusion between the numbers of persons
declared as engaged in activities falling under the scope
of the Transparency Register (i.e. interaction with the
EU institutions, work around influencing policy-making,
Public Affairs, etc) and the total staff/ members of your
organisation.
Please provide an appropriate explanation or
perform the necessary corrections within the
deadline specified below, or your organisation will
be suspended from the Register.
As part of this rectification we would encourage
you to carefully review the entirety of your
registration and, if necessary, to update it in
accordance with the Guidelines, which are available
in all EU official languages.
In order to update your data we invite you to log on
to the Transparency Register and perform the
required
changes within 10 working days, i.e. by
28/01/2019. You can login to your account here.
Please note that if your registration is suspended,
you still have the possibility to access your
registration using your user code and password.
However, the information will not be publicly
available during the suspension period.
In order to avoid the entire deletion of your
registration after which you will not be able to
access and change your data, we advise you to
perform the required changes by
11/02/2019 at the
latest.
Please note that the suspension/removal of your
registration due to the absence of any update of
your registration within the given deadline might
deprive you of the opportunity to:
•
have certain meetings in the
EU institutions;
•
sit on Commission Expert
groups;
•
access
the
European
Parliament's premises as an
accredited interest group
representative;
•
be invited as a speaker at an
EP committee hearing.
Should you have any questions, do not hesitate to
respond to this email.
Sincerely,
Joint Transparency Register Secretariat
Tel. +32 2 299 11 21
Web: http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister