Esquerra Republicana (ERC) has demanded the appearance of the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, before the Interior commissions of Congress and the Senate to provide explanations for the inclusion of Catalan independence in the latest report on the situation and trends of terrorism prepared by Europol (TE-SAT).
The request from the republicans comes after the document from the European agency refers to "Catalan extremist separatism" within the chapter reserved for ethnonationalist and separatist terrorism.
"Scandal after scandal: either Marlaska believes that we independence supporters are terrorists or he has no idea what is brewing in his house. Either of the two alternatives is chilling. Let's see how he manages in the appearance we just requested," denounced the ERC senator Joan Queralt in a message shared on the social network X.
A conflict that already generated controversy in 2023
In the section dedicated to Catalonia, the Europol report states that "Catalan extremist separatism remained fragmented, operationally weak, and largely limited to sporadic and symbolic activity, with no indications of the capacity to exercise sustained or large-scale violence."
The mention of Catalan independence in this European document already sparked a strong debate in 2023. On that occasion, the Ministry of the Interior sent a letter to the community agency asking it to remove any association between Catalan independence and terrorism from the report.