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International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Friday, 29.03.2024, 02:52

Politico names Ilves as one potential mediator in Catalan crisis

BC, Tallinn, 05.10.2017.Print version
The international political magazine Politico on Wednesday named former Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves as one potential candidate to mediate between Spain and its autonomous region of Catalonia that has announced a bid for independence, informs LETA/BNS.

"Crisis-chasers like Carl Bildt, Tony Blair and Toomas Ilves have strengths and drawbacks. If you can't call on a household name, it's always possible to call on a trusted country. Norway could offer Borge Brende - its foreign minister and president of the World Economic Forum," Politico said, describing the aforementioned names as "the usual suspects."


Altogether Politico listed a couple of tens of names, among them former U.S. President Barack Obama and several former secretaries of state, as well as Juan Manuel Santos, president of Colombia and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Jean-Marie Guehenno, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group (ICG) and member of the UN secretary general's new high-level advisory board on mediation.


"Catherine Ashton and Herman van Rompuy have track records as understated successful negotiators if EU-stamped, but no longer serving, figures are what the parties can live with," it said. "A better bet is Helle Thorning-Schmidt. The former Danish prime minister was a 2014 contender for the European Council presidency and now runs Save the Children. Given the state of the Catalan crisis, some would say that qualifies her perfectly."


Politico said that among current EU figures, Federica Mogherini is the most plausible and would hold a certain allure if she is named winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Yet with the Spanish state paying part of her salary, it would be hard for the Catalan government to agree.


The Catalan government has expressed the wish to bring in a mediator into its standoff with the central government of Spain, but Madrid has refused describing the crisis as purely an internal matter of Spain.






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