Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CATALONIA

Ex-Catalan leader Puigdemont remanded in custody by German court

A German court has kept former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont in custody pending possible extradition to Spain to face "rebellion" charges.

Published: 27 March 2018 09:22 CEST
Ex-Catalan leader Puigdemont remanded in custody by German court
A sign hangs outside the German court where Puigdemont appeared in on Monday. Photo: AFP

Puigdemont will “remain in detention for the time being, until a decision is made concerning the extradition procedure,” the regional court in Kiel, northern Germany, announced Monday, a day after Puigdemont was arrested. 

The former Catalan leader's detention in Germany, which sparked angry protests back in Catalonia, comes five months after he went on the run as Spanish prosecutors sought to charge him with sedition and rebellion in the wake of a vote by the Catalan parliament to declare independence.

READ ALSO: 


Carles Puigdemont was arrested in Germany on Sunday. Photo: AFP

The court in northern Germany turned down a request from Puigdemont's legal team for him to be released pending the extradition decision by German authorities.

He was arrested on Sunday after he crossed the border into Germany from Denmark, under a European warrant issued by Spain. According to Puigdemont's lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, he was on his way back to Belgium, where he fled after Spanish authorities moved to impose direct rule over Catalonia.

His detention marks the latest chapter in a secession saga that has bitterly divided Catalans and triggered Spain's worst political crisis in decades.

Protest in Barcelona

A decision on extradition must normally be made within 60 days under German law. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office for Schleswig-Holstein state told AFP it would “probably not come this week” ahead of the four-day Easter holiday.


Photo: AFP

In Barcelona Sunday, Catalan police in riot gear shoved and hit demonstrators with batons to keep the crowd from advancing on the Spanish government's representative office in the capital of Spain's wealthy northeastern region.   

Officers fired warning shots in the air to try to contain the demonstrators, who pushed large recycling containers towards police. Some people threw glass bottles, cans and eggs at police.

About 90 people were slightly injured during the protests in Barcelona, including 22 police officers, emergency services said.

'Solution can be found'

The case lands an unwanted diplomatic hot potato in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's lap less than two weeks after her new government was sworn in.   

Her spokesman insisted Monday that the decision on Puigdemont's extradition rested solely in the hands of the German regional justice authorities.   

Spain's deputy prime minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria welcomed the arrest as “good news”, saying: “No one can make a mockery of the courts forever”.

Protesters in Barcelona saw the move as a provocation while Catalan parliament speaker Roger Torrent appealed for calm in an address broadcast on regional television.

Aside from Puigdemont, nine other Catalan separatist leaders are in jail in Spain over the region's failed bid for independence.   

His arrest came two days after Spain's supreme court issued international arrest warrants for 13 Catalan separatists including Puigdemont and his nominated successor Jordi Turull.

The court said they would be prosecuted for “rebellion”, a charge which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.   

Twelve more face less serious charges such as disobedience.   

Issuing the warrant for Puigdemont on Friday, Judge Pablo Llarena accused the ousted Catalan leader of organising an independence referendum in October last year despite a ban from Madrid and the risk of violence.   

That vote had been swiftly followed by the Catalan parliament's declaration of independence on October 27th.

'Revenge and repression'

Puigdemont had been visiting Finland since Thursday, but slipped out of the country before Finnish police could detain him.   

In Geneva, the UN Human Rights Committee said it had registered a complaint from Puigdemont, which his lawyer has earlier said concerned Madrid violating Puigdemont's right to be elected and his freedom of expression and association.   

Elsa Artadi, a lawmaker with Puigdemont's Together for Catalonia party, said he should fight his extradition.

“Spain does not guarantee a fair trial; only revenge and repression,” she wrote on Twitter.

While separatist parties won Catalonia's regional elections which were called by Madrid in December, they have been unable to elect a president and form a government as they have picked candidates who are now either in exile,  in jail or facing prosecution.

After Puigdemont was forced to withdraw his bid for the presidency as he could not return to Spain without facing arrest, another pro-independence leader Jordi Sanchez followed suit when a judge refused to let him out of jail to be sworn in. The third candidate, Turull, was placed in custody on Friday.

Fresh regional elections will be triggered if a new leader is not elected by May 22nd.

BEACHES

Why are Barcelona’s beaches disappearing?

Barcelona's much-loved beaches are losing between six and 10 metres of sand per year, but why is this happening?

Published: 16 June 2021 15:30 CEST
Why are Barcelona's beaches disappearing?
Barceloneta Beach. Photo: Pau BARRENA / AFP

Barcelona may be famed for its beaches and they may be one of its biggest tourist draws, but it hasn’t always been this way.

In fact, Barcelona didn’t used to have any beaches at all, just ports and seaside neighbourhoods. It wasn’t until 1992 when the city held the Olympic Games that these neighbourhoods were demolished and the beaches were created. 

What’s the problem?

Since 2017, the city’s beaches have been losing between six and 10 metres of width per year, according to a recent study by the Área Metropolitana de Barcelona (AMB).

This beach erosion means that every year there is less and less sand for residents and tourists to lie on and enjoy. 

This is not a new problem however and has been going on much longer than four and half years. In 2016, the Barcelona City Council revealed that since 2010 Barceloneta Beach had lost over 15 metres in width, which is equivalent to 28 percent of its surface area.  

In another 2016 report, the regional authorities of Barcelona also showed that its beaches as a whole had lost 17 percent of their total amount of sand during the same time period, the same as five football pitches.

Why is it happening?

The study attributes this to the fact that there have been more storms than normal since 2017, which has prevented the natural recovery of the beaches.

Storm Gloria in January 2020 in particular caused significant damage to the beaches in the area and caused even more sand to be washed away.

In short, most of this is to do with climate change. 

The beaches that have been most affected and have lost the most amount of sand are those in the lower Maresme region and the towns of Masnou and Badalona.

Barcelona beaches being destroyed during a storm. Photo: JOSEP LAGO / AFP

What’s being done about it?

The Barcelona City Council has been continually adding a little sand to its beaches each year and moving it around from areas that have more to areas that have less.

Aitor Rumín, head of the beach management service of the Barcelona Consistory told El Pais last month that “the last major contribution of sand was made by the ministry in 2010. Since then we have only lost sand”.

“It’s survival, but we can’t do much more. The beaches lose 30 cubic meters of sand per year, especially in the southern parts of each of the beaches. The coastline is receding and we have beaches like Mar Bella, Nova Mar Bella and Llevant, where we can’t do anything to regain the sand,” he said.

Badalona Beach. Photo: JOSEP LAGO / AFP

While moving the sand around and adding a little each year may help to cover up the problem in the short term, it’s not really helping solve the problem and a long-term solution needs to be found.

The Área Metropolitana de Barcelona have been trying to stop the beach erosion with their Resilience Plan, which will ask for greater contributions of sand to try and balance out the current losses and divide the beaches up with breakwaters.

In the case of Badalona, it has been proposed that 13,200 cubic metres of sand be added to the beach each year, as well as to rethink the layout of the equipment located on the seafront. The construction of a breakwater on La Mora beach has also been proposed.

In Sant Adrià, the plan is to build another breakwater, as well as to remove the jetty in front of the old industrial areas. The council also hope to add a further 95,000 cubic metres of sand.

It is thought that similar plans may be carried out on Barcelona’s other beaches.

Is this a problem anywhere else in Spain?

Yes, beach erosion is a problem throughout Spain, as well as throughout the world, due to climate change.

Theocharis Plomaritis from the University of Cádiz who was one of the co-authors of the Nature Climate Change study published in March 2020, told El Periodico that by the end of the century the retreat of the beaches in Spain and Southern Europe could be 86 metres, if no measures are taken to contain climate change. 

According to the study, in the best case scenario – with measures to mitigate the effects of climate – the loss of sandy beaches in Spain would be 60 metres and 27 of these metres by 2050.

SHOW COMMENTS