Thierry Breton: High-Speed Commissioner

UNITED KINGDOM ITALY FORUM Inside Corbyn’s activist army A government on the brink The election from hell British leftists are sharing ideas and strategies Tensions are already escalating between In the UK’s imminent ballot, voters with former Bernie Sanders staffers 5 Rome’s uneasy coalition partners 6 search for the least worst option 18 POLITICO.EU DECEMBER 5-11, 2019 VOLUME 5, NUMBER 40 V MALTA Muscat to go, but not yet Crisis could be major test for Brussels 8 THIERRY BRETON: HIGH-SPEED COMMISSIONER France’s prominent tech companies and Macron wanted to keep intact the “Europe is at a crossroads: faced man in BY LAURA KAYALI become a European commissioner. sweeping portfolio he had negotiated, with major technological and societal Brussels IN STRASBOURG The Frenchman talked to overseeing the EU’s internal market, challenges, including in terms of POLITICO at his temporary office in industrial and digital policies, defense culture and media,” Breton said. “I wants Thierry Breton was having dinner Strasbourg, just a few hours after the and space — a job so big that the am concerned about the economic to move with his wife when his phone rang. European Parliament voted to approve Elysée was struggling to find qualified situation as well,” he added. “That’s fast — at It was Emmanuel Macron. him and the 25 other members of candidates. also why I said yes.” “I am always called when there Ursula von der Leyen’s top team. Breton, who like Macron served At a time of heightened tensions the risk is a fire,” Breton said, recalling Macron, indeed, needed a fireman. as French economy minister before between the world’s biggest of ruffling the moment when the French His first pick, Sylvie Goulard, going on to head the tech giant Atos, economic powers, Breton’s portfolio feathers president asked him to quit his job had been rejected by the European asked to sleep on it. By morning he as CEO of one of the country’s most Parliament over ethics concerns. had made up his mind. SEE BRETON ON PAGE 14 BEHIND BARS WITH CATALONIA’S SEPARATISTS ISSN 2406-5250 ISSN The road to Lledoners jail is a carpet of yellow in Cuixart’s case — for playing a role in the Jordi Cuixart, the jailed ribbons. outlawed referendum on Catalan independence Activists have spray-painted the llaç symbol in October 2017. head of a Catalan NGO, across the tarmac to demand the release of “I haven’t come to prison to fight to leave the continues to advocate for Catalonia’s convicted separatist leaders, seven prison, even though it’s a pain to be here. My ‘self-determination’ from of whom are locked up in this vast complex of priority is the solution of the political situation,” washed-out orange walls and green fences, 70 Cuixart says through a telephone. prison kilometers from Barcelona. Most of the jailed Catalan leaders are regional Jordi Cuixart, the 44-year-old president politicians who pressed ahead with the vote of Catalan NGO Òmnium Cultural, presses despite a Constitutional Court ban and the BY EDDY WAX a palm on the glass wall dividing prisoners Spanish federal police’s attempts to confiscate IN BARCELONA PROVINCE, SPAIN from visitors as a greeting. He is one of a ballot boxes and voting slips. dozen separatists sentenced by Spain’s highest ILLUSTRATION BY DAVE MURRAY FOR POLITICO court last month — to nine years in prison SEE CATALONIA ON PAGE 22 News XXXXXXX Catalonia CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Catalonia’s former Vice President Oriol Junqueras and ex-Foreign Minister Raül Romeva were talking to visitors in adjacent phone boxes. But Cuixart, with his polka-dot shirt, earrings and gray mullet, portrays himself as more a cultural figure than a politician. “We didn’t organize the referendum; we only asked people to participate,” Cuixart says. He was incarcerated for orchestrating a 40,000-strong rally outside the Catalan government’s economy ministry as it was being combed for election material by military police before the referendum, and also for encouraging the referendum itself. PRISON LIFE Cuixart is well aware he could serve many years behind bars: “This conflict is not going to be wrapped up in two or three years.” He and his wife married in the prison last year and she is allowed to visit him once a month in a private “I haven’t room during a so-called conjugal visit. come to That’s how Camí, the couple’s second son, whose unusual Catalan name prison to means “the path,” came to be born fight to just over two months ago. Cuixart was briefly allowed out to attend the birth. leave the He meditates and teaches fellow inmates how to make prison, even ceramics and write about their though it’s experiences. Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei paid him a visit last year. a pain to Each week, he is entitled to eight be here. My phone calls of no longer than eight minutes. His cell is 8 meters squared. priority is While admitting that there are days when he feels down, Cuixart the solution comes across as remarkably upbeat of the and says he was “very fortified” by a recent report from human political rights NGO Amnesty International situation.” condemning his conviction. “Despite the violence of the state, JORDI CUIXART the repression [and] the political prisoners, the independence movement electorally continues in a strong way,” Cuixart insists. government for not coming up with The judges write that Cuixart stood atop a police car. Yet even though Catalan pro- a proposal for Catalonia. He has urged issued social media messages calling “No one spoke of violence on that independence parties scored their Spain’s acting Prime Minister Pedro protesters to the economy ministry day,” he says. “The judges began to strongest-ever general election result Sánchez, who has struck a post- where, after making arrests, the call it a ‘riotous mass of people’ 15 on November 10, they only took 42.6 election governing pact with the military police were forced to take days later. It’s a key word, ‘riotous.’ percent of the vote. Catalonia is a leftist Podemos, to open dialogue refuge inside. Seven police cars were It’s the word the judge needs to prove region divided. with the Catalan government. damaged, police attempting to leave sedition.” Juan, a Colombian taxi driver who UPHEAVAL had objects thrown at them and some The Supreme Court ruled that the has lived in Barcelona for 15 years, could only leave at 7 a.m. the next October 1 referendum “was a riotous is fed up with the violent protests The Supreme Court convicted Cuixart morning. uprising encouraged by the accused that have rocked the city since for sedition, defined in Spanish law Els Jordis, as the pair have come to [Jordi Cuixart] among many other the Supreme Court judgment last as “rising up publicly and riotously be known, “exerted an indisputable people.” month. He says the resulting road to obstruct, by force or outside legal capacity for leadership” during the “I have no regrets whatsoever,” he closures and traffic jams are deterring channels, the application of Spanish protests, the judgment says. said at his trial in June. “Everything tourists, damaging the region’s law.” Cuixart, who has been in prison I did I would do again because I am economy and making him want to The court’s judgment describes how ever since a court order was convinced it is what had to be done.” leave. 10 days before the failed independence issued on October 16, 2017, denies And he repeated the point for “Don’t believe everything you hear referendum, Cuixart and Jordi masterminding the September emphasis: “When I say I’d do it [in the prison],” he warns, swinging Sànchez, the head of another pro- 20 rally, calling it a “spontaneous again, I’m talking about exercising the car into a detour. independence grassroots movement protest” for Catalans’ basic human my human rights ... What I’m fighting From the Spanish government’s who has also been jailed, organized rights, and says he told people to for is the right to self-determination.” perspective, Cuixart’s case is closed. two days of protest in Barcelona. leave through a megaphone as he ACTIVISM Rafael Simancas, secretary-general of the governing Socialist Party Cuixart, who describes himself as a (PSOE) in Congress, says: “Spain is “socio-cultural and political activist,” a country which has the rule of law. is convinced his imprisonment has [The Catalan leaders] received a trial nothing to do with the events that with all the guarantees of a mature night. democracy ... and they have been “They’re not judging the fact that convicted in line with what the court I called a protest but because I am established.” leading a cultural organization,” He continues: “From the Spanish Cuixart says. parliament, we have nothing more An entrepreneur from a small to add. It was a fair trial and he Catalan town who did not go to received a sentence conforming to university, Cuixart has never been an the resolution of this fair trial. elected politician, unlike fellow civil Nobody is above the law and we society leader Jordi Sànchez, who all have to submit to the dictates of won a seat in the regional parliament the courts, Mr. Cuixart and myself after his arrest. The Supreme Court included.” banned Cuixart from public office for In Lledoners jail, Cuixart has nine years nonetheless. demanded a new referendum Cuixart launched his own business and criticized Spain’s Socialist Lledoners Penitentiary Center outside Barcelona.

Load more