It also approved the Local World Internationalisation Plan, and the conclusions of the report on Catalonia's presence in 10 major international newspapers was presented

Today the president of the Government of Catalonia, Quim Torra, opened the organisation's remote plenary session along with the Minister for Foreign Action, Institutional Relations and Transparency, Bernat Solé. Solé has chaired the meeting  acting under delegate powers by the President of the Generalitat. In his opening address, Torra emphasized that "public diplomacy understood in a broad sense is crucial and has a lot to do in these times of crisis. In this sense, Diplocat's three lines of action included in its Strategic Plan, connect-project-empower, must allow to raise awareness and to increase the visibility of Catalonia as an open, plural and responsible country in terms of tourism". Furthermore, Solé remarked that "Diplocat is an example of the great potential we have, with various entities, administrations and local actors with a full vocation for internationalization".

The plenary approved the 2019 Diplocat Annual Activity Report, which for the first time included both the details on the execution of the annual working plan and a series of indicators which help assess and showcase the organisation's desire for accountability and transparency.

Today the plenary also approved the Local World Internationalisation Plan. The Secretary General of Diplocat, Laura Foraster, stressed that "bearing in mind that the consortium's main asset is its plural, cross-disciplinary nature, the specific plan on the local world was devised with the viewpoint and cooperation of all the members of the consortium that represent the local world". The plan is the outcome of the efforts of a specific sectoral working group that developed it over the course of recent months.

The actions that Diplocat will implement within this plan include the analysis of cases of good practices, models and tools of good governance and training actions, such as hosting the Seminar on European funds, financing tools and opportunities for local entities. This seminar will be held at an outstanding time, as the European Council has just approved the economic recovery agreement for Europe in the wake of the crisis caused by COVID-19.

Issues related to depopulation, territorial balance and the energy transition, sports tourism and other tourism models, as well as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs), will also be promoted internationally in conjunction with local organisations.

Finally, Laura Foraster presented to the plenary  the conclusions of the study on Catalonia's presence and reputation in the international press (2019) undertaken by a research group at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) led by professors Cristina Perales-García and Carles Pont-Sorribes. The study analyses Catalonia's presence in 10 major international newspapers: The Washington Post and The New York Times (United States), The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph (Great Britain), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica (Italy) and Le Figaro and Le Monde (France).

The main conclusions of the study, which will soon be available on Diplocat's website, include the following:

• Of the newspapers analysed, the ones that pay the most attention to news from Catalonia are, in this order: British (22.9%), French (22.4%), German (21.3%), Italian (20.5%) and to a lesser extent, American (12.8%).
• Catalonia's presence is directly related to political issues, especially to the conflict between Catalonia and Spain. The second most important topic is the attention the newspapers pay to the rise of the extreme right after the two elections to the Congress of Deputies in Madrid.
• The ten newspapers analysed published a total of 584 journalistic pieces in 2019. The majority are news reports, but 16% are opinion articles.
• Foreign correspondents have sound knowledge of Catalonia and its language, and they believe that Barcelona has become extraordinarily interesting beyond the political situation because of new issues like rental prices and the green agenda.

Documents

Local World Internationalisation Plan 2020-2022 (Catalan version)

Diplocat Annual Activity Report 2019 (Catalan version)

Diplocat Annual Activity Report 2019 -  Annex (Catalan version)