Spain’s Ambassador to Greece has come under fire from the Greek Foreign Ministry and accused of crossing ‘’diplomatic lines’’ for comments he made about the government’s response to the Catalonia independence vote.
Greece’s Foreign Ministry accused Spanish Ambassador Enrique Viguera of meddling with internal domestic matters after he publicly criticised in the press the government on its alleged delayed response to the Catalan independence vote and the handling of the "Rouvikonas incident", when the self-proclaimed anarchist group burst into the Spanish embassy in Athens on Oct. 11.
"We were surprised to see in the Sunday press comments, publicly criticising the Greek government, made by the Ambassador of our friend and ally Spain. The comments in question, namely that the President of the Republic does not express the government, are an affront to the Constitution of Greece. Moreover, by implying that there is disagreement between the President of the Republic and the Government, he provocatively crosses the diplomatically tolerated lines," the Ministry said.
"His public adoption of the erroneous arguments of the opposition constitutes unacceptable involvement in the country's domestic politics, and his conduct suggests he is acting in coordination with the main opposition party.
"We call on the Spanish Ambassador to conduct himself in a manner consistent with the rules of diplomacy. We await his proceeding without delay to the retraction of the unfortunate statements and his provision of the requisite explanations to the Greek government," the Ministry said.
The Spanish Ambassador in an interview with "Eleftheros Typos" newspaper on Sunday accused the Greek government of not supporting Spain after the Catalan vote for independence, unlike New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Pavlopoulos who immediately expressed their unequivocal support for Spain's territorial integrity.
