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Post of the Month: Barcelona Celebrating 200 Years of Consular History Click on any of the pictures to see a larger size with captions. t’s one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. And those who watched TV coverage of the 1992 Summer Olympic games - or better yet, attended them in person - couldn’t help but be dazzled by the host city’s imposing public monuments, its charming tree-lined boulevards and its inviting sidewalk cafes and tapas bars. Perched on a pillar above Barcelona’s bustling harbor stands Christopher Columbus, pointing toward the Mediterranean. Back in 1797, as the United States turned 21, Barcelona already had become Spain’s Mediterranean hub of maritime commerce. The city’s booming textile industry demanded raw material, and Yankee merchantmen loaded down with southern cotton crowded the city’s harbor in response. The rise of this lucrative trade generated the need for U.S. consular representation to facilitate commercial relations and aid American merchants and seamen in trouble. President John Adams responded by naming a New England sea captain, William Willis, the first U.S. consul to Barcelona on Dec. 29, 1797. Two hundred years later, a staff of four Foreign Service officers, two U.S. family members and 18 Foreign Service Nationals promote U.S. interests strikingly similar to those of 1797. The Barcelona office has a Foreign Commercial Service Office, a Consular Section and a Branch Public Affairs Office, all dedicated to serving the needs of American business people and tourists while promoting U.S. interests through public diplomacy. Barcelona’s consulate general represents U.S. interests throughout Spain’s northeastern regions of Catalonia, Aragon and the Balearic Islands and Andorra, a tiny independent principality. A region of rugged beauty, the district encompasses the glamorous Mediterranean beaches of Mallorca and the Costa Brava. Inland, the district boasts the vineyards and wooded hills of Catalonia and Aragon. Rising dramatically in the north and west, the Pyrenees mountains stand as Spain’s imposing natural frontier with France. The 1992 Olympics greatly increased Barcelona’s international recognition and tourism. The city continues to attract tourists from around the world, including some 300,000 Americans a year. They seek out the city’s renowned art museums and marvel at its array of urban architecture: 12th-century Gothic spires, provocative outdoor sculpture and eccentric Art Nouveau buildings in the style of Antoni Gaudi, Barcelona’s favorite son. While serving in a world-class tourist destination may be considered a plum assignment, Barcelona’s popularity increases the consular workload. The city attracts a flood of young backpackers in the summer and a steady stream of older, more sophisticated visitors throughout the year. The combination of mass American tourism and legions of professional pickpockets makes Barcelona a leader in per capita stolen passport cases. Summer months see the consulate’s waiting room overflowing with college students in baseball caps and backpacks, exchanging travel tips while waiting for their replacement passports. Throughout most of the rest of the year, elderly Americans frequently require extensive assistance after falling victim to bands of petty criminals that often prey on tourists. In commemoration of its two centuries of public service, the Barcelona consulate staged an ambitious calendar of bicentennial events throughout 1997. Events ranged from an academic conference on European security that served as a curtain raiser to the NATO Summit in Madrid, to a commemorative World League Football championship game televised in the United States. Headlining the celebration was the Foreign Service Institute’s two-week European Consular Training Conference. Ambassador Ruth Davis, a former consul general in Barcelona, presided. The celebration reached a rousing crescendo at the gala July 4 party for 3,000 guests at Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium. A traditional American Independence Day, complete with barbecue, beer, martial music, live entertainment, games and speeches, concluded fittingly in a spectacular display of fireworks. The enthusiastic support of the American and Catalan communities made this ambitious bicentennial agenda possible. They clearly recognized that 200 years of American consular representation in Barcelona was something worth celebrating. ~ by Steve Groh The author is a consular officer in Barcelona. Barcelona’s People Catalonia serves as a leading example of European regionalism, seen by many as a model for accommodating the aspirations of the continent’s restive national minorities. With their distinctive language and strong sense of cultural identity, the entrepreneurial Catalans take great pride in their homeland and count themselves more “European” than their Iberian compatriots. Since the end of Gen. Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in the mid-1970s, the Catalans have achieved nothing short of a cultural, linguistic and political renaissance. They have taken advantage of their economic dynamism and political weight, successfully extending the envelope of regional autonomy within the Spanish state and carving out for themselves enough political elbow room for their language and culture to flourish. USIS in Barcelona The U.S. Information Agency is represented in Barcelona by an American branch public affairs officer and two Spanish national employees. In addition to its typical day-to-day operations, the post recently hosted or is scheduled to cosponsor conferences on global electronic commerce, regional economic restructuring, European security, telecommunications deregulation, media globalization and environmentally sustainable tourism. USIS Barcelona also works with an independent, self-sustaining, binational center, the Institute for North American Studies in Barcelona. It offers Catalonia’s only English-language public lending library, extensive on-line research facilities, a large English-teaching program, an American studies program and standardized higher-education testing and counseling for those who wish to study in the United States. The center also serves as a catalyst for information and cultural exchange between Catalonia and the United States. The author is an information officer in Madrid. HomePage | Past Posts