EU rejects calls to step in on Catalonia

BARCELONA/BRUSSELS • The European Commission refused Monday to condemn Spanish police violence against supporters of Catalan independence in Barcelona, as it expressed “trust” in the leadership of Spain’s prime minister.

Madrid’s Guardia Civil fired rubber bullets into crowds and stormed polling stations as the violence escalated during Sunday’s illegal referendum vote. More than 800 were left injured after the clashes, resulting in increasing calls for the EU to intervene.

The top UN human rights official called on Spanish authorities to investigate thoroughly and impartially violence linked to Catalonia’s independence referendum, and to hold talks to resolve the secession issue.

Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan president, said that the EU had a duty to protect the fundamental rights of those who voted.

“The EU commission may say this is just an ‘internal affair,’ but basic rights have been violated,” he said in Barcelona after calling for the EU to sponsor political dialogue on the crisis. Puigdemont announced the creation of a special commission to investigate the police violence, and demanded the immediate withdrawal of the thousands of National Police and Guardia Civil deployed to Catalonia.

He appeared to step back from an immediate declaration of independence, however. “We do not want a traumatic rupture,” the Catalan leader said, on the eve of a general strike called by pro-independence groups and unions to raise pressure on Madrid.

Protests were staged across Catalonia Monday over the police crackdown, at which a team of international observers led by Helena Catt, a Scottish election expert, said it had been “shocked.”

“We witnessed events that no election monitors ought to ever witness,” the team said as it condemned “violations of civil and human rights.”

The EC ignored calls to intervene in the crisis until noon Monday. It then issued a statement that appalled those who had hoped for the bloc’s intervention.

“Under the Spanish constitution, yesterday’s vote in Catalonia was not legal,” Margaritis Schinas, the commission’s chief spokesman told reporters.