Catalan leadership under pressure

BARCELONA/MADRID : Catalonia’s secessionist leader came under intense pressure on Monday to abandon plans to declare independence from Spain after hundreds of thousands of unionists took to the streets at the weekend to protest against the region breaking away.

Spain fears the Catalan parliament will vote for independence on Tuesday, when Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont is due to address the assembly in the wake of a banned October 1 referendum in which Catalan officials say people voted overwhelmingly for secession. Under Catalonia’s referendum law, deemed unconstitutional by Madrid, a vote for independence on Tuesday would start a six-month process that would envisage divorce talks with Spain before regional elections and a final act of separation.

But the Spanish government, buoyed by Sunday’s protests in Barcelona, the Catalan capital, made it clear on Monday it would respond immediately to any such vote. “I’m calling on the sensible people in the Catalan government...don’t jump off the edge because you’ll take the people with you,” Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaría said.

The European Union has also shown no interest in an independent Catalonia, despite an appeal by Puigdemont for Brussels to mediate in the crisis. France, which borders Catalonia, said on Monday it would not recognise a unilateral independence declaration.