Catalan commission to investigate claims of abuse
Puigdemont says not looking for ‘traumatic’ split
MADRID (Reuters) – Catalonia will create a special commission to investigate claims of abuse by Spanish police during a banned independence referendum on Sunday after more than 800 people were left injured, Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont said on Monday.
Thousands of Spanish police were shipped in to the region to prevent the vote on secession though scenes of violence due to heavy-handed tactics by armored, baton-carrying riot units have received international condemnation.
The vote that the constitutional court banned and Madrid said was illegal yet still attracted millions of defiant voters was valid and binding, Puigdemont said during a conference.
The Catalan leader said he had had no contact with Spain’s central government and called on Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to say whether he was in favor of mediation in talks over the region’s future, which should be overseen by the European Union.
Puigdemont’s comments threw down a new challenge to Rajoy, who has the constitutional power to sack the regional government and put Catalonia under central control pending fresh elections.
That would raise tensions further in the region of 7.5 million people, a former principality with its own language and culture, and potentially hurt the resurgent Spanish economy.
In Madrid, Rajoy planned to coordinate his next steps in a meeting with Pedro Sanchez, leader of the opposition Socialists.
Puigdemont said on Monday he was not looking for a “traumatic” split from Spain but a new understanding, one day after hundreds were injured as police tried to forcibly disrupt a referendum on independence.
Sunday’s events in the autonomous region dramatically raised the temperature in a festering split between Madrid and Barcelona and made it harder for the two sides to sit down to try to find a political compromise.
Puigdemont said the vote, which attracted millions of defiant voters despite being ruled illegal by the constitutional court, was valid and binding, and that “we have to apply it.”
He did, however, tell a news conference: “We don’t want a traumatic break... We want a new understanding with the Spanish state.”
He added that the final result would most likely not be presented to the parliament on Monday or Tuesday.
The EU executive urged Spain to talk to Catalan separatists on Monday, condemning violence but also calling for unity, a day after the violence.
Edging into a minefield it has tried hard to avoid, despite a danger for stability in Spain and the euro zone, the European Commission issued a balanced statement that voiced trust in Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s ability to manage this “internal matter” but also called for dialog and reminded Madrid of a need to respect citizens’ basic rights.
“We call on all relevant players to now move very swiftly from confrontation to dialog. Violence can never be an instrument in politics,” the Commission said in a statement read out by chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas, shortly before Puigdemont asked for EU mediation with Madrid.
Pressed by reporters, Schinas declined to say specifically that the EU was condemning Spanish police tactics, though it was their actions at polling stations on Sunday which mostly shocked fellow Europeans and generated public pressure that saw a number of other governments including Germany call for more dialog.
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was to speak to Rajoy later on Monday after being in contact over the weekend, though the EU spokesman declined to say whether the Union would mediate in what would be an unusual step for Brussels to take within one of the bloc’s own member states.
The Commission statement also supported Madrid’s line that the vote, which Catalan leaders said recorded a huge result for independence, was “not legal” under Spain’s constitution.
“These are times for unity and stability, not divisiveness and fragmentation,” it said. Any breakaway state would have to leave the EU and re-apply to join, the statement also noted.