Catalonia to hold independence vote on Oct 1

Madrid set to seek any means possible to block secession

Barcelona: Spain is facing its deepest political crisis in decades after Catalonia’s regional parliament passed a law paving the way for an independence referendum on Oct 1, with Madrid set to seek any means possible to block it.

The looming showdown comes three weeks after militant attacks in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, and a seaside resort which killed 16 people and wounded more than 120.

“The concept of state and unity of the homeland ... doesn’t have a future in modern democratic Europe,” said the president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, at the end of his speech late Wednesday after the vote.

Lawmakers approved the Bill despite a February ruling by Spain’s Constitutional Court declaring it would be unconstitutional.

Shortly after the law was passed, Puigdemont and the rest of his Cabinet signed a decree calling the referendum, presenting a show of unity in the face of threats of legal action by Madrid, which deems the plebiscite illegal.

Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said before the law was passed, the government had asked the Constitutional Court to declare “void and without effect the agreements adopted” by the Catalan parliament.

She also denounced the regional assembly’s agreement to quick ly vote on the Bill with little debate as an “act of force” characteristic of “dictatorial regimes”.

At the same time, public prosecutors announced they would seek criminal charges for disobedience against the president of the Catalan parliament, Carme Forcadell, and other Catalan officials for allowing the vote on the referendum law.

In a tweet earlier, Forcadell said she had requested that the 12 judges at the Constitutional Court be disqualified, calling them “another extension of the state which has lost all legitimacy”.

Most of the court’s judges have been nominated by lawmakers from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party.

Catalonia, a region of 7.5 million people with its own language and culture, accounts for about onefifth of Spain’s economic output, and has significant powers over matters such as education and healthcare.

But Spain’s economic worries, coupled with a perception that the region pays more in taxes than it receives in investments and transfers from Madrid, have helped push the cause of secession from the fringes of Catalan politics to centre stage.

Adding to the rise in separatist sentiment was a 2010 ruling by the Constitutional Court striking down parts of a 2006 autonomy charter which granted new powers to Catalonia and recognised it as “a nation”. — AFP