MADRID’S ACTIONS ‘WORST ATTACK SINCE FRANCO,’ SAYS PUIGDEMONT
▶ Catalan leader calls the plans to replace him and his cabinet an attack on democracy
The Spanish government is attempting the worst attack on Catalonia since Franco, said the Catalan president in response to Madrid’s plans for direct rule.
The Spanish government unveiled plans on Saturday to sack the separatist leaders of Catalonia and call new regional elections under previously unused and wide-reaching powers to prevent the country from breaking up.
Mariano Rajoy, the prime minister, said that he wanted ministers to take over the top jobs in the Catalan government, including taking control of the police, the region’s finances and public media.
The plan will go before the senate for approval on Friday. The ruling centre-right party has a majority in the senate and so the measures are likely to pass. How Mr Rajoy’s plans could be implemented without the use of force has not been explained.
The Catalan leader, Carles Puigdemont, said that the plans to replace him and his cabinet was an attempt to humiliate the region and an “attack on democracy”.
Mr Rajoy’s announcement prompted Mr Puigdemont to lead an estimated 450,000 demonstrators wrapped in redand-yellow Catalan flags on to the streets of central Barcelona on Saturday, holding up signs calling for freedom.
Denouncing Mr Rajoy’s move, the Catalan leader said the Spanish government was attempting the “worst attack on the institutions and people of Catalonia since the decrees of the military dictator Francisco Franco abolishing the generalitat [parliament] of Catalonia”.
Passionate pro-independence supporters said they will surround parliament or any building that Mr Puigdemont is in to create a human shield and prevent his arrest.
The speaker of the Catalan parliament, Carme Forcadell, called the measures announced by the government on Saturday a “de facto coup d’etat”.
In an attempt to de-escalate matters, foreign minister Alfonso Dastis said yesterday: “All the government is trying to do, reluctantly, is to reinstate the legal order, to restore the constitution but also the Catalan rules and proceed from there.”
He denied that Madrid is mounting a coup, saying instead, “if anyone has attempted a coup, it is the Catalan regional government”.
The decision to press for the abolition of the Catalan leadership, impose direct rule and push for elections within six months came after a special cabinet meeting on Saturday.
In the independence vote, which was ruled illegal by the supreme court, 90 per cent of the 43 per cent of Catalans who voted wanted independence.
Two thirds of the region’s mayors defied the Spanish courts to help organise the referendum and thousands risked criminal charges by working as volunteers or hiding ballot boxes in their houses.
But many anti-independence supporters boycotted the ballot and claimed it was not valid.
Mr Puigdemont said the referendum result gave him a mandate to pursue independence. He and other regional leaders signed a declaration of independence but immediately suspended it to allow for talks. Mr Puigdemont missed two deadlines set by the national government in which he had been asked to clarify Catalonia’s position.
Now, Spain’s government has taken historic steps to take back power. The Spanish constitution, article 155, allows the national government to impose direct rule over Spain’s semi-autonomous regions if there is a crisis. It does not suspend the autonomy of Catalonia, which is guaranteed in Spain’s constitution and the statute of autonomy, but it allows the government to take special measures to force the region to adhere to its constitutional obligations.
It has never before been invoked in democratic Spain.
The Catalan secessionist challenge was not officially on the agenda of the European summit on Thursday and Friday in Brussels.
Yet German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron publicly announced their sympathy with Madrid.
“We are taking a very close look at Catalonia and are supporting the position of the Spanish government, which happens to be supported by all major political parties in Spain,” Mrs Merkel said.
Speaking in blunter terms, Antonio Tajani, the president of the European Parliament, said: “Nobody in the EU would recognise the independence of Catalonia.”
Mr Puigdemont will appear before Catalonia’s parliament tomorrow and has threatened to make a unilateral declaration of independence should the government go ahead with the crackdown.
Nobody in the EU would recognise the independence of Catalonia ANTONIO TAJANI President of the European Parliament