Spanish court bids to block session

SPAIN’S CONSTITUTIONAL Court has ordered Catalonia’s parliament to suspend a planned session next week during which separatist lawmakers wanted to declare independence.

Catalan regional authorities previously have ignored Constitutional Court orders, so it was not immediately clear if the session would go ahead and if all parties would attend.

The court said its order could be appealed but also warned Catalan parliament speaker Carme Forcadell and other members of the speakers’ board that they could face prosecution for failing to halt the session.

Mr Forcadell called the suspension a “violation of freedom of speech”. “I won’t allow censorship to enter Parliament,” she said without clarifying if the meeting would go ahead.

Earlier, Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy urged the separatist leader of the regional Catalan government, Carles Puigdemont, to cancel plans for declaring independence in order to avoid “greater evils”. In an interview with Spain’s official EFE news agency, Mr Rajoy said the solution in Catalonia “is the prompt return to legality and the affirmation, as early as possible, that there will be no unilateral declaration of independence, because that way greater evils will be avoided.”

The court order came as political uncertainty over Catalonia’s secession bid started spreading to the economy, with stock markets falling and big Catalan firms relocating or considering a move to elsewhere in Spain.

About 40% of Catalonia’s electorate of 5.5 million voted in the divisive referendum marred by violence when police moved in to close polling stations and confiscate ballot boxes.