Spain threatens to take control of Catalonia
BARCELONA, Spain — The standoff over Catalonia intensified significantly Thursday as the Spanish government said it would take emergency measures to halt a secessionist drive in the economically vital and politically restive northeastern region.
The announcement came almost immediately after the Catalan leader, Carles Puigdemont, facing a second deadline to clarify Catalonia’s intentions since it held an Oct. 1 referendum on independence, warned that regional lawmakers were prepared to break from Spain.
The government in Madrid, in turn, announced that it would convene an emergency Cabinet meeting Saturday “to defend the general interest of Spaniards, among them the citizens of Catalonia.”
The rapid succession of events moved what was already one of the gravest crises in Spain’s relatively young democracy to a far more serious and unpredictable stage, with the prospect that Madrid could take over the running of Catalonia. At the most extreme, the Spanish government could arrest Puigdemont and charge him with sedition, as it has done with two other separatist leaders.
But such a step risks provoking a popular backlash and new street demonstrations in a region where many are already bridling at what they see as a heavy hand by the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
“A bad situation has become even worse today,” said Argelia Queralt, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Barcelona. “Neither side seems really willing to yield an inch, which means there is only a very limited chance of any positive outcome to this conflict.”
The Catalan government has said that 90 percent of those who voted in the referendum supported independence.
But Rajoy’s government and the courts had declared the vote illegal, and the police officers sent to block polling places wounded hundreds in clashes. Only about 40 percent of the Catalan electorate took part, after Madrid advised those who opposed secession to stay away from polling stations.
The latest statements from each side now move the dispute to the brink of a potentially explosive confrontation.
Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, spokesman for the Spanish government, said at a news conference that Madrid was ready to use “all the means within its reach to restore the legality and constitutional order as soon as possible.”
Yet such steps are fraught with uncertainty in a country that adopted its democratic constitution only in 1978, after the 1975 death of its longtime dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco.
Last week, Rajoy initiated a request to invoke a broad and forceful tool that has never before been used — Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution — which would allow him to take direct control of Catalonia.
He said he could resort to such a step if Puigdemont did not clearly back down from a threat to declare independence.
Article 155 would give Madrid the authority to suspend Puigdemont and other Catalan lawmakers, and to take charge of the region’s autonomous administration.
Using constitutional powers, Rajoy could appoint a caretaker administration in Catalonia.
Puigdemont, on the other hand, could face sedition charges and ultimately a long prison sentence for presenting a unilateral declaration of independence that violates Spain’s Constitution.