‘Let’s talk’ rallies across Spain seek to defuse crisis
Showdown looms this week on Catalonia independence bid
Madrid — Demonstrators dressed in white gathered outside city halls in Barcelona, Madrid and across Spain Saturday to demand that opposing sides in the country’s constitutional crisis move back from the brink.
“Let’s talk,” in Spanish and Catalan, said the banners and flags at Sant Jaume square in Barcelona and around Madrid’s Cibeles Fountain.
“It’s time to talk and find a way out — I don’t need to carry a flag. This isn’t a political movement, it’s a citizen movement,” Nuria Lliteras, a teacher, said at the Barcelona rally.
Time may be running out. Catalonian President Carles Puigdemont is negotiating the text of a declaration of independence with his group’s more radical partner, El Mundo newspaper reported. He’s scheduled to brief the regional parliament Tuesday, the first step toward a declaration.
As Spain and Catalonia planned their next moves before this week’s likely showdown, the focus was on the financial toll of secession talk. The board of CaixaBank, the biggest symbol of the Catalonia’s wealth and economic clout, decided Friday to move its legal base.
“It’s very sad what we are seeing, the departure of extremely important companies from Catalonia,” Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said at a news conference in Madrid Friday. “This isn’t the fault of the companies. It’s clearly the fault of irresponsible policy which at the end of the day generates uncertainty and anxiety.”
Puigdemont risks economic damage and being cast adrift by Europe if he pushes ahead with secession plans based on a referendum that breached Spain’s constitution.
If Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his minority government have to step in to reassert control, they will be loath to risk a repeat of scenes a week ago Sunday of police violence against peaceful voters that drew international condemnation and inflamed the separatists.
On Friday, Rajoy’s proxies sought to ease the anger over that crackdown. “We are profoundly sorry because this was not our wish. We didn’t want a single person getting hurt,” Enric Millo, the central government’s chief representative in Catalonia, said on Bloomberg Television.