Spain’s prime minister moves to stop Catalan independence
MADRID » In the latest escalation to a conflict that has galvanized Europe for weeks, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy vowed Saturday to sack Catalonia’s leaders and to hold a fresh round of elections “within the next six months.”
Madrid’s announcement came after an emergency cabinet meeting, where government ministers debated how best to respond to the Oct. 1 Catalan independence referendum, which Spain’s constitutional court had declared illegal.
On Saturday, Rajoy said he would ask the Spanish senate to take the unprecedented step to invoke Article 155 of Spain’s 1978 constitution, which allows the central government to suspend the region’s autonomy. But he was quick to insist on the distinction that Madrid was not seizing control of Catalonia, merely demanding new leadership.
“This is not a suspension of home rule but the dismissal of those who lead the regional government,” he said.
Catalan regional authorities joined hundreds of thousands protesting in Barcelona in a massive show of support for independence. They are also calling for the release of two prominent activists who have been jailed while awaiting possible sedition charges.
The march was initially called by Catalan National Assembly and Omnium Cultural to press for their leaders’ release — but it has become a collective rejection of the Spanish government’s move to take over Catalonia’s regional powers.
A banner reading “Freedom for Jordi Sanchez! Freedom for Jordi Cuixart!” opened the march.
The separatists in Catalonia, led by regional President Carles Puigdemont, staged a chaotic referendum despite the fact that Madrid had declared it illegal. If more than 2 million people voted to declare independence, the overall turnout for the vote was less than half of the region’s total population.
In a speech shortly after the Oct. 1 vote that confused observers in Barcelona and across Spain, Puigdemont first declared independence but then “suspended” the secession process, saying that Catalonia was willing to begin talks with the central government. Catalonia’s calls for the Europe Union to come and mediate the dispute have not been answered, with most continental leaders tacitly backing Madrid.
On Saturday, Rajoy vehemently disputed the notion of “dialogue” with a campaign his government still considers as outside the rule of law.
“The president of the generalitat was invited to discuss his position in the Spanish parliament, but he refused,” Rajoy said of Puigdemont. “He was invited to the conference of regional presidents, and he didn’t want to go. Dialogue is not that others have to accept a decision you already made. It is not imposing your decision to break the law.”
At a news conference Friday night at the close of the EU summit in Brussels, the Spanish prime minister said he was “forced to act” to save preserve Spanish unity.
“It simply cannot be, in today’s Europe, that there is a country where the law is not observed,” Rajoy said.
Catalonia, with its own language and culture, already enjoys considerable autonomy, with control of its own health care, education and regional police.
Rajoy said Article 155 would be invoked “to restore institutional legality and normality.”
The measure, however, has never been used and is untested as a tool.
After Rajoy’s cabinet outlines its plan to take control of Catalonia, the parliament must approve the measures. A vote in the upper house is expected next week.
Catalan officials immediately rejected Madrid’s announcement. Josep Lluis Cleries, a spokesman for the Catalan parliament, immediately called Rajoy’s speech “a suspension of democracy.”
The decision to invoke Article 155, he added, represented “a true coup d’état against the people of Catalonia.” Earlier this week, the Catalan vice president, Oriol Junqueras, told The Washington Post, “The citizens of Catalonia are ready to defend democracy through all legal means and rights.”
At the same time, however, about seven in 10 Catalans surveyed support a call for new elections, according a poll conducted by Gabinet d’Estudis Socials i Opinió Pública for the Barcelona-based daily El Periodico.
Asked about the possibility of violence, Junqueras said: “Here the response is very simple. The Spanish government will have to explain to the world how it justifies violence against peaceful protesters.”
The vice president expected to see mass demonstrations.
During the Oct. 1 referendum, National Police and Civil Guard officers used harsh tactics, in some cases beating voters with rubber batons and dragging people away from the ballot boxes.
If Madrid begins to take over Catalan institutions and ministries next week, civil society groups here promise street demonstrations and civil disobedience.
It is possible the regional police may stop work and civil employees will walk out. Unions could call general strikes.
It remains unclear whether new elections will solve problems for the central government, with a pro-independence parties benefiting from a probable surge in popularity in recent weeks. It is also possible that Catalan parties could boycott an election pressed upon them by outsiders.