Ousted Catalan leader challenges EU to speak out on crisis

BRUSSELS — Catalonia’s ousted leader vowed Tuesday to prolong the fight for independence from Spain and urged the European Union to speak out over the jailing of Catalan officials in a rebellion case.

Carles Puigdemont’s comments came at a campaign-style rally in Belgium’s capital attended by around 200 mayors from Catalonia who greeted the deposed president with chants of “president” and “freedom.”

The mayors raised their walking sticks, a symbol of mayoral power in Spain, in the air at the end of his speech and the crowd sang the Catalan anthem.

“We will never renounce this ideal of a country, of this notion of democracy,” Puigdemont told the mayors, gathered in a central Brussels art museum.

Flanked by four associates who fled Spain with him, Puigdemont challenged the Spanish authorities and international community to accept the results of a snap Catalan election on Dec. 21 if separatists win.

Puigdemont and his colleagues could face 30 years in jail in Spain on charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement if Belgian justice authorities agree to extradite them. Nine former Catalan government members have already been sent to jail in Spain. One of them was released on bail during the investigation.

“We are the legitimate government of Catalonia and we are going to carry on,” former regional government member Meritxell Serret told the audience, her voice breaking with emotion.

Puigdemont also challenged the European Union to finally make its voice heard. Catalan officials at the Brussels event Tuesday urged European Union leaders to take up the Catalan cause.

“Is this the Europe you want, is this the Europe you want to build, with a democratically elected government in jail?” he said before a group of mayors held up big letters spelling “Help Catalonia.”

The leaders of all the EU’s main institutions are party allies of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. They have refused to criticize his government, and only reacted very cautiously to police violence during the Oct. 1 independence referendum in Catalonia.

Hours earlier, Puigdemont did an interview in Brussels with Catalan public radio.

The separatist leader said that there is an “absolute disconnect between the interests of the people and the European elites” and that Catalonia’s problem is an “issue of human rights that requires maximum attention.”