Spain ups stakes in Catalonia crisis

CATALONIA’S separatists were planning their response yesterday after Spain took drastic steps to stop the region from breaking away by dissolving its separatist government and forcing new elections.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont and his regional executive – which sparked Spain’s worst political crisis in decades by holding a banned independence referendum on October 1 – will be stripped of their jobs and their ministries will be taken over under measures announced on Saturday by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

“Yesterday [Saturday] there was a fullyfledged coup against Catalan institutions,” said Catalan government spokesman Jordi Turull.

“We will announce what we will do and how,” he told Catalunya Radio.

Rajoy has taken Spain into uncharted legal waters by moving to wrest back powers from the semi-autonomous region, which could see Madrid take control of the Catalan police force and replace its public media chiefs.

The move sparked outrage among separatists, with nearly half a million taking to the streets of regional capital Barcelona on Saturday and Puigdemont declaring Rajoy guilty of the worst attack on institutions and Catalan people since Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.

Among other repressive measures, Franco – who ruled from 1939 until 1975 – took Catalonia’s powers away and banned official use of the Catalan language.

Though Catalans are deeply split on whether to break away from Spain, autonomy remains a sensitive issue in the northeastern region of 7.5 million people, which fiercely defends its language and culture and has enjoyed control over its policing, education and healthcare.

Rajoy said he had no choice but to force Puigdemont out as he refused to drop his threat to declare independence after the referendum, declared as unconstitutional.

Responding to accusations of a coup, Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis retorted: “If there is a coup d’etat, it is one that has been followed by Mr Puigdemont and his government.”

In a crisis that has sent jitters through one of Spain’s most important regional economies and rattled the stock markets, Rajoy has ordered fresh elections to be called within six months of a senate hearing, which would see polls held by mid-June at the latest. — AFP