LEADING THE WAY
In the Catalan crisis all sides see a hole and keep digging
THE crisis in Catalonia is reaching its most critical point — and if things go badly wrong we will all feel the effect.
Tomorrow the senate of the Madrid parliament is expected to approve the government’s plan to invoke article 155 of the Spanish constitution and suspend the regional authority and parliament in Catalonia. Catalonia will then come under direct rule, and fresh regional elections would be ordered in six months’ time.
The regional parliament of Catalonia was due to meet in Barcelona today and tomorrow. The ruling coalition led by Carles Puigdemont could declare independence from Spain unilaterally and order fresh elections itself.
Mr Puigdemont was reported to still favour dialogue with Madrid, though on what terms now is far from clear. His deputy Oriol Junqueras last night said “there is now no choice” but to go for
Sail away with me... Dolly joins Kenny for last duet KENNY ROGERS and Dolly Parton sing one last duet as he bids goodbye to fans in Nashville. The friends closed Rogers’s farewell concert yesterday singing their hit Islands In The Stream. “How about me and you go out like rock stars?” Parton, 71, asked Rogers, 79. They dropped their mics and walked off arm in arm. full independence. Spain’s prime minister Mariano Rajoy has said he will take a gradualist approach to resolving the Catalan crisis, to maintain economic stability. But the situation may now be sliding beyond his control.
Under the constitution Mr Rajoy is bound to defend and promote the unity and integrity of Spain. Article 155 permits resorting to direct rule — but it’s a blunt instrument. An immediate problem will be the use of the central police force — the Guardia Civil — and the divided loyalties of Catalonia’s own police. At 17,000 strong, its ranks are said to be split on the issue of independence and loyalty to Spain.
The law may be clear and on Madrid’s side, but the tussle over independence has been a pretty rich exhibition of bad politics all round — in the region, in metropolitan Spain, and the EU. It’s as if all sides saw a great big political hole appearing and just kept digging. The odds are stacked against the independence movement — no outside power has spoken up for it — save for one thing. The separatists dominate local media. The argument won’t go away with the arrival of Guardia Civil or an election promise. It will be amplified by them.