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| Ramón Luis Valcárcel, vice president of the EU Parliament |
Jen Mills for Metro.co.uk
One of the most senior EU officials has described the Catalan referendum as ‘a coup against Europe’. After the vote on October 1, Ramón Luis Valcárcel, vice president of the EU Parliament, said: ‘Today we have witnessed a nationalistic propaganda act, undemocratic; a coup attempt against Spanish democracy, and so a coup against Europe.’
Catalan officials said 90 percent of the 2.26 million voters had chosen to leave Spain, and will hold meetings to potentially move for secession as early as this week. But Mr Valcárcel, a Spanish politician and member of the ruling People’s Party, condemned the referendum saying Catalans had voted overwhelmingly in the past to approve Spain’s constitution which says the country cannot be divided. Writing an opinion piece for The Globe and Mail, he said: ‘We are witnessing the first coup against democracy in the history of the European Union.
‘A regional government is angling, in a unilateral, illegal and democratically deplorable manner, to secede from a member state. And in so doing, it is violating the fundamental rights of millions of citizens. ‘This situation is without precedent in the history of the [European] Union.’ Mr Valcárcel said Spain is an integral part of the EU, ‘which respects and safeguards the national identities and constitutional structure of its member states. ‘An attack on the constitution of one member state is therefore also an attack on the Union as a whole.’
After the vote on October 1, most senior EU officials Ramón Luis Valcárcel, vice president of the EU Parliament, said:
‘Today we have witnessed a nationalistic propaganda act, undemocratic; a coup attempt against Spanish democracy, and so a coup against Europe.’
He said the Scottish independence referendum was not the same situation, as the UK has no written constitution and the government granted consent for it to take place. More than 800 people were injured on Sunday as riot police attacked peaceful protesters and unarmed civilians gathered to cast their ballots.
After the polls closed, Catalan president Carles Puigdemont said Catalonia had ‘won the right to become an independent state,’ adding that he would keep his pledge to declare independence unilaterally from Spain. ‘Today the Spanish state wrote another shameful page in its history with Catalonia,’ Puigdemont added, saying he would appeal to the European Union to look into alleged human rights violations during the vote.
No one knows precisely what will happen if Catalan officials actually follow through on their pledge to use the vote – chaotic as it was – as a basis for declaring the north eastern region independent. Such a provocative move would threaten Spain with the possible loss of one of its most prosperous regions, including the popular coastal city of Barcelona, the regional capital. Clashes broke out less than an hour after polls opened, and hundreds of police armed with truncheons and rubber bullets were sent in from other regions to confiscate ballots and stop the voting.
Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said the violence, while ‘unfortunate’ and ‘unpleasant’ was ‘proportionate’. ‘If people insist in disregarding the law and doing something that has been consistently declared illegal and unconstitutional, law enforcement officers need to uphold the law,’
Police were acting on a judge’s orders to stop the referendum, which the Spanish government had declared illegal and unconstitutional – and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said going forward with the vote only served to sow divisions. In a televised address after the majority of polls closed Sunday, he thanked the Spanish police, saying they had acted with ‘firmness and serenity’ – comments sure to anger Catalans.
Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said the violence, while ‘unfortunate’ and ‘unpleasant’ was ‘proportionate’. ‘If people insist in disregarding the law and doing something that has been consistently declared illegal and unconstitutional, law enforcement officers need to uphold the law,’
Dastis told The Associated Press.
Source: metro.co.uk Monday 2 Oct 2017
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