Spanish loyalists on streets to defy Catalan breakaway

Spanish loyalists on streets to defy Catalan breakaway
Graham Keeley, Barcelona
October 9 2017, 12:01am,
The Times UK

Hundreds of thousands of people waving the flags of Catalonia and Spain turned out in Barcelona yesterday to show their opposition to the independence movement, calling themselves the Silent Majority

RAFAEL MARCHANTE/REUTERS

Hundreds of thousands of opponents of Catalan independence were on the streets of Barcelona yesterday in the largest ever demonstration driven by the desire to keep Spain together.

Protesters calling themselves the Silent Majority converged on the centre of the city waving Spanish and Catalan flags and shouting “Viva España, Visca Catalunya”
(Long Live Spain, Long Live Catalonia).

The march came two days before a showdown between Madrid and Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan leader who has threatened to declare secession from Spain tomorrow at a special meeting of the regional assembly.

As Spain’s worst political crisis for decades showed no sign of easing, Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish prime minister, said that if separatists declared unilateral independence he could not rule out using article 155 of the constitution to impose direct rule and then call fresh regional elections.

Such a move, which has never been used since Spain returned to democracy in 1978, could trigger riots.

“I don’t rule out anything that is within the law . . . Ideally, we shouldn’t have to take drastic solutions but for that not to happen there would have to be changes,” Mr Rajoy said in an
interview with El País published yesterday.

In Barcelona, in a largely good humoured demonstration, people sang the Spanish national anthem and Y Viva España. Many held banners saying “Catalonia is Spain” and “We are proud Spaniards and Catalans”. Others shouted: “Puigdemont to jail!”

Societat Civil Catalana

Societat Civil Catalana, the group opposed to independence that organised the protest, called for a return to common sense. It claimed 950,000 people turned up but police said it was more like 350,000.

Ismael Caldera, 42, wearing the blue and red shirt of FC Barcelona, the football club that has supported Catalan independence, held a Spanish flag with the Catalan yellow and red stripes on the reverse.

“I came to show that not all Catalans are for independence. We are the silent majority who never demonstrate, but now we are frightened about what is happening to our country. It is
being taken over by a small minority,” he said.

Fascist salutes were seen at a protest rally in Madrid

PABLO BLAZQUEZ DOMINGUEZ/GETTY IMAGES

The wealthy northeastern region of 7.5 million people, which has its own language and accounts for 19 per cent of Spain’s GDP, held an independence referendum on October 1 in defiance of a ban by Spain’s highest court.

More than 90 per cent of the 2.3 million people who voted backed secession, according to Catalan officials. But the turnout was only 43 per cent of the region’s 5.3 million eligible voters. Many of those on the streets of central Barcelona yesterday claimed that the disputed referendum did not represent the views of most Catalans.

Asunción Bernardo, 48, an administrator, travelled 60 miles from Tarragona in the south of Catalonia to take part. He said: “You see how many people really oppose independence.

The independence people are better mobilised than us and we never raise our voices because we are frightened of reprisals at work or in the street. But now it is vitally important to show Catalonia is part of Spain. I am for dialogue to sort this out. Perhaps they could give the Catalans control over taxes, because they always complain that Madrid takes all the money.”

The Nobel literature prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa and Josep Borrell, a former president of the European parliament, addressed the rally.

“Besides Catalans, there are thousands of men and women from all corners of Spain who have come to tell their Catalan companions that they are not alone,” said the writer, who took Spanish citizenship in addition to that of his native Peru in 1993. “We want Barcelona to once again be the capital of Spanish culture.”

Mr Borrell said: “Catalonia is not a state like Kosovo where rights were systematically violated.”
Tens of thousands of people also gathered in 50 cities across Spain on Saturday, some defending national unity and others dressed in white and calling for talks. Some protesters made fascist salutes at a rally in Madrid. Most demonstrators in Barcelona carried Spanish and Catalan flags.

There was a sharp rise in support for independence in Catalonia after an economic recession. Recent polls showed at least 40 per cent of Catalans supported independence, with 49 per cent against, but more than 70 per cent were in favour of a referendum agreed with Madrid, like the 2014 Scottish vote.

Concern is growing in European Union capitals about the impact of the crisis on the Spanish economy. Some European officials are also worried that any softening in the Spanish
government’s stance towards Catalan independence could fuel secessionist feelings among other groups in Europe.
Article Source : The Times UK Subscription
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Catalan independence: arrogance of Madrid explains this chaos

John Carlin

ஒரு சாமானிய ஸ்பானிய அறிவு ஜீவியின் கற்றலோனியாவுக்கான ஆதாரம் மிகுந்த தாராளவாதக் குரல்.

Catalan independence: arrogance of Madrid explains this chaos

Three centuries of Catalan grievances came to a head this week, but the intransigence of Spain’s government is ultimately to blame for the crisis

John Carlin

October 7 2017, 12:01am, The Times

 

Shortly before the King of Spain addressed the nation this week, some of his more rational-minded subjects hoped that maybe, just maybe, he might rise above the petty-mindedness of the Madrid political establishment. He could, they thought, offer a generous vision of how to resolve the crisis caused by the escalating clamour for Catalan independence. No such luck. By the end of his six-minute speech Felipe VI had only made things worse.

 

Stiff in his bearing, coldly commanding in his tone, he did not build bridges, he dug trenches. He did not lament the police violence during last Sunday’s simulacrum of a referendum in Catalonia, so damaging to his country’s global image; he denounced the “irresponsibility” and “scorn” of the elected Catalan government and threatened more violence. It was the “responsibility of the legitimate state powers”, the king warned, “to ensure constitutional order”, code for if the Catalan government makes good on its promise to declare unilateral independence, we’ll send in the tanks.

 

Speaking on behalf not of the nation but of central government, he did as prime minister Mariano Rajoy has done these last five years: he abdicated responsibility and, oblivious to what he was doing, abdicated his sovereign hold on the hearts of Catalonia’s increasingly embittered 7.5 million people, 80 per cent of whom are in favour of the right to vote on independence.

 

Before Sunday several polls indicated that the secessionist vote in Catalonia stood at between 40 and 50 per cent. There can be no question that those numbers have since risen. As a British friend who knows Spanish politics well remarked, minutes after the king’s speech, “that’s another ten points for the independentistas”. Yes. To add to the ten or more they added after the police clubbings of last Sunday.

 

I have a more than academic interest in this unfolding slow-motion disaster. My mother is Spanish, from Madrid. I lived 15 years in Catalonia until I moved to London four years ago, but I have always meant to return and applied for a Spanish passport after the Brexit referendum. I love Spain and so am against Catalan independence but I have never loved Spanish politics, especially the authoritarian strain represented by the people in power today and shared by much of the Madrid establishment. I have never forgotten a conversation I had 15 years ago with a man who remains a pillar of that establishment. “I can’t stand the Catalans,” he exclaimed. “They always want to make a deal. They’ve got no principles, for God’s sake! No principles!”

 

It is Madrid’s adherence to its blessed principles that has led us into today’s dangerous mess. It also explains what, to the Anglo-Saxon mind, seems to be the inexplicable refusal of Rajoy’s government to try to solve the problem through international mediation, or dialogue of any kind. “Principles” in the Catalan context means the Spanish constitution, which does not allow for a Catalan referendum on sovereignty. One might think that a constitution, being a necessarily fallible human document, would be open to change as circumstances change. Not on the Catalan question; not for Rajoy.

 

Miguel de Unamuno, a celebrated Spanish writer of the last century, lamented what he saw as a national political spirit contaminated “by the barracks and the sacristy”. My sense has long been that the intransigent habit of thought exhibited by Spain’s political classes is the inheritance of 500 years of Catholic absolutism. Spanish Catholicism was to Christendom generally what Saudi Islam is to the Muslim world today: the most resistant to outside philosophical, political, cultural or scientific influence. I don’t think it is any accident that there is no translation in Spanish, or in Arabic, for the English word “compromise”. The concept of “I cede a little and you cede a little so we both end up winning” is alien to the Spanish political mind.

 

It is why the Spanish empire lost Cuba in 1898 and before that California and the rest of what is now the western United States. It is the chief reason why, on the Catalan question, the centre-right Popular party government of Rajoy and the Madrid establishment have achieved the opposite of what they claim to want: instead of working to preserve the unity of Spain they alienate the Catalan people and fuel the drive for independence.

Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, King Felipe VI and Catalan president Carles Puigdemont in a rare moment of unity, observing a minute’s silence for victims of the August terrorist attacksMatthias Oesterle/Alamy

Put simply, they are third-rate politicians. Rule one for the intelligent resolution of a dispute like the Catalan one is to know your enemy: put yourself in their shoes, try to understand why they think the way they do and then try to persuade them to come around to your point of view, or at least to meet you halfway. The Struggle for Catalonia, a new book by the New York Times correspondent in Spain, Raphael Minder, ends on just this note. The peoples of Spain will not be reunited, Minder writes, so long as the political establishment in Madrid makes no effort to “understand the feelings expressed by hundreds of thousands on the streets of Barcelona”.

 

Catalan nationalist feelings go back at least 300 years. On September 11, 1714, at the end of the Spanish war of succession, Barcelona fell after a long siege to the army of Felipe V, Spain’s first Bourbon king. His namesake might have trodden with a little more tact in his speech this week had he chosen to recall that this glorious defeat, the Catalan Dunkirk, today marks the date of Catalonia’s annual national holiday. It is a commemoration of the suicidal heroism of the city’s defenders but also a reminder of the oppression they suffered under Felipe V. An absolute ruler, he demolished a fifth of the city, closed the Catalan parliament and the universities and banned Catalan as an administrative language.

 

An absolute ruler of more recent memory, Francisco Franco, fanned the flames of nationalist grievance by carrying out uncannily similar measures after he assumed absolute power in 1939 following the victory of his fascist forces in the Spanish civil war. Apart from the executions by firing squad of leading Catalan politicians and thousands more, he too suppressed the local language, the chief emblem of Catalan identity. Under Franco’s rule parents were not allowed to give their children Catalan names such as Jordi or Josep. The generalissimo chose to regard Catalan as a dialect, which was as insulting as it was wrong: Catalan is just as much a language in its own right as Spanish, French and Italian.

 

A hangover of the Franco era that continues to stir the nationalist pot is the disdain for Catalan among other Spaniards. It is accompanied by a dislike for Catalans generally, whom many choose to regard as snooty and superior when the truth is, I think, that they are merely shy. But nationalism is a sentiment, a simmering resentment towards a neighbour perceived to be abusive. Nationalism is not a plan. Independence is. What we see today is how one has evolved into the other and on a scale never before seen. Many who were once merely heart-sore nationalists are now active campaigners for independence.

 

The years 2006, 2010 and 2012 mark the progression. In 2006 the pro-independence vote stood at barely 15 per cent of the population. A decision taken that year gave hope that the number would drop: not only the Catalan parliament in Barcelona, but the national parliament in Madrid, voted in favour of a new statute defining Catalonia as a nation and granting it greater autonomy than it had enjoyed since the death of Franco in 1975. This included giving Catalonia a greater degree of judicial independence.

Delays in the implementation of the statute gave time for a Spanish nationalist backlash. In 2010 Rajoy’s Popular Party, then in opposition, succumbed to the impulse that sparked the explosion of Catalan independentismo and has led to the present crisis: seeking votes in the rest of Spain, it campaigned against the Catalan statute and took it to the notoriously politicised constitutional court, where it was overruled. The law trumped politics, the precedent that continues to hinder a solution of the problem today.

 

In 2012 what was then the centre-right Catalan government nevertheless tried to find an accommodation with Rajoy, who had become prime minister the year before. It sought talks to try to obtain fiscal concessions along the lines of those granted to the Basque country, whose government has a much greater authority over the collection and distribution of tax money. But Rajoy rebuffed them. Add the economic crisis and high unemployment to the outrage among ordinary Catalans at the scornful treatment they felt they had received and the upshot was the biggest protest anyone in Catalonia could remember. On the national holiday of September 11 a million people poured on to the streets of Barcelona.

What they called for was a legally binding independence referendum and the clamour only grew after the British government agreed to precisely such a vote in Scotland in 2014. But Rajoy’s government would not budge. The law was the law. Pragmatism was for him an unintelligible Greek word. It was as if he took his cue from the advice Franco once gave a friendly newspaper editor: “Do as I do, don’t get involved in politics.”

 

But the Catalans were doing plenty of politics and in 2015 a rag-tag pro-independence coalition led by Carles Puigdemont took power by a slender margin in the Catalan parliament. Whereupon the rhetoric from both sides became more angry and the political climate more hostile.

 

Rajoy’s government and his supporters in the media have portrayed the mop-topped Puigdemont and his radical comrades as irresponsible and infantile but it has been hard to avoid the conclusion that, if so, the supposedly adult politicians in Madrid have descended to the same level. The education minister stoked the flames by stating the government’s intention to españolizar — Spanishify — Catalan children; the foreign minister did the same when he accused the Catalan government of “an uprising” and “a coup d’état”. Felipe González, a former socialist prime minister, trumped them both in an article in El País in which he compared the independence movement to “the German or Italian adventure” of the 1930s.

 

Things could have been so different, so easily, starting with the Popular Party restraining the vindictive impulse that drove it to overrule the autonomy statute through the courts. Even if it had not, the massive street protests two years later provided another opportunity. Had Rajoy possessed an ounce of statesmanship, he could have gone to Barcelona, made a conciliatory speech and offered dialogue with the less militant, more pliable Catalan government that was then in power. Applause would have rung out around the hall and the Puigdemont radicals would probably have been done for.

''Had Rajoy an ounce of statesmanship, he could have gone to Barcelona in 2012, made a conciliatory speech and offered dialogue with the less militant Catalan government then in power''

The dangerous showdown today between Spanish fanatics and Catalan romantics would never have happened if, along with the change in mood music, the upshot of talks had been the granting of a binding referendum such as the one Scotland was given three years ago. Catalans say of themselves that two emotions vie in their hearts, seny and rauxa: common sense and raging passion. They are by ancient Mediterranean tradition a trading nation. When they are not angry, as they are now, they are the most practical people on earth. A proper referendum held a couple of years ago would have yielded in all likelihood a substantial “no” to independence from Spain and, as happened in Quebec, the subject would have been put to bed for a generation at least.

 

Instead what we have is the cruel absurdity of the Madrid government acting towards the Catalans like a husband who hates his wife and mistreats her but refuses to let her contemplate leaving him, screaming “She’s mine!”.

 

What happens now? Puigdemont has said he will make a unilateral declaration of independence but his delay in doing so indicates an entirely realistic fear of more violent reprisals from Madrid, hence his stated desire for EU mediation, so far refused. Such a declaration would signify scarcely more in substance than the outcome of the unilateral “referendum”: it would be more political theatre. Catalonia is not a small Pacific island, sufficient unto itself. It is part of Spain and part of the European Union. A hard, overnight Catexit is simply not possible. Puigdemont is playing a high-risk game.

 

The Spanish government could see he is playing a game, if it chose to, and react proportionately: watch and wait a while and, acknowledging that the Catalan independence clamour has significant numbers behind it, accede to talks. The wife, in this scenario, could respond yet to some blandishments. Rajoy could do what he should have done five years ago and agree to a binding referendum. In the event of a victory for the “yes” vote, order — at least order of the type now found in Brexit Britain — would be restored. Madrid, having given its legal blessing to the referendum, would have to abide through gritted teeth by the result. In the event of a “no” victory, the problem would be solved.

 

Fat chance, though, as things stand. More likely is that ominous royal defence of the “constitutional order” by “the legitimate state powers”. Luis de Guindos, the economy minister, showed just how inflexible the Spanish government remains when he said in a television interview on Thursday that Catalan independence was “out of the question” because it was, first, “illegal” and, second, “irrational”: “Catalonia has always been part of Spain”.

 

A part of me still clings to the sliver of hope I felt before the king’s speech, that maybe the EU will intervene and knock sense into Spanish heads. But it is more likely that they will do so only after the cracking of more Catalan bones, by which time it may be too late. One death at the hands of the king’s police, one martyr for the Catalan cause, and anything could happen. Rajoy calls Puigdemont a traitor but if the conflict descends into widespread violence, and if Catalonia does eventually achieve independence, history may record that the bigger traitor was Rajoy.

 

John Carlin writes for the Spanish newspaper El País
==========

Career

Carlin began his journalism career at the Buenos Aires Herald in 1981, writing about film, football and politics. In 1982, he began a six-year stint in Mexico and Central America working for, among others, The Times and Sunday Times, the Toronto Star, BBC, CBC, and ABC (US) before joining the staff of The Independent at the newspaper's launch in 1986.

Carlin was The Independent's South Africa bureau chief from 1989–1995.[1] In 1993, Carlin wrote and presented a BBC documentary on the South African Third Force, his first television work.[3]
From 1995–1998 he was the United States bureau chief for The Independent on Sunday.[1]

In 1997, Carlin wrote an article titled "A Farewell to Arms" for Wired magazine about cyberwarfare. This was originally intended to form the basis of a 1999 film, WW3.com.[4] When this project stalled, its script was rewritten into the 2007 film, Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0).[5]
In 1998, Carlin joined El País, the world's leading Spanish-language newspaper, where he still works as a senior international writer.

Carlin was writer and interviewer for the 1999 episode "The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela" of the American PBS series Frontline.[6] It was also broadcast as "The First Accused" in South Africa by the SABC.[3]

Carlin won the 2000 El País Ortega y Gasset Award for journalism, for an article in Spanish newspaper El País.[1] In 2004 he won the British Press Awards "Food and Drink Writer of the Year" prize. He has won numerous other awards for his writing in Spain and Italy.

Source: Wikipedia

Catalonia poses a real crisis for both Spain and Europe

World Views
 Analysis 




By Ishaan Tharoor 

Catalonia poses a real crisis for both Spain and Europe
October 5 

In the aftermath of Sunday's independence referendum in Catalonia, the rifts in Spanish society are only growing wider. “With each passing day, national authorities and the pro-independence forces in Catalonia appear to be moving inexorably toward direct confrontation,” wrote my colleague William Booth.

The past few days have seen heated protests and a general strike in Catalonia, an economically prosperous region in northeastern Spain whose local government unilaterally staged the independence vote over the weekend. The bruising handling of the situation by right-wing Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who deployed security forces to Catalonia who bloodied unarmed protesters, has hardened Catalan attitudes against Madrid. And as both sides dig in, the showdown may trigger a constitutional crisis that would have profound ramifications not just for Spain but for all of Europe.

Catalan's separatist leaders say that more than 2 million people were still able to cast ballots, the vast majority of which were for secession from Spain. Officials in the region suggested they could formally declare independence as early as this coming Monday. On Wednesday, Spain's high court launched an investigation into possible sedition charges for a number of pro-secessionist Catalan police officials and politicians as they press ahead with their plans to break away.

It's not clear at all what an unilaterally “independent” Catalonia will look like, but the move toward it will be profoundly messy. “We know that there may be disbarments, arrests,” said pro-independence Catalan politician Mireia Boya in a message posted on Twitter. “But we are prepared, and in no case will it be stopped.”

The irony is that many Catalans aren't on the same page as secessionist leaders and believe their region has been hijacked by politicians pushing a narrow, uncompromising agenda.

“We are completely silenced,” filmmaker Isabel Coixet told my colleagues. “They have created a climate of tension in which anyone who doesn’t agree with them doesn’t exist and is discredited. And, honestly, there are so many people keeping quiet. The biggest problem I see is the double fracture that has been created — the division with Spain and the division between the Catalans.”

Meanwhile, the head of a union that represents the Guardian Civil, the national paramilitary police force involved in the Sunday crackdown, bemoaned the harassment his comrades are facing on the streets of Catalan cities and urged that reinforcements be sent from the rest of the country. A speech delivered Tuesday by King Felipe VI, Spain's head of state, echoed Madrid's position that the Catalan independence move was “outside the law” and a display of “unacceptable disloyalty.” The following night, the Spanish government rejected a Catalan call for negotiations.

Amid a crackdown by Spanish security forces, Catalonians went to the polls Oct. 1 to vote on an independence referendum. Catalonian leaders vow to move ahead with independence
despite Madrid's claim the vote is illegal.  (The Washington Post)

All of this is only giving Catalan secessionists more ammunition. “Catalonia is divided. Spain is divided. King Felipe VI’s speech was inadequate,” noted Federiga Bindi, a senior fellow
at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. “He should have spoken in both languages — after all, he is fluent in Catalan and Prince of Barcelona.

He should have called for dialogue and negotiations between both parties, but instead he stood firmly on the side of the Moncloa Palace” — a reference to Rajoy's residence.

Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia's regional president and a leading advocate for secession, addressed the king Wednesday night, saying the monarch “disappointed many people in Catalonia who appreciate you and are expecting a call to dialogue.” In earlier remarks, Puigdemont cast his region's plight as that of an oppressed fledgling democracy chafing against repression.

“The Spanish government is letting political opponents be arrested, it is influencing media and blocking Internet sites. We are under observation day and night,” said Puigdemont.

“What is that other than an authoritarian state?”

Speculation now moves to whether Rajoy will invoke what's seen as a “nuclear option”: Invoking Article 155 of the Spanish constitution, which would give Madrid the authority to
dissolve the Catalan parliament now led by Puigdemont.

But in doing so, Rajoy risks his own political future: His fragile minority government could face a backlash and potentially lose a vote of confidence in parliament. Catalonia's silent majority of people who aren't necessarily in favor of independence could start changing their minds.

At this point, EU should not try to meddle in Catalonia. This is what separatists hope for as it would elevate their position. But Madrid is firmly against it & EU can't insert itself without Madrid's backing. EU will first have to see how things play out over the next days.

The crisis is being closely watched elsewhere in Europe. Various politicians have already sided with Madrid or have referred to the matter as a purely Spanish affair. But as the showdown intensifies, they may not be able to look the other way should chaos break out in one of the more beloved corners of the continent.

“If this were Crimea, say, or friendless, penniless Greece, Angela Merkel would be in full mediation mode by now,” wrote Guardian columnist Simon Tisdall. “But when it comes to Catalonia, Germany’s chancellor, whose [own party] is allied with Spain’s ruling party, is otherwise engaged.” So, too, is French President Emmanuel Macron, who, in a major speech last week, energetically championed a more “integrated Europe” — a call echoed by Catalonia’s secessionists, who are fiercely pro-Brussels  — yet said he supported Spain’s “constitutional unity” this week.

To be fair, no Western European leader is going to speak up for separatists in another Western European country. But the standoff between Barcelona and Madrid betrays the complex tensions boiling within Europe — a mess of cosmopolitan ideals, nationalist agendas and regional aspirations for more direct governance.

“The Catalonia has deepened cracks in the E.U.’s plan for greater integration, driving debate around identity across the continent,” noted economist Franz Buscha.

“The E.U. has set itself the goal of countering rising illiberalism and nationalism, and it’s struggling,” wrote French journalist and commentator Natalie Nougayrède. “The Catalan crisis exposes its political limits and its difficulty in making citizens understand how it functions. For Europe, as for Spanish democracy, this is a major test.”


Ishaan Tharoor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. He previously was a senior editor and correspondent at Time magazine, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York.  Follow @ishaantharoor

Win or Die Dont Surrender - Omar Al Mukthar

Spanish court suspends Catalan parliament in wake of independence vote

Catalonia referendum: Spanish court suspends Catalan parliament in wake of independence vote
Catalan President earlier said his government planned to declare independence ‘in a matter of days’
Harry Cockburn |
Thursday 5 October 2017 17:26 BST|

The Spanish government has suspended the Catalan parliamentary session planned for Monday in which a declaration of independence from Spain was expected to be made.

The country’s constitutional court said such a declaration would be “a breach of the constitution”.
Tensions between the central government and the region have mounted following last weekend’s referendum on secession, which saw violent clashes between Catalan citizens and the
national police.

Catalan President Carles Puigdemont had earlier said his government planned to declare independence in the wake of the referendum, “in a matter of days”.

But the opposition socialist party in the regional parliament, which opposes secession, had called for Monday’s session to be blocked – a challenge which was upheld by Spain’s constitutional court.

Separatist parties only have a slim majority of the seats in the Catalan parliament.
Last Sunday’s referendum recorded a turnout of 2.2 million people – 42 per cent of the electorate – many of whom faced riot police at polling stations. In addition, police removed some
ballot boxes in an attempt to enforce a Spanish court order to prevent the vote.

The organisers said 90 per cent voted for independence, but have not published the final results.
Why the left can’t bring themselves to back Catalan independen Lawyers representing the regional parliament had also warned that the session would technically be illegal because it planned to discuss the results of a referendum that had been previously suspended by the constitutional court.

Before the vote, Madrid said the referendum was illegal, and as the results were announced Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said there had “been no referendum”.

He subsequently said the regional Catalan government must abandon plans to declare independence, to avoid “greater evils”.

Mr Rajoy said the solution for the region “is the prompt return to legality and the affirmation, as early as possible, that there will be no unilateral declaration of independence, because
that way greater evils will be avoided,” he told Spain's EFE news agency.

 

கற்றலோனியா சிதறும் அகண்ட ஐரோப்பிய ஏகாதிபத்தியக் கனவு!

ENB Poster Cataloniya சுயநிர்ணய உரிமை

Catalonia referendum a ‘coup against Europe’, says vice president of EU Parliament

Ramón Luis Valcárcel, vice president of the EU Parliament

Catalonia referendum a ‘coup against Europe’, says vice president of 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

Catalans stage protests, general strike against crackdown on referendum vote

World News
October 3, 2017
Catalans stage protests, general strike against crackdown on vote
Sam Edwards

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Catalonia and road traffic, public transport and business were disrupted on Tuesday in protest against Sunday’s violent crackdown by Spanish police on an outlawed independence referendum.

Metro stations shut down in Barcelona, pickets blocked dozens of roads and state workers walked out in response to a call for a general strike by pro-independence groups and trade unions.

FC Barcelona, the city’s football club, joined the strike, saying it would close for the day and none of its teams would train. Carmaker SEAT was forced to shut a production line.

Catalonia, Spain’s richest region, has its own language and culture and a political movement for secession that has strengthened in recent years.

Pro-independence parties who control the regional government staged Sunday’s referendum in defiance of Spanish courts that had ruled it illegal. Some 900 people were injured on polling day when police fired rubber bullets and charged at crowds with truncheons to disrupt the vote.

Those who participated voted overwhelmingly for independence, a result that was expected since residents who favor remaining part of Spain mainly boycotted the vote.

Opinion polls conducted before the vote suggested only a minority of around 40 percent of residents in the region back independence. But a majority want a referendum to be held, and protesters said the violent police crackdown against the ballot had energized the secessionist camp.

“What happened on Oct. 1 has fired up independence feeling that will never die,” said 18-year-old student Monica Ventinc, who attended a protest on Tuesday.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has said the referendum is valid and its result must be implemented. Spain’s Constitutional Court prohibited the ballot, siding with Madrid which argued that it contravened the country’s 1978 constitution which bars breaking up the country.

The referendum has plunged Spain into its worst constitutional crisis in decades, and is a political test for Rajoy, a conservative who has taken a hardline stance on the issue. Outside of Catalonia, Spaniards mostly hold strong views against its independence drive.

On financial markets, Spain’s 10-year borrowing costs hit their highest level in nearly three months as tensions between Madrid and Catalonia spilled on to the streets.

Several demonstrations unfolded across Catalonia on Tuesday. To the north of Barcelona, a line of tractors moved down a road blocked to traffic, accompanied by protesters chanting “Independence!” and “The streets will always be ours!”

Crowds gathered outside the local headquarters of Spain’s ruling People’s Party (PP) and the Spanish national police headquarters in Barcelona, whistling and waving the red-and-yellow regional flag.
Groups of firemen marched and played bagpipes in Barcelona as people cheered them. Outside the PP offices, people threw voting papers into the air and chanted ‘We voted’.

People entwined flowers into the gates of Ramon Llull school, where Spanish police clashed with those wanting to vote in the banned referendum on Sunday.

Barcelona tourist attractions such as museums and architect Antoni Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia church, were shut.

But some businesses operated normally and it was difficult to estimate what proportion of workers heeded the strike call.

“In no way can we accept that they come here with this kind of repression,” taxi driver Alejandro Torralbo, standing outside the PP headquarters, said of Sunday’s police action.

Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said Puigdemont and his regional government had lost respect for the democratic process and were showing a flagrant disregard for the law.

“I’ve seen how President Puigdemont has flooded the streets with his followers to stop people obeying the law and to make them disrespect justice,” she said. “We are here to defend the rights and liberties of all Spaniards that have been trampled upon by the regional government.”

Writing by Sonya Dowsett and Adrian Croft; editing by Peter Graff
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Selected Articles- Catalonias Referendum

Selected Articles: Catalonia’s Referendum

https://www.globalresearch.ca/selected-articles-catalonias-referendum/5611676