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Spanish government meets to impose direct rule in Catalonia
Spain’s government held an emergency cabinet meeting Oct. 21 to impose direct rule over Catalonia in response to the Oct. 1 Catalan independence referendum. (Reuters)
MADRID — In a bold, sweeping escalation to a conflict that has galvanized Europe for weeks, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy vowed Saturday to sack Catalonia's leaders and to hold a fresh round of elections “within the next six months.”
Madrid’s announcement came after an emergency cabinet meeting in which government ministers debated how best to respond to the Oct. 1 Catalan independence referendum, which Spain’s constitutional court had declared illegal.
On Saturday, Rajoy said he would ask the Spanish senate to take the unprecedented step of invoking Article 155 of Spain’s 1978 constitution, which allows the central government to suspend the region’s autonomy. He added that he has asked Spain’s senate to dissolve Catalonia’s regional government and have corresponding Spanish ministries take control of various authorities in the renegade region, including the police force and the communication and education sectors.
But the prime minister was quick to insist on the distinction that Madrid was not seizing control of Catalonia, merely demanding new leadership.
“This is not a suspension of home rule but the dismissal of those who lead the regional government,” Rajoy said.
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Wives of jailed Catalan activists say husbands were jailed as ‘scapegoats’
Spanish authorities arrested Jordi Sánchez and Jordi Cuixart, two of the most prominent pro-independence activists in Catalonia, on sedition charges on Oct. 16. Their wives spoke to the Post about their jailing. (Raul Gallego Abellan/The Washington Post)
The separatists in Catalonia, led by regional President Carles Puigdemont, staged a chaotic referendum earlier this month despite the fact that Madrid had declared it illegal. If more than 2 million people ultimately voted to declare independence, the overall turnout for the vote was less than half of the region’s total population.
In a speech shortly after the Oct. 1 vote that confused observers in Barcelona and across Spain, Puigdemont first declared independence but then “suspended” the secession process, saying that Catalonia was willing to begin talks with the central government. Catalonia’s calls for the European Union to mediate the dispute have not been answered, with most continental leaders tacitly backing Madrid.
On Saturday, Rajoy vehemently disputed the notion of “dialogue” with a campaign his government still considers outside the rule of law.
“The president of the generalitat was invited to discuss his position in the Spanish parliament, but he refused,” Rajoy said of Puigdemont. “He was invited to the conference of regional presidents, and he didn't want to go. Dialogue is not that others have to accept a decision you already made. It is not imposing your decision to break the law.”
At a news conference Friday night at the close of the European Union summit in Brussels, the Spanish prime minister said he was “forced to act” to save preserve Spanish unity.
“It simply cannot be, in today’s Europe, that there is a country where the law is not observed,” Rajoy said.
Catalonia, with its own language and culture, already enjoys considerable autonomy, with control of its own health care, education and regional police.
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Activists withdraw cash in Catalonia as show of support for independence
Spain's prime minister says new measures being brought in will allow for direct rule over Catalonia from Madrid to counter secessionist activists. (Reuters)
“Catalonia is one of the regions that enjoys the most autonomy, not just in Spain, but in Europe,” said Pedro Sánchez, leader of Spain's main opposition party, the Spanish Socialist Party, on Saturday. “That is what the secessionist movement wants to ruin,” adding that enacting Article 155 was crucial to defending the Spanish constitution.
Rajoy said Article 155 — the “nuclear option” that has never before been tried — would be invoked “to restore institutional legality and normality.”
The prime minister formally proposed the measures be approved by the Spanish senate this coming Friday, citing the “flagrant, obstinate and deliberate noncompliance of the Autonomous Region of Catalonia.”
Rajoy said he expected the measures to be short term, until elections could be held that would “recover normality and the ability to live together” and “continue with the economic recovery that is so important to people’s lives, their salaries and which the regional government of Catalonia has endangered based on their capricious desires.”
Catalan officials immediately decried Madrid's announcement. Josep Lluís Cleries, a spokesman for the Catalan parliament, immediately called Rajoy's speech “a suspension of democracy.”
The decision to invoke Article 155, he added, represented “a true coup d’état against the people of Catalonia.” Puigdemont was expected to speak later Saturday.
Earlier this week, Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras told The Washington Post, “The citizens of Catalonia are ready to defend democracy through all legal means and rights.”
At the same time, however, about 7 in 10 Catalans surveyed support a call for new elections, according a poll conducted by Gabinet d’Estudis Socials i Opinió Pública for the Barcelona-based daily El Periódico.
Asked about the possibility of violence, Junqueras said: “Here the response is very simple. The Spanish government will have to explain to the world how it justifies violence against peaceful protesters.”
The vice president expected to see mass demonstrations.
During the Oct. 1 referendum, Spanish National Police and Civil Guard officers used harsh tactics, in some cases beating voters with rubber batons and dragging people away from the ballot boxes.
If Madrid begins to take over Catalan institutions and ministries next week, civil society groups here promise street demonstrations and civil disobedience.