Catalonia’s regional foreign affairs advisor Raul Romeva i Rueda rejected the idea of holding new regional elections on Wednesday 18 October. Catalan leaders have until 19 October to clarify to the Spanish government whether they are really planning to declare independence for their region based on the outcome of the 1 October referendum (see EUROPE 11884).
New elections are not part of our scenario and "we will not be resigning", said Romeva i Rueda at a press conference in Brussels.
The idea of new elections to help solve the political crisis in Catalonia was put forward by the head of the Spanish Socialist Party, Pedro Sanchez, who was also present in Brussels on Thursday for a social democratic event. Spanish newspaper El País says the Spanish prime minister was prepared to hold back activation of the never-before-used 155 procedure (Article 155 of the Spanish constitution) that would allow Madrid to take control of maintaining order and political and financial power in Catalonia if the Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, holds new elections.
The Catalan question isn’t on the agenda of the European Summit that begins in Brussels on Thursday 19 October. None of the EU’s leaders want to discuss a subject they see as the exclusive concern of Spain. It’s an important question for Europe but not something that Europe has to decide, explained a high-ranking national diplomat on Wednesday.
The Spanish PM did not attend the European summit in Tallinn, but is expected to be present at the opening of the summit on Thursday afternoon, although he will miss the Christian Democrats’ meeting earlier in the day. He is now planning to raise the question in the meeting but may brief counterparts who ask him questions.
If the situation were to degenerate on the ground, it would not be possible to ignore the Catalan crisis.
In Brussels, Romeva i Rueda repeated the Catalan leaders’ offer of dialogue with the Spanish government, with the Catalan leaders basing their arguments on the 2.3 million Catalans’ desire to live in an independent republic. He said the question was whether or not they wanted to hold talks and this would be clear on Thursday.
Romeva i Rueda said the only response from Madrid so far had been threats and repression. Describing the two Catalan leaders behind bars as political prisoners, he accused the Spanish government’s legalistic approach of itself breaking a number of Spanish laws. He welcomed the concerns voiced about incidents on the fringes of the Catalan referendum and calls for dialogue made by a number of politicians, including the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk (see EUROPE 11880). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)