The deposed president of the Catalan Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, has been very virulent again in his opposition to the Spanish government under Mariano Rajoy, but also rather confused at an extremely agitated press conference in Brussels on Tuesday 31 October.
Dozens of journalists had assembled at the Press Club, a few metres from the European Commission and Council of the European Union for a press conference that was made official late although it had been prepared well ahead of time by Mr Puigdemont.
Arriving in Brussels where he was impossible to find until the international press conference (see EUROPE 11894), the former president of the Catalan government again slammed Madrid’s attitude with regard to application of Article 155 of the Spanish constitution in speech given in Catalan, Spanish and French. He began by slamming the ‘highly aggressive, unprecedented offensive against the Catalan people’ and regional civil servants working for central authorities, making ‘dialogue and negotiation merely impossible’ between the two sides. He also denounced again police violence during the 1 October referendum (see EUROPE 11874), for which 42% of Catalan voters turned out, according to the regional government’s figures. After the referendum, the Catalan government pushed for independence.
Puigdemont said that the proceedings begun by the General Prosecutor, José Manuel Maza, over charges of rebellion and sedition against members of his ex-government for which sentences of up to 30 years could be passed, were ‘legally un founded’ and aimed to sanction an idea, not a crime.
The Spanish supreme court responded favourably to the request on Tuesday 31 October, summoning on 2 and 3 November the deposed speaker of the Catalan parliament, Carme Forcadell, and five other members of the bureau of presidents of the Catalan parliament. The National Assembly, which has powers over Puigdemont, had not spoken about the case of the former president of the Generalitat as we went to press on Tuesday.
Respecting the result of the 21 December election. Puigdemont then spelt out the approach at European level. He said it was a question of explaining the Catalan question to the EU institutions and exposing the ‘politicisation of the Spanish justice, its lack of impartiality [...] explain to the world the serious democratic deficiencies’ observed in Spain. He rejected the idea that he had taken flight and abandoned his political responsibilities, saying that other ‘members of his government’ would continue to do their job, despite constraints imposed by Madrid.
Talking about democracy the former regional president recognised that it was up to the citizen to find ‘the way to solve problems’ and announced that ‘his government’ could respect the results of the regional elections in Catalonia that Rajoy’s government has convened on 21 December. He made no mention of the ‘Catalan Republic,’ casting doubt on Catalonia’s future but accepted that the independence project be slowed down to avoid trouble.
Call for a reaction from the European Union. Summing up, Puigdemont asked the European Union to react, saying that ‘the Catalan issue is at the very basis of the values on which Europe is founded: democracy, freedom, freedom of expression, hospitality, non-violence.’ The police, ministerial and political measures put in place by Madrid went, he said, against the idea of Europe.
So far, the leaders of the European institutions have given unfailing backing to Madrid and respect for the Spanish constitution (see EUROPE 11893).
Moving on to speak in Catalan, the ex-president of the Generalitat asked them to prepare for a long process, adding that his team would do all it could to ensure that the Spanish Popular Party (PP), Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) and Ciudadanos do not pick apart the Catalan institutions and do not apply Article 155 of the Spanish constitution.
No request for political asylum in Belgium. Puigdemont spoke about the rumours circulating the day before that he might request political asylum in Belgium following comments made by the Belgian secretary of state for asylum and migration, Theo Francken. ‘I did not come to request political asylum,’ he said, adding that the Catalan question was a European, not Belgian, affair. He swept aside rumours that he had met with members of N-VA, a Belgian autonomist and conservative party.
After calling on a number of occasions for dialogue among Spanish and Catalan leaders, the Belgian PM, Charles Michel, said that Puigdemont was not in Belgium upon invitation or on the imitative of the Belgian government. Wanting to avoid a political crisis with the Spanish government, Michel said that the Catalan leader, like any other citizen from a country in the Schengen Area of free movement, had come ‘to Brussels because it is the capital of Europe.’
Finally, Puigdemont did not rule out returning to Spain but seems to be making his return conditional upon receiving juridical guarantees of a fair trial.
Puigdemont and representatives of the Catalan government left the press conference in a tense atmosphere as dozens of pro-Spanish unity demonstrators had gathered outside the Press Club, chanting ‘Viva Espana, Viva Catalonia’ or ‘I am Spanish!’ (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)