Spanish Prime Minister Confirms Possibility of Revoking Catalonia’s Autonomy

The Spanish government could use constitutional powers to suspend the decision on Catalonia’s independence, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy stated on Saturday in an interview with “El Pais”.

>>> Catalan Government: We Have Achieved the Right to Independence

Rajoy, when asked if he would be willing to invoke Article 155 of the Constitution, which gives the central government in Madrid the legal ability to revoke Catalonia’s autonomy and take over all governing institutions in the region, responded that he does not rule out absolutely anything that is within the law. He also added that he plans to keep an additional four thousand police officers, sent by the government to Catalonia during the independence vote on October 1, until the end of the crisis.

He noted that he will not call for extraordinary national elections and ruled out the possibility of international mediation as a way to resolve the crisis in Spain, as requested by Catalan President Carles Puigdemont. According to the final results submitted by the Catalan government to the regional parliament on Friday, 90.18 percent of voters expressed support for Catalonia’s independence in the self-determination referendum held on October 1.

>>> Standard & Poor’s Considers Catalonia’s Rating, Outlook Negative

A large protest is planned in Barcelona

A week after the banned referendum, marked by police violence in Catalonia, a new large protest is expected on Sunday in Barcelona against the independence of the Spanish region, while Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy demands the withdrawal of the “threat” of secession.

Under the slogan “Enough! Let’s be reasonable”, the gathering on Sunday is supported by several political parties opposed to independence and several prominent figures, such as writer Mario Vargas Llosa, a Nobel Prize winner in literature of Peruvian and Spanish nationality, who called Catalonia’s desire for independence a “disease”.

>>> Tens of Thousands of Spaniards in the Streets Calling for a Peaceful Resolution to the Catalan Issue

On Saturday, at the invitation of a civic initiative, tens of thousands of people dressed in white gathered in several cities demanding “dialogue” between Catalans and the rest of the country to find a way out of the worst political crisis the country has experienced since returning to democracy in 1977, after Franco’s dictatorship.

A dialogue that Mariano Rajoy does not foresee until the separatist leaders of that powerful autonomous region abandon their desire to declare independence.

“I want the threat of declaring independence to be withdrawn as soon as possible because nothing can be built if the threat to national unity does not disappear,” stated the head of the conservative government to the Spanish daily El Pais.