National Review - October 30, 2017

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pulled back from the brink. In a special

parliamentary session that took place on

October 10, Puigdemont said that he

wished to abide by the wishes of the voters

but would seek a negotiated settlement

with Madrid. He therefore asked the

Catalan parliament to suspend the effect of

the referendum so that talks could take

place. Since the Spanish government has

ruled out even the possibility of any such

negotiations, the crisis may now be enter-

ing a new phase, but it is far from over.

The situation was made worse by the

earlier live television performance of

King Felipe VI, who had been expected to

call for dialogue and conciliation. In -

stead he accused the Catalan separatists

of disloyalty and of acting illegally while

warning of the consequences of their

irresponsibility. He made no mention of

police methods that had included beatings

and the use of rubber bullets or of the

injuries caused, for which the Madrid

government has belatedly apologized.

Catalonia is one of Spain’s 17 au ton o -

mous regions, virtually all of which have

succeeded in preserving their distinctive

cultural heritage, something that makes

travel in Spain a constant source of

condemnation of police methods, a

public-sector strike to protest police

violence, and an ill-judged inter vention

by the king, as well as huge counter-

demonstrations in many Spanish cities.

According to Carles Puigdemont, the

Catalan president, around 2.2 million

Catalans, or 42 percent of those eligible

to vote, took part in the referendum, of

whom more than 90 percent voted to

leave. Catalan officials claim that a fur-

ther 770,000 were prevented from voting

by police action.

In the days following the vote, Puigde -

mont repeatedly stated that the result jus-

tified a declaration of independence,

which he expected to make when the

final count of votes was completed some

days later. Asked what would happen if

the national government reacted by

invoking Article 155 of the Spanish con-

stitution in order to take direct control of

the region prior to fresh regional elec-

tions, he replied: “This would be an error

that changes everything.”

In both Barcelona and Madrid, un -

founded rumors and conspiracy theories

multiplied, with tweeters and bloggers

giving wide currency to the claim that the

drive for independence had been person-

ally engineered by Vlad i mir Putin.

On Thursday, October 5, the Catalan

Socialist party, which opposes the goal of

independent statehood, successfully

appealed to Spain’s Constitutional Court

to suspend the session of the Cat a lan par-

liament scheduled to convene four days

later, for fear that it would conclude with

a unilateral declaration of independence.

There were adequate grounds for this

concern: Quite apart from the nationalist

rhetoric of the Catalan leader and his col-

leagues, the Catalan law that had initiated

the referendum requires that such a dec-

laration be made within 48 hours of the

certification of the vote.

As tensions mounted, spokesmen for

the Catalan government immediately

insisted that the session would go ahead.

But following the decision of major

Spanish companies, including one major

bank, to move their headquarters from

Barcelona to other Span ish cities, rushed

legislation by the government in Madrid to

ease the task of companies seeking to relo-

cate their offices, and the withdrawal of

hundreds of thousands of euros by panick-

ing Catalan bank depositors, Puigdemont

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