The Spanish Government rolled out a legal roadblock to stop the Catalonia region voting on independence, branding the planned ballot an affront to the sovereignty of Spain.
After Catalonia’s President Artur Mas staked his leadership on the issue by calling the vote for November 9, the national Government responded by filing a constitutional challenge. Conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he “deeply” regretted Mas’s move.
“I regret it because it is against the law, it bypasses democracy and divides Catalans, it alienates them from Europe and the rest of Spain and seriously harms their welfare,” Rajoy said. He said the Government had sent the appeal to the country’s Constitutional Court and that Mas’s measures would be suspended as soon as that tribunal accepted the appeal, pending a final decision by its judges.
Buoyed by mass street demonstrations, Mas has pushed ahead for a vote in defiance of Rajoy’s warnings.
“You cannot use the law to prevent people indefinitely from stating their opinion,” Mas said in a television interview yesterday in anticipation of today’s appeal. “Voting on November is the best thing for everyone because it will allow us and also the Spanish government to know what the Catalan people’s opinion is.”