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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Catalan govt: Referendum plans have dealt a blow

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BRUSSELS: Spain’s EU partners fear a mounting crisis over Catalans’ latest push for independence, and their public support for Mariano Rajoy belies some disquiet that the conservative prime minister’s hardline tactics might backfire.


Few foreign leaders will speak out on a domestic dispute in which government and courts in Madrid say the Catalan regional authorities in Barcelona are defying a constitutional ban on secession by preparing an independence referendum for October 1.


The official European Union line is that Spanish democracy works and Spaniards should settle their affairs according to national laws. But the worsening standoff, with police arresting elected Catalan officials this week, is troubling officials and politicians abroad, who fear it may hurt Europe in various ways.


German Chancellor Angela Merkel, through a spokesman, echoed that line when asked by Reuters if she had recent contact on the matter with Rajoy, a fellow conservative. While stressing it was an “internal Spanish matter”, the spokesman also recalled that Merkel had in previous years told Rajoy that Berlin had “great interest in the maintenance of stability in Spain”.


Less constrained by diplomatic protocol, other Europeans are starting to speak out: “Rajoy has put a lot of oil on the fire, fuelling the independentist debate. He has made a huge mistake,” Ska Keller, the German co-leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, said as she called on those who may have influence with Rajoy to intercede and calm things down.


While publicly refusing to take sides on whether a Catalan breakaway is desirable, few European leaders would welcome it.


As with the 2014 referendum in Scotland, which unlike Catalonia’s vote was held with the blessing of the central government in London, countries fear encouraging separatists at home: Belgium’s Flemings, Italy’s Lombards and so on.


There is also a broader unwillingness as Britain exits from the EU to open another Pandora’s box of economic uncertainty and legal disruption.


The EU’s Chief Executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, was irked when Catalans seized on a remarks last week that they could join the EU after independence to suggest he favoured their cause.


The European Commission president said he had only reiterated the so-called “Prodi doctrine”, dating back 13 years. This is that a breakaway state would have to leave the Union and could then only be let back in if it has gained independence in accordance with constitutional law in the member state it left.


Juncker also said that rich “regional traditions” should not become “elements of separatism and fragmentation of Europe”.


Commission officials reject suggestions they are giving Madrid a soft ride on complaints that Spain’s constitution is stifling Catalan rights while the EU is now threatening to suspend Poland over the Warsaw government’s plans for constitutional change.


The Commission feels constrained by EU law not to take sides in Spain. But the European Parliament, led by the European People’s Party (EPP), the centre-right bloc to which Rajoy, Merkel and Juncker belong, is more vocal in backing Madrid.


— Reuters


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