Catalan police tightened their protective ring around the region’s parliament on Tuesday where secessionists have pledged a unilateral declaration of independence from Spain despite warnings from Madrid of swift counter-measures.
Regional leader Carles Puigdemont held a meeting of his cabinet to decide how to press an independence drive that has stirred powerful emotions across Spain and raised fears of turmoil among European Union partner states.
Catalan police armed with automatic rifles guarded Barcelona’s Parc de la Ciutadella that houses the elegant 18th century parliament as it prepared to convene at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT). About 20 armoured Catalan police vans blocked every entrance to the park and the entrance to parliament itself was guarded by three armoured vans and officers wearing balaclavas.
Spanish national police, denounced by separatists for their use of force to hinder the region’s Oct. 1 referendum, were not to be seen. However, the Spanish government was reinforcing security at airports and rail stations in Catalonia.
Pro-independence activists were gathering around the parliament, where big screens had been set up for them to watch proceedings. Farmers parked half a dozen tractors near the assembly, flying the separatist Catalan flag.
A declaration of independence would deepen Spain’s biggest political crisis since an attempted military coup in 1981 and would almost certainly draw a crackdown from Madrid, possibly including suspension of Catalonia’s autonomous government.
Both Spain’s government and European Council President Donald Tusk appealed to Puigdemont not to proclaim independence.
“I ask you to respect, in your intentions, the constitutional order and not to announce a decision that would make such a dialogue impossible. Diversity should not, and need not, lead to conflict, whose consequences would obviously be bad for the Catalans, for Spain and for the whole of Europe,” Tusk said in a speech in Brussels.
The government of Spain’s wealthiest region says 90 percent of those who voted on Oct. 1 backed independence, but turnout was only 43 percent as many opponents of statehood stayed at home.
IRREVERSIBLE STEP
The Spanish government appealed to Puigdemont to reflect and not to take an irrevocable step by declaring independence.
“I want to ask Mr. Puigdemont not to do anything irreversible, not to take a path of no return, not to carry out any unilateral declaration of independence and to return to legality,” Madrid government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo told reporters.
