RSS Feed
October 21st, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : The central government of Spain is holding an emergency Cabinet meeting Saturday to deal with the political crisis caused by the Catalonian government’s push for negotiations about the outcome of the referendum on independence. Spain’s central government set plans in motion Thursday to strip Catalonia of its autonomy after the region’s leader vowed to continue steps toward independence and if necessary declare independence in response to Madrid’s possible attempt to invoke Article 155 of the Constitution.
The office of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has said the Cabinet meeting Saturday is planned to trigger Article 155 of Spain’s Constitution. The “nuclear option” as many proponents as well as opponents of Catalonian independence call it, which gives the government the power to take away some or all of Catalonia’s autonomy.
Meanwhile, Catalonia’s President Carles Puidgemont and his government and a broad coalition of independence supporters continue to seek dialog with Madrid. However, Puidgemont has also said the regional parliament will go forward with a vote on independence if the Spanish government does not engage in dialogue and follows through on its threat to strip the region of its autonomy.
Rajoy had given Puidgemont a Thursday morning deadline to clarify whether he had in fact already declared independence following a referendum earlier this month. Puidgemont made a symbolic declaration of independence in an address last week, but said he was suspending any formal steps in favor of talks with the government in Madrid. He delivered his updated stance in a letter Thursday shortly before the deadline.
“I went to vote and look what that nice police officer from Madrid gave me, isn’t that pretty?”
At a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels this week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the bloc was watching the situation closely. “We hope that there will be solutions that can be found on the basis of the Spanish constitution,” she said. French President Emmanuel Macron has called for a discussion of the crisis and a show of solidarity with the Spanish government at the EU summit, but a number of leaders and EU officials oppose adding it to the agenda, saying that the tensions are an internal affair.
Voters in Catalonia voted in favor of independence in the October 1 referendum. Supporters of independence stress that some 90 percent of voters – reportedly – voted in favor of independence. Rajoy and other opponents say only about 43 percent participated in the referendum. The low voter turnout, however, isn’t surprising considering the fact that national police stormed key polling stations and brutalized voters. Shocked Catalonians could – for example – see how police brutally beat voters including elderly voters who came out of polling stations with batons.
CH/L – nsnbc 21.10.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/10/21/spanish-cabinet-holds-emergency-meeting-on-catalonia-on-saturday/
Posted in 
Tags: 
