Catalonia leader condemns Spain’s police and says referendum must be resolved politically

Carles Puigdemont has reiterated his call for Spain’s central government, led by the conservative leader Mariano Rajoy, to sit round a table and discuss the situation and not use the Guardia Civil and national police to bully the Catalan people into submission.

Mr Puigdemont was speaking just one day after his keynote speech to the regional parliament in Barcelona where he declared independence that almost immediately put it on hold as a way to hold talks with Madrid.

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He said: “The problem started when violence was started and was used by the law enforcement agencies in Catalonia and by a very harsh speech by the King… Yesterday I tried to send a message of calmness and to remind that we are facing a political problem that we need to solve with politics and not with police.”

His comments come after ugly scenes were witnessed in the north east region on October 1 when a referendum on independence was held despite Mr Rajoy’s government declaring the vote was illegal as it was against the constitution.

In a bid to stop the vote going ahead, the Guardia Civil and the national police were sent in to stop the Catalans from voting, seize ballot boxes and voting slips and close down the polling stations.

The security forces used heavy-handed tactics in order to disperse potential voters and close the polling stations, including baton charges on people on the street and firing rubber bullets into the crowds.

Nearly 900 people were injured during the day because of the actions of the police as well as 33 members of the Guardia Civil.

Speaking to CNN, Mr Puigdemont said that the relationship between Catalonia and the rest of Spain was broken and that the majority of Catalan people wanted the region to be an “independent state”.

He said: “The relationship between Catalonia and Spain does not work and the majority of Catalan people want Catalonia as an independent state.”

Mr Puigdemont once again called on Spain’s prime minister Mariano Rajoy to “sit down and talk” saying that the first step was to agree on a negotiator to oversee negotiations.

He said: “We are at a point where the most important thing that there is no previous condition to sit down and talk, to accept that we have to talk, we need to talk in the right conditions.

“Maybe, it could help us to talk if two people representing the Spanish government and two people representing the Catalan government just simply agree on one thing, for instance, naming a mediator.”

He added: “We cannot ignore the fact that talks and discussions come from recognising reality, and that is what we need to talk about.

“The relationship between Catalonia and Spain does not work and the majority of Catalan people that want Catalonia as an independent state. They want to do that in agreement with the Spanish state, but we need to do that without conditions. We need to sit down and really talk.”

The comments come amid growing tensions between the two sides after Mr Rajoy delivered a hard-hitting speech to the Congress of Deputies in Madrid.

During his 40-minute speech, Mr Rajoy said: “What is not legal is not democratic. The referendum of October 1 has failed completely. No supposed result can legitimise any political decision and, much less, the independence of Catalonia.

“The referendum lacked any democratic guarantee. The referendum lacked the principles of transparency, neutrality and veracity of the result.

“There is no single country in the world that has taken the referendum seriously.”

Mr Rajoy has issued a deadline of Monday for Mr Puigdemont to clarify whether or not an official declaration of independence has been made after Mr Puigdemont’s address to the regional parliament.

An admission by Mr Puigdemont that independence has been declared, despite being put on hold, could see Article 155 of the constitution being triggered which would suspend Catalonia’s power of self-rule and handed over to Madrid, which could in turn, see the Guardia Civil return to the streets of Barcelona which is unlikely to be welcome sight after recent events.