Catalan premier appeals to EU as opposition mounts to Madrid’s crackdown
By
Alex Lantier
1 November 2017
From Brussels, where he fled to escape prosecution by Spanish authorities, deposed Catalan regional premier Carles Puigdemont appealed yesterday for the European Union to intervene in the secession crisis. Last week, Madrid invoked Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to impose an unelected regime in Catalonia in response to the October 1 Catalan independence referendum. Now Puigdemont is asking the EU to broker a deal between the Popular Party government in Madrid and the ousted Catalan authorities.
Workers in Catalonia and across Spain face an attempt by the Spanish ruling elite to seize the Catalan regional state apparatus, purge the public service and crush all opposition to the EU’s agenda of austerity and militarism by mobilizing tens of thousands of Guardia Civil and soldiers. The danger of bloody police-military repression in Catalonia is looming.
Puigdemont’s appeal to Brussels expresses the political bankruptcy and reactionary role of Catalan bourgeois nationalism in this explosive and dangerous situation. There are mass protests against Article 155 in Catalonia, fears in the European ruling elite of a mobilization of the working class, and popular opposition to Article 155 across Spain. Puigdemont’s reaction to this growing popular opposition is to seek a deal with both Madrid and the EU, which has repeatedly made clear its support for Madrid’s policy of authoritarian rule in Catalonia.
Speaking from Brussels, Puigdemont lamented “the grave democratic deficit that exists in the Spanish state” and urged Brussels to intervene “to protect the values of the EU.” He said he wanted to base the Catalan regional government partly in Brussels…