News

Neither side backing down

Puigdemont and Rajoy to meet in coming weeks but both warn they will not back down on referendum; Spanish PM insists on Conference of Presidents

Carles Puigdemont and Mariano Rajoy will meet in the coming weeks, but there will be no unexpected twist to the plot. The Catalan president and Spanish prime minister both warned yesterday that they will not back down on the issue of a referendum on Catalan independence: while Puigdemont stressed his determination to carry it forward, Rajoy insisted he would not authorise it, and the former's announced intention not to attend the Conference of Presidents in the Senate on Tuesday added to the tug of war.

Rajoy continued to pressurise the president of the Catalan Government not to leave an “empty chair”. If that happens, he said, others will end up speaking for him.

After Tuesday's meeting in which Oriol Junqueras and Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría restated the impossibility of reaching an agreement on the referendum (a meeting in which they did not even talk about the remaining 45 points in the original document Puigdemont gave to Rajoy), the upcoming meeting was supposed to serve to reopen the dialogue process that the Catalan vice-president conceded as being frozen on Wednesday.

However, in an interview on Catalunya Ràdio yesterday the President of the Generalitat again gave his assurance that the referendum will be held before October this year and will be binding and “effective”, as demanded by the mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau in order for it not to be politically disconnected from a possible unilateral vote.

Puigdemont also again lambasted the lack of Spanish political initiatives to resolve the conflict with Catalonia.

Sign in. Sign in if you are already a verified reader. I want to become verified reader. To leave comments on the website you must be a verified reader.
Note: To leave comments on the website you must be a verified reader and accept the conditions of use.