Catalonia crisis is a bigger threat to the EU than Brexit, warns MEP, as region vows to declare independence within days and violence breaks out between supporters and unionists
The crisis in Catalonia poses a bigger threat to the EU than Brexit, a senior MEP has warned, as the region’s president announced that they will declare independence next week.
Experts say tensions between Catalonia and Spain is at its highest since the end of the Franco regime in the 1970s, with clashes continuing on the streets of Barcelona days after the referendum on Sunday.
Belgium’s Philippe Lamberts, the head of the Green grouping in the European Parliament said the crisis ‘threatened the spirit of European integration, even more than Brexit’.
A woman carries an independence Catalan flag during a demonstration march in Barcelona yesterday against the confiscation of ballot boxes and charges on unarmed civilians during Sunday’s referendum
According to the Catalonia’s government more than two million people voted on Sunday in the referendum of Catalonia, which the Government in Madrid had declared illegal and undemocratic
When asked what he would do if the Spanish government were to intervene and take control of Catalonia’s government, Puigdemont said it would be ‘an error which changes everything’.
A vote on independence will be held on Monday at the regional government’s parliament – a formality as they have the majority in the legislature.
In a separate interview with German newspaper Bild, Puigdemont was quoted as saying: ‘I already feel as a president of a free country’.
Today, video footage emerges of rival groups of youngsters fighting on the streets of Barcelona’s upmarket Sarrià-Saint Gervasi neighbourhood on Tuesday.
The two sides – one carrying Spanish flags and the other Catalan symbols – can be seen trading punches in broad daylight after shouting insults at each other.
The fight is said to have started after one youth spat at a member of the other group, and footage shows how an intervening police officer on a motorbike ends up on the ground.
Trading blows: Video footage shows pro-independence and an anti-independence group trading punches in broad daylight after shouting insults at each other in Barcelona
The fight is said to have started after one youth spat at a member of the other group, and footage shows how an intervening police officer on a motorbike ends up on the ground
Officials said that 90 per cent of votes cast were for independence. The Catalan goverment’s spokesman said that an estimated of 770,000 votes were lost as a result of 400 polling stations being raided by Spanish police
As well as throwing punches, some of the youngsters were seen throwing eggs in footage published by Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. The ugly incident happened around 4pm Tuesday in Barcelona’s upmarket Sarrià-Saint Gervasi neighbourhood.
The youngsters carrying Spanish flags – numbering around 150 – were returning from a demonstration outside the HQ of a local radio station where they chanted slogans against independence.
The other smaller group had come from a pro- independence rally. The violence – which lasted only a few minutes – was described as an isolated incident and no-one was believed to have been injured.
But it is bound to increase fears for Spain’s future, and elsewhere, the chief of Catalonia’s regional police force – Mossos d’Esquadra – has been accused of sedition after ‘failing to prevent’ that the independence referendum took place.
Riot police watched on as anti-independence demonstrators waved Spanish flags during a march in Barcelona, Spain last night
The referendum has plunged Spain into its worst constitutional crisis in decades with millions voting for separation in defiance of Spanish courts that had ruled the ballot illegal.