A day after king Felipe made a very rare and for his doing very emotional address to the Spanish people in which he declared any referendum by Catalonia as being against the interest of Spain and urged his population to remain calm, the local government of Catalonia decided to raise the stakes even further.
They have just released a statement saying that the regional government will declare independence from Spain on Monday 9 October.
Spanish King Felipe yesterday evening: “We have all been witness to the events that have happened in Catalonia, with the Catalan Government’s final goal of illegally proclaiming the independence of Catalonia. They have sought to shatter the unity of Spain and national sovereignty, which is the right of all Spaniards to decide democratically on their life together. It is the responsibility of the legitimate powers of the state to ensure constitutional order and the normal functioning of our institutions, the validity of the state of law and self-government in Catalonia.”
Meanwhile, Mr Carles Puidgemont, the Catalan leader, said in an interview with the BBC yesterday: “This will probably finish once we get all the votes in from abroad at the end of the week and therefore we shall probably act over the weekend or early next week.”
<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Massive pro-Catalan protest against Spanish government hits Barcelona: <a href="https://t.co/jZfds5n6qn">https://t.co/jZfds5n6qn</a> <a href="https://t.co/2L2ytXyKXB">pic.twitter.com/2L2ytXyKXB</a></p>— Ruptly (@Ruptly) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ruptly/status/915508839507742720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2017</a></blockquote>
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The Spanish stock market IBEX has fallen below 10,000 points for the first time since March of this year upon the publication of the Catalan announcement an hour ago.
If Catalonia would succeed in seceding from Spain, the Iberian country would lose a whopping 19% of its GDP.
It is unclear what will happen next but expectations vary widely.
The EU has decided, by word of the leader of the EU Commission Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker that this is ‘an internal Spanish matter’. Some European prime ministers have called for restraint to the use of further force, but anyone having seen so far what police did assume that Prime Minister Rajoy might even mobilize the army next.
As always, we here at the Goldwater will keep you updated.
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Rajoy will never allow it.