Catalan Parliament to consider taking legal action against Madrid after meeting

The meeting between the Catalan Parliament president, Roger Torrent, and Carles Puigdemont, held on Wednesday, might be the reason for yet another clash between the Catalan and Spanish governments. Madrid's direct rule over Catalonia is still in force – and it will continue until a new Catalan president is elected –, with Mariano Rajoy’s executive ordering the closure of Catalonia’s offices in Brussels on Wednesday. It was precisely the day and the place in which Torrent and Puigdemont had to meet ahead of the parliamentary session to pick a new Catalan president. 

After the meeting, Torrent announced that he had ordered the Parliament's legal services to study Spain’s prohibition to use the premises for the meeting in the Belgian capital. He said the chamber’s legal services will “act accordingly.” According to him, the case should be considered not only from the Spanish legal framework's point of view, but also that of the Belgian.

“It is very severe that facing a sincere message of dialogue and to speak with Rajoy, we not only receive a ‘no’, but also we are not allowed to meet Puigdemont and his ministers,” said Torrent. Puigdemont also referred to the incident, by saying that the Spanish government will have to explain “very well” why it closed down the Catalan government offices in the EU capital. The workers in the offices only found out on Wednesday that they could no longer work, which Puigdemont branded as a “mistreatment of employees.”