Parliament to defend sovereignty if Spain suspends autonomy

Article 155 is the threat hovering like a thundercloud over those in favor of holding an independence referendum without agreement with the Spanish Government. Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution foresees the State taking over the running of an Autonomous Community in the event that the region puts the fundamental interests of the State in jeopardy or violates the 1978 Spanish Constitution.

If the Spanish government were to decide to apply article 155 in order to block the October 1 vote, the president of the Catalan Parliament, Carme Forcadell, made it clear on Thursday that the Parliament will defend its sovereignty. Although she argued that she does not expect Spain to take such extreme measures: “this article has never been applied and its implementation is very difficult,” Forcadell said. However, if it were to happen, she insisted that the Catalan deputies would defend their rights as representatives mandated by the citizens of Catalonia and thus the sovereignty of the Catalan people.

The president also demanded a “phone call from the Spanish Government, an email or a What’sapp” and confirmed the willingness to talk on the Catalan side. In a conference at the Europe Forum-Catalonia Tribune, Forcadell explained that the Catalan government had tried 18 times to negotiate a referendum on the political status of Catalonia with the Spanish executive since given a majority mandate to do so in the  2015 election. She went on to point out that the so-called “operation dialogue” promoted by the Spanish government after the last election was a “cosmetic operation” as since the beginning of this campaign there have been more legal cases brought against pro-independence politicians than ever. “The courts have been the only dialogue with the State,” she said.