Puigdemont: Spain was ready to respond with ‘casualties’ if independence was carried through

The Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, deposed by the Spanish government, warned pro-independence MPs that Madrid was ready to respond with “deaths” if the declaration of independence carried through, as Catalan digital newspaper Nació Digital reports. On October 27 the Parliament passed a resolution declaring the Catalan independent state but the decision was never implemented. Instead, in the days that followed, Puigdemont went into exile in Brussels while the Spanish executive took over Catalonia.

This drew some criticism among the pro-independence campaigners, but the real reasons behind not immediately moving forward with the new republic may well have been to avoid Spanish police or military violence. “I won’t be the president that permits there to be casualties in the street. We agreed that we wouldn’t cross this line,” Puigdemont allegedly said, in a meeting with MPs on October 26.

“I have been told for certain that tanks will come and that there will be bloodshed,” he said in the parliamentary group meeting, in reference to Spain's reaction to Catalan independence. Thus despite approving the declaration the following day, this is why the Catalan government did not take further action, according to these reports.