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Spanish PM insists Catalonia won't be granted independence

Xinhua, July 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Thursday that the Catalan region of Spain will not be granted independence no matter what the result of the Catalan regional elections scheduled for Sept. 27.

Artur Mas, President of the Generalitat de Catalonia (the Catalan regional parliament) and the leader of the nationalist party Democratic Convergence of Catalonia, has implied he will use the September vote as a plebiscite for independence and if his party, which is standing jointly with the more radical Republican Left (ERC), win an overall majority they will make a unilateral declaration of independence within six to eight months afterwards.

"There is not going to be Catalan independence and Catalonia will not leave Europe, which is what he (Mas) is proposing to the Catalan citizens," he said in a press conference following a meeting with Polish Prime Minister, Ewa Kopacz, in Madrid.

The Spanish prime minister said the September vote was for the Catalan parliament and nothing else, adding "the law will be upheld in Catalonia and in all parts of Spain." He said Spain was "absolutely prepared" for what may happen.

He went on to compare Mas to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, calling him "irresponsible" for "promising and offering some things which when they try to put them into practice will remain in nothing."

Last November saw Mas try to hold a referendum on Catalan independence and Spain's Constitutional Court declared the vote illegal. Endit