Belgium Asylum and Migration Minister Theo Francken attends a ministerial meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council at the European Council in Brussels, on December 5, 2014. Photo: Emmanuel Dunand via AFP/Getty Images. | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images Belgian minister: Puigdemont can seek asylum here ‘We will see in the coming days and hours what will happen,’ Flemish nationalist politician says.

A Belgian minister said Catalan ex-President Carles Puigdemont, removed from office by the Spanish government last week, could apply for asylum in Belgium.

"Catalan people who feel politically threatened can ask for asylum in Belgium. That includes President Puigdemont. This is 100 percent legal," Theo Francken, the state secretary for asylum and migration, told public broadcaster VRT late on Saturday.

Francken is a senior figure in the Flemish-nationalist party N-VA, which is part of the Belgian federal government but has cultivated close ties to the Catalan independence movement and supports self-determination for Catalonia.

"At the moment there is no request pending but everything is moving enormously fast," said Francken, a junior minister in the interior ministry. "We will see in the coming days and hours what will happen."

The junior minister also tweeted out the procedure for EU nationals to request asylum Sunday morning. EU citizens' requests for asylum are fast-tracked in Belgium but require extensive proof that the applicant is in danger.

Spanish newspapers including La Vanguardia have speculated that Puigdemont might seek help from Belgium as the situation in Spain escalates.

Puigdemont has not suggested he has any plans to leave Catalonia after a dramatic sequence of events on Friday, when the Catalan parliament declared the region to be independent and Madrid swiftly imposed direct rule.

On Saturday, Puigdemont called for peaceful protests against the Spanish government's action.

While the European Union has backed Madrid over the Catalan crisis and its member countries have made clear they will not recognize Friday's independence declaration, Belgium has expressed concern at Spain's hardline stance.

Prime Minister Charles Michel condemned police violence in suppressing an independence referendum organized by the Catalan authorities on October 1 that was ruled illegal by Spain's constitutional court.

Flemish state premier Geert Bourgeois, also a senior Flemish nationalist politician, has previously called for the EU to set up a process to allow regions of member countries to become independent.