French European affairs minister urges both sides to negotiate their way out of crisis triggered by last week’s referendum

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

France has said it will not recognise Catalonia if the regional government presses ahead with a unilateral declaration of independence from Spain, and urged both sides to negotiate their way out of the crisis triggered by last week’s referendum.

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“If there were to be a declaration of independence, it would be unilateral, and it would not be recognised,” France’s European affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, said.

“Catalonia cannot be defined by the vote organised by the independence movement just over a week ago,” she told CNews television. “This crisis needs to be resolved through dialogue at all levels of Spanish politics.”

Loiseau also repeated the European commission’s warning that an independent Catalonia would find itself outside the European Union and obliged to reapply for membership.

“If independence were to be recognised – which is not something that’s being discussed – the most immediate consequence would be that [Catalonia] automatically left the European Union.



The Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, is due to bring the results of the referendum before the regional parliament on Tuesday.

According to the Catalan government, 90% of participants voted for independence in the referendum on 1 October, with 2.3 million of Catalonia’s 5.3 million registered voters casting a ballot.

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It remains unclear whether Puigdemont will opt merely to recognise the referendum result or whether he will push ahead with a unilateral declaration of independence.

Speaking to Catalonia’s TV3 on Sunday night, he lamented the Spanish government’s unwillingness to negotiate over the issue, adding: “If the [Spanish] state doesn’t respond positively, we’ll do what we came to do.”

On Monday morning, Spain’s deputy prime minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, said the government would act if Puigdemont declared independence on Tuesday. “It won’t go unanswered,” she said, but did not specify whether the government would move to take control of Catalonia by invoking article 155 of the Spanish constitution, which has never been used.

“Applying 155 would involve a lot of things because it’s not been studied very much,” she told Cope radio.



Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has said he is prepared to suspend the region’s autonomy to stop it splitting from the rest of the country.

In an interview with El País on Sunday, Rajoy insisted he would stop the Catalan government declaring independence over the coming days, warning that the Spanish authorities would assume control of the region from Madrid if necessary.

Rajoy also said the thousands of Guardia Civil and national police officers deployed in Catalonia would remain there “until things return to normal” and repeated calls for the regional government to drop its independence demands.



“We’re going to stop independence from happening,” he told the paper. “I can say with absolute frankness that it’s not going to happen. Depending on how things develop, we’ll obviously take any of the decisions the law permits.

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“I want to make one thing absolutely clear: as long as the threat of a declaration of independence remains on the political horizon, it’s going to be very difficult for the government not to take steps.”

Rajoy is adamant that Spain will not tolerate Catalonia’s departure. In an interview with Die Welt on Monday, the prime minister dismissed suggestions that the country could be divided.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “Spain will not be divided and national unity will be preserved. We’ll do everything that legislation allows to ensure that.”



Rajoy’s warnings were echoed by Enric Millo, the Spanish government’s most senior representative in Catalonia.

“It would be a very, very grave act of irresponsibility,” he told TV3. “[The Catalan government] would end up breaking what little they haven’t already broken. The consequences are very difficult to predict.”

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Barcelona on Sunday to protest against the regional government’s independence drive and to show solidarity with the rest of Spain.