Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy speaks during a press conference after an extraordinary cabinet meeting at Moncloa Palace on October 21, 2017 in Madrid | Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images Rajoy unveils sweeping plan to take control of Catalonia Spanish prime minister says Catalan Cabinet will be dismissed and election held within six months.

MADRID — The Spanish government has hit back hard in its battle with Catalonia’s pro-independence leadership.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Saturday that Madrid will dismiss the whole Catalan Cabinet, assume all the powers of the regional executive, curb the role of the Catalan parliament and call a regional election within six months.

Rajoy’s decision is the latest move in a years-long power struggle with the Catalan government, which intensified following a disputed independence referendum on October 1. The regional executive says the vote gave it a mandate to declare independence; Madrid and the Spanish courts say the referendum was illegal.

Rajoy unveiled the unprecedented plan to take over the running of Catalonia’s government under Article 155 of the Spanish constitution after an urgent meeting of his Cabinet. The Senate, the upper chamber of parliament, was expected to start processing the measures immediately and give the green light in a plenary session on Friday.

Rajoy blamed the secessionist Catalan government led by regional President Carles Puigdemont for the “exceptional” situation, saying it had sought “confrontation.”

“I’m under the impression that … some wanted to reach this situation,” Rajoy said. “It wasn’t our intention,” he argued, adding that “no government of any democratic country can accept that the law is ignored, violated and changed.”

Puigdemont said on Saturday night he would call a session of the Catalan parliament to discuss how to respond to what he called an attack on the Catalan institutions and people, which he said was unprecedented since the times of dictator Francisco Franco.

"The Spanish government has proclaimed itself the representative of the people of Catalonia in an illegitimate manner," Puigdemont said. "We must rally together to defend our institutions." The regional president has previously suggested the response to such actions could be a formal, unilateral declaration of independence.

Carme Forcadell, leader of the regional parliament, was more outspoken in her reaction, saying: “Rajoy has announced a de facto coup d’etat against the Catalan institutions.” As she spoke, hundreds of thousands of people joined a pre-arranged protest in Barcelona against the arrest this week of the leaders of the two largest pro-independence civil groups.

Davant el totalitarisme, avui més que mai, defensem la democràcia i els drets civils i polítics. Ens hi trobarem! pic.twitter.com/93gmy2Y4hz — Oriol Junqueras (@junqueras) October 21, 2017

Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau, whose party hasn’t taken a stance on independence but supports a Scottish-style vote agreed with the central government, said the measures proposed by Madrid were an attack “on the rights and the liberties of everyone.”

Puigdemont insists the referendum gives him the authority to declare independence from Spain. According to his government's figures, which were not independently verified, 43 percent of Catalans cast a ballot and 90 percent chose secession in the vote.

Broad powers

The document approved by Rajoy's Cabinet envisions that either the central government or an ad-hoc body takes direct control of the whole Catalan administration and its public institutions — including the regional police and the public media — and gives Madrid powers to appoint or dismiss any public servant in Catalonia.

Rajoy said the measures had been agreed with the main opposition Socialists and the liberal Ciudadanos party — which represent around 70 percent of voters in Spain and 40 percent in Catalonia — and aim to restore legal order, protect the economy and call an election “as soon as we recover normality,” not later than within six months.

"We can’t rule out anything at the moment" — Politics researcher Jorge Galindo

Legal experts disagree over the scope of Article 155 of the constitution, which has never been used but is a direct copy of Article 37 of Germany's Basic Law. The article states that if "a Self-governing Community does not fulfil the obligations imposed upon it by the Constitution or other laws, or acts in a way that is seriously prejudicial to the general interest of Spain," the government can "take all measures necessary" with the approval of the Senate.

Fernando Álvarez-Ossorio, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Seville, said the practical meaning will ultimately be defined by the Senate and any interpretation by the Constitutional Court — to which the Catalan government could file an appeal after the upper house’s resolution.

Álvarez-Ossorio said Article 155 was technically different from the direct rule imposed by the U.K. government on Northern Ireland in different periods up to 2007 because Catalonia's autonomy won't be officially suspended — rather, the region's institutions will continue operating, but under the command of the central government.

He added that it was similar to the "federal coercion" exercised by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Arkansas in the 1950s in what was known as "The Little Rock Nine" incident, where the state refused to comply with a decision of the Supreme Court to desegregate schools.

Whatever the legal arguments, the evolution of the crisis will very much depend on the reaction of pro-independence forces.

The central government may know how they start applying these measures, but not where they will lead, warned former Catalan President Artur Mas in an interview this week. “Do they believe that the people of this country [Catalonia] will remain with their arms crossed, contemplating the show without doing anything? It's tremendous naïveté,” he said.

Jorge Galindo, a politics researcher and editor of the Politikon online journal, said he foresees two possible scenarios: The pro-independence camp could start a campaign of street protests against the government's move but ultimately take part in the election forced by Madrid; or they could rally in the streets but boycott the election and try to establish a parallel authority.

Galindo said he hopes the independence forces maintain their commitment to non-violence and that the central government has learned the “catastrophic lesson” of the vote on October 1, when national police charged against voters to seize ballot boxes. “But we can’t rule out anything at the moment,” he warned.