MADRID (MNI) – Spain’s deputy prime minister said Thursday that the
Spanish government was prepared to stop the region of Catalonia from
holding a referendum on independence.
“There are legal and constitutional instruments to stop it, and
this government is prepared to use them,” the deputy prime minister
Soraya Saenz de Santamaria told a press conference here.
Earlier this week, Artur Mas, Catalonia’s president, called for
elections on November 25 and said he wanted to “consult the will of the
Catalonian people” about the possible creation of an independent state.
The call for the snap election capped a week of acrimony between
Mas and Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy after Rajoy rejected Mas’s
demand to allow Catalonia to levy its own taxes.
Catalonia represents one-fifth of Spain’s economic output and has
long complained that, aside from its cultural differences with the rest
of Spain, it contributes much more to the central government than it
gets back.
Mas’s government recently requested a E5 billion bridge loan from
an E18 billion liquidity fund Madrid has established to help the
country’s indebted regions. Catalonia sends 9% of its GDP to the central
government for redistribution to other regions of Spain, and it argues
that is the reason for its current financial predicament.
Spain’s Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro said Thursday that the
new E18 billion fund is now operational and that Catalonia would be its
first beneficiary.
–Paris newsroom, +33142715540; jduffy@marketnews.com
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