Carles Puigdemont rules out the possibility of calling early elections "because there are no guarantees" and continues to attack the central government, emphasizing that the commissioning of Catalonia is "unfair and abusive" despite today's Constitutional Court rejecting both appeals presented by Barcelona, legitimizing de facto the application of article 155.
"My duty is to try all possible ways to find a solution in dialogue and agreement to avoid the application of article 155", he continued, "I would have called the elections if there had been guarantees, but these guarantees do not exist".
"The Catalan Parliament will decide whether to proclaim independence after confirming that it will not call elections due to not having received guarantees from the Spanish government" on the halt to the commissioner of Catalonia.
A few hours after the Senate vote on the application of article 155, therefore, there seems to be no more room for a solution that would prevent Barcelona from losing its autonomy.
Surrounded on all fronts, with pro-independence parties attacking him for not declaring independence and unionists accusing him of undermining the security and unity of the state, Puigdemont seems to give up.
Despite the harshness of his words, with the decision communicated this afternoon, the governor gives the de facto green light to Madrid's commissioning of Barcelona, although he underlines that he considers it "unjust and abusive" and does not accept "the measures that the government of Madrid has adopted”.
The speech by the President of the Generalitat was initially scheduled for 13.30pm. Then a series of postponements until 17 pm. And it was he himself who revealed the reason for the continuous extensions: "I tried to obtain guarantees, but I did not get a responsible response from the PP", he explained in his brief statement.
Puigdemont's words were closely followed by the reply of the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria who reiterated in the Madrid Senate that the government is asking for the activation of article 155 against Catalonia to "re-establish the exercise of Catalan self-government within a constitutional framework” and “protect the general interest of Spain”.
