Spain’s deputy prime minister has told the Catalan president to “stop lying” to the region by promising independence, and accused rightwing Spanish parties of “irresponsibility, disloyalty and selfishness” as the country reels from a week of violent protests across Catalonia.
The supreme court’s imprisonment last Monday of nine separatist leaders for sedition over their roles in the failed bid for Catalan independence two years ago prompted violent unrest that left two people in a critical condition, hundreds more injured and cost more than €2m (£1.7m).
Police from the national, Catalan and Guardia Civil forces were attacked with molotov cocktails, slingshots, stones and fireworks. They responded with teargas, rubber and foam bullets and a water cannon.
Officers were criticised for being heavy-handed and Catalan health authorities say four people were blinded in one eye by rubber bullets. One police officer and one protester remain in a critical condition.
Carmen Calvo, the deputy prime minister in Spain’s socialist caretaker government, defended its response to the violence as “very proportional”, adding that it was keen to avoid the kind of scenes of police brutality that greeted the unilateral Catalan independence referendum of 2017.
She said the government was doing everything in its power to make sure the situation did not escalate further. “We’re trying not to make any mistakes now that would hinder future political negotiations within the constitution,” she said. “That’s the most responsible but complicated and difficult position.”
Calvo said the pro-independence Catalan president, Quim Torra, was an activist who had never understood that he was meant to be the president of all Catalans, including the half who oppose independence.
She said Torra was inflaming the situation by not condemning the violence by a minority of demonstrators strongly enough, and by now threatening to hold another unilateral and illegal independence referendum.
“[He] needs to stop telling impossible lies – like that there will be a Catalan constitution in spring, or that Catalonia will have separated from Spain by spring,” she said.
“The independence movement’s biggest problem politically is that they’ve lied to the Catalan people. They said this referendum was legal and would bring about a break [from Spain]. They told them the split was possible, that the right to self-determination exists in a democracy like Spain – which is a total lie. There’s no right to unilateral separation in this democracy nor any other.”
She said the government had already engaged in talks with Torra before the supreme court announced its verdict and would be happy to do so as soon as he condemned the violence unconditionally and “stopped lying” about independence.
The deputy prime minister also accused the conservative People’s party (PP) and centre-right Citizens party of stoking tensions with Catalonia over recent years and leaving the socialist government to deal with the fallout.
Both the PP and Citizens have called for the government to take a much tougher line on the unrest in Catalonia and accused it of being too lenient with separatist leaders. Spain is due to hold its fourth general election in as many years on 10 November.
The independence movement gathered support and momentum under the previous PP government of Mariano Rajoy.
When the former Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, tried to break away from Spain by holding an unilateral referendum and subsequently declaring independence, Rajoy responded by sacking Puigdemont’s administration and taking direct control of Catalonia.
“What this government is doing is dealing with the disastrous legacy they’ve left us with,” said Calvo. “It’s one of agitation and the absolute abandonment of real politics.”
She said that Citizens, which has been among the most fierce opponents of the regional independence movement, had sought to drive a wedge between Spain and Catalonia.
“If you want Catalonia to be in Spain, the last thing you should be doing is creating confrontation,” said Calvo. “I hope they’re punished at the polls for the level of irresponsibility, disloyalty and selfishness they’ve shown the country.”
Asked about police actions over the past few days and videos purporting to show officers attacking innocent bystanders, Calvo insisted the police response had been planned and measured. She added: “We’ve seen images that we wouldn’t have wanted to see, but we haven’t seen the kind of images we saw [on the day of the referendum two years ago].”
The deputy prime minister said video clips did not always reflect the precise circumstances of every incident. When pressed on whether the law applied to everyone in Spain whether they wore a uniform or not, she said: “The law applies equally to everyone in this country.”
Further protests are expected in the coming days.
