Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Saturday Oct 21,2017 said he would curb the powers of the parliament of Catalonia, sack its government and call an election within six months in a bid to thwart a drive by the autonomous region to breakaway from Spain.
Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said after meeting with his Cabinet on Saturday that the central government needs to take the unprecedented step of invoking Article 155 of the constitution to assume control of Catalonia to "restore order" in the face of a secession effort backed by the regional government.
The Spanish leader also proposed that the powers of Catalan officials be taken over by central government ministers.
Rajoy used the speech to set out his plans to remove specific powers away from the wealthy northeast region, which currently enjoys wide autonomy including control over its own policing, education and healthcare.
The measures -- which take the country into uncharted legal waters -- come after Spain's King Felipe VI on Friday Oct 20,2017 blasted what he said was an "unacceptable secession attempt" and said the crisis sparked by the region's banned October 1 independence referendum must be resolved "through legitimate democratic institutions".
"We do not want to give up that which we have built together," he pleaded.
Madrid enjoys constitutional powers to wrest back control of rebellious regions in one of the Western world's most decentralised nations, but until today it had never used them.
Autonomy is a hugely sensitive issue in semi-autonomous Catalonia, which saw its powers taken away under Spain's military dictatorship. Home to 7.5 million people, the region fiercely defends its own language and culture.
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