For the full story on the Catalan president’s speech, read the report by the Guardian’s Sam Jones on this evening’s events.
This live blog has now closed. Thank you for reading and have a peaceful evening.
Very little has been resolved by Carles Puigdemont’s speech.
El Pais opinion writer Jorge Galindo jokes Spain could still use article 155 of the Spanish constitution to take control of Catalonia’s regional government, and the radical pro-independence CUP party could break from the coalition it has with Puigdemont’s party indefinitely.
Ahora el Gobierno podría hacer un 155 en diferido, la CUP romper la coalición en diferido, y todos contentos.
— Jorge Galindo (@JorgeGalindo) October 10, 2017
Updated
The key points of Puigdemont’s speech:
- The Catalan leader asked for a mandate to declare Catalonia an independent state.
- He proposed suspending the effect of the independence declaration to the Catalan parliament, in order to hold talks with Madrid.
- Puigdemont said it was worth exploring international mediation to resolve the crisis.
- The Catalan head said he was convinced that the region’s conflict with Spain could be resolved in a negotiated way.
Updated
Catalan president says Catalonia has won right to independence, but suspends declaration to pursue dialogue
Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has proposed further dialogue in order to work toward independence.
He says:
I want to follow people’s will for Catalonia to become an independent state.
The parliament erupts with applause. But he says the government wants to delay any formal declaration. He continues:
We propose to suspend the effect of the independence declaration... in order to work towards putting into practice the result of the referendum... Today, we are making a gesture of responsibility in favour of dialogue.
Updated
Carles Puigdemont has switched from Catalan to Spanish, and is now addressing the Spanish people.
We are not criminals, we are not mad. We are normal people, and we just want to vote. We have been ready to talk and have dialogue. We have nothing against Spain. We want to have a better understanding with Spain. The relationship hasn’t been working for many years, and now it’s unsustainable.
The Catalan leader is giving a long history lesson on the province and the Catalan independence campaign.
He has been speaking for around 20 minutes, and there is still no detail on what he plans to do.
Updated
Puigdemont condemns the police violence that was seen during the referendum.
He continues:
I want to explain now why we are here. I think we should explain ourselves. Since the death of the dictator Franco, Catalonia has contributed massively to Spanish democracy.
Catalonia thought the 1978 Spanish constitution could be a good platform for democracy, and got involved. But later, we realised that the Spanish authorities were seeing this as the final target, but for us, it was a transition.
In 2005, 85% of this parliament, following the procedures that the constitution establishes, approved a new statue for Catalonia, and that triggered a massive anti-Catalan campaign by the people that want to govern and dominate Spain at any price.
The Catalan leader continues to speak about the integrity of the referendum, and thanks those who made the vote possible.
The chamber applauds in agreement.
The Catalan leader starts:
I am not planning any threat, any insults. We are all responsible for this. We need de-escalate the situation, not feed it any longer. I want to address everyone about the issue.
We are all part of the same community and we need to go forward together. We will never agree on everything, but we have proved many times that the only way to move forward is with democracy and peace. That requires dialogue.
Updated
Carles Puigdemont has started speaking. He greets the assembly, then says he is here to lay out the consequences of the independence referendum.
The session begins
The pro-independence supporters outside the Catalan parliament fall silent as the session begins. The Catalan leader looks relaxed.
The chamber in the Catalan parliament is filling up again, and Carles Puigdemont has just arrived. He’s taken off his glasses and he’s reading over the speech one last time.
Here we go...
Updated
Spanish media are reporting Carles Puigdemont asked for the postponement because the radical pro-independence CUP party is unhappy with the wording of his declaration.
Two minutes to go until the Catlan leader is due to speak. The parliament is still empty...
With just 15 minutes to go until Carles Puigdemont is due to speak, there lots of rumours flying around about the reasons behind the postponement.
The Guardian understands there has been contact between the regional government and EU officials, possibly even European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, although we have no formal confirmation.
The EU’s official position is that Catalonia’s independence bid is an “internal” Spanish matter.
Talks underway to resolve the crisis
A Catalan government spokesman has told the Guardian that some kind of talks are under way to resolve the crisis, saying: “There is a mediation effort going on and that’s all we are gong to say for now.”
Updated
Thousands of people are still packing the Passeig de Lluis Companys between the Arc de Triomf and the Ciutadella park - where the regional parliament is - to await the session.
Varios miles de personas aguardan en la calle la declaración de Puigdemont pic.twitter.com/kNf5olMDYx
— EL MUNDO (@elmundoes) October 10, 2017
A spokesman for the Catalan government said: “President Puigdemont has requested a postponement given the contacts for international mediation”.
It appears some eleventh hour diplomacy is under way.
The Catalan government has just confirmed the session will be delayed by an hour as there is a meeting of the board of parliament and party spokespeople.
That leaves around 40 minutes to watch the first two videos from the Guardian’s I am Catalan series before president Puigdemont speaks.
Speech delayed for an hour
Well, that’s quite the anti-climax. BBC news are reporting Carles Puigdemont has requested an hour delay before he gives his speech.
The chamber in the Catalan parliament has emptied.
It is unclear what is happening in the Catalan parliament. It is only half full, and president Puigdemont is not at the podium.
Updated
10 minutes to go until Carles Puigdemont reveals his plans for Catalan independence.
It will be the first time he addresses the regional parliament since the referendum that provoked the standoff with the Spanish government.
Updated
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said the EU should not play a mediating role in Spain’s secession crisis and – like his foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian – expressed confidence in Madrid’s ability to handle the situation.
“It is an internal Spanish matter,” Macron said in Frankfurt, Germany, before meeting chancellor Angela Merkel. Asked about the Catalan crisis, he said he saw no way that he, as French head of state, could mediate in the affairs of a neighbour either.
“This is not my task,” he said.
Updated
Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon has spoken out about the crisis in Catalonia in her keynote speech at the SNP conference, criticising the EU for not condemning the Spanish government’s actions during the independence referendum.
When the people of Catalonia - EU citizens - were violently attacked by police just for trying to vote, the EU should have spoken up, loudly, to condemn it.
Friends, in Catalonia, I hope dialogue will replace confrontation. It is time for the Spanish government to sit down with the government of Catalonia. It is time for them to talk and to find a way forward.
A way forward that respects the rule of law, yes. But a way forward that also respects democracy and the right of the people of Catalonia to determine their own future.
Updated
If Catalonia makes a unilateral declaration of independence, Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajo has hinted he will invoke article 155 of the 1978 Spanish constitution, which allows the central government to take control of an autonomous region if it “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.”
Article 155 has never been used by Spain’s central government.
Here is the official English language translation of article 155:
1. 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, after having lodged a complaint with the President of the Self-governing Community and failed to receive satisfaction therefore, may, following approval granted by the overall majority of the Senate, take all measures necessary to compel the Community to meet said obligations, or to protect the above mentioned general interest.
2. With a view to implementing the measures provided for in the foregoing paragraph, the Government may issue instructions to all the authorities of the Self-governing Communities.
France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has reiterated Paris’s confidence in the government of Mariano Rajoy to resolve the crisis. In an interview with Ouest France newspaper, Le Drian said:
France’s principles are very clear. It supports Spain as a friend and as an essential partner in the EU. We are very attached to Spanish unity. We believe Catalonia’s claims must be made within a framework of legality and Spanish constitutional unity. Every other hypothesis would be dramatic. We have made our support in this context very clear to the Spanish authorities, while regretting the violence.
The French European affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, said yesterday that France would not recognise Catalonia if it pushed ahead on the basis of the contested referendum, and stressed an independent Catalonia would find itself outside the EU:
If there were to be a declaration of independence, it would be unilateral, and it would not be recognised. Catalonia cannot be defined by the vote organised by the independence movement just over a week ago. This crisis needs to be resolved through dialogue at all levels of Spanish politics.
Updated
Barcelona mayor Ada Colau has also arrived at the Catalan parliament to hear president Carles Puigdemont speak.
Earlier today, the left-wing mayor urged the Catalan leader not to make a unilateral declaration of independence from Spain.
We must be responsible and de-escalate tensions to protect social cohesion. Declaration on the current situation in Catalonia: pic.twitter.com/XGdnkaAL7U
— Ada Colau (@AdaColau) October 10, 2017
President Carles Puigdemont arrives
President Carles Puigdemont has arrived at the Catalan parliament. He is set to speak in around 45 minutes.
The Catalan leader did not give the waiting reporters any indication of what he will say in his speech.
#Puigdemont just arrived at the parliament. He will deliver his speech at 6 p.m. #Oct10 pic.twitter.com/LS6gO5fs0i
— Fanny Facsar (@FannyFacsar) October 10, 2017
Catalonia has declared independence before. The last time it happened – on 6 October 1934, when the president of the Generalitat, Lluís Companys, proclaimed a Catalan state within the federal republic of Spain – it did not end well.
The move was quickly crushed by the government. Companys was arrested, tried and sentenced to 30 years in prison for rebellion, the autonomous government was suspended and virtually all its members were jailed.
Released after the Popular Front’s victory in Spain’s 1936 elections, he went into exile in France during the Spanish Civil War but was eventually handed over by the Nazis to the Franco regime, tried before a war council and executed in 15 October 1940.
A spokesman for Spain’s ruling People’s Party (PP) this week invoked Companys’ memory. Pablo Casada warned ominously (and not very diplomatically):
We hope they don’t declare anything tomorrow, because anyone doing so might end up like him 83 years ago, in prison.
PP MP @pablocasado_ threatened Catalan President that his fate might be the same as former President Companys’. He was shot by Francoists pic.twitter.com/mdI1NX3y0Q
— Jordi Solé Ferrando (@jordisolef) October 9, 2017
Updated
El Pais video journalist Alfonso Congostrina is also outside the Catalan parliament in Barcelona. He has been recording the build-up to Carles Puigdemont’s speech all afternoon.
His videos show Catalan parliamentarians arriving for the announcement, which is set to take place at 5pm UK time.
.@ALevySoler d @PPopular entra @parlament_cat para escuchar declaración @KRLS #DUI #155 #IndependenciaCatalunya #referendumCAT #1Oct2017 pic.twitter.com/g0Qe3dBZts
— Alfonso Congostrina (@alfcongostrina) October 10, 2017
Jordi Balsells, a 50-year-old businessman from Barcelona, was wandering down the Passeigh Lluís Companys carrying an estelada [the Catalan flag].
“I’m here because we’ve reached the end of our cycle with Spain,” he said. “We’ve got nothing against them but we’re carrying on down our own path now. We’re more frightened by what’s behind us than what’s ahead.”
Balsells said the will of the Catalan people had to be respected and that a Declaration of Independence had to be made.
“We would have liked an agreed referendum [with Spain] but it didn’t happen. It’s impossible that there won’t be one unless the Spanish step in. It’s not even the president’s decision. It’s the decision of the Catalan people - and we’ve paid a high price in blood and beatings to vote in the referendum.”
EU president Donald Tusk appeals for Catalan restraint
European Council president Donald Tusk has urged Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont not to “announce a decision that would make dialogue impossible” in an impassioned speech at the European Committee of the Regions, calling for dialogue with the Spanish government.
Tusk said he was speaking “as an ethnic minority” and “as a man who knows what it feels like what it is to be hit by a police baton.”
He said:
I appeal to you not only as the president of the European Council, but also as a strong believer in the motto of the EU: united in diversity. As a member of an ethnic minority, as a man who knows what it feels like what it is to be hit by a police baton, and as a former prime minister of a big European country, in brief, as someone who understands and feels the arguments and emotions of all sides.
A few days ago, I asked prime minister Rajoy to look for a solution to the problem without the use of force, to look for dialogue, because the force of argument is always better than the argument of force.
Today, I ask you to respect, in your intentions the constitutional order and not to announce a decision that would make such dialogue impossible. Diversity should not and need not lead to conflict whose consequences would obviously be bad for the Catalans, for Spain and for the whole of Europe.
Let us always look for what unites us, and not what divides us. This is what will decide the future of our continent.
I appeal to @KRLS not to announce a decision that would make dialogue impossible. Let's always look for what unites us. United in diversity.
— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) October 10, 2017
One of the paths open to the Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, is the so-called “Slovenian option” – essentially, a symbolic declaration of independence with the effect delayed by several months, allowing time for international mediation aimed at convincing Madrid to negotiate a later, legally guaranteed referendum.
The term derives from the Brioni Agreement, signed on 7 July 1991 by the representatives of Slovenia, Croatia and Yugoslavia with the mediation of what was then the European Community. Aimed at creating an environment for further talks on Yugoslavia’s future, it put a stop to hostilities between Yugoslavia and Slovenia and ultimately ended Belgrade’s influence over Ljublana.
Under the agreement, Slovenia – which had declared independence two weeks previously – agreed to suspend all practical steps towards self-rule for three months, while Yugoslavia pulled its troops out. The deal also fixed rules for border and customs controls on Slovenia’s borders and resolved air traffic control problems.
International lawyers have said a similar approach by Catalonia could have political if not legal advantages, effectively buying the regional government time and allowing it not to disappoint two million voters while recognising that independence is not immediately feasible in the current circumstances.
“So you say, ‘We’re not giving up, we’re continuing forward, but we’re appealing to the international community to act as a mediator and convince the Spanish state to agree to a referendum with legal guarantees,’” Joan Vintró, lawyer and lecturer on constitutional law at the University of Barcelona, told The Local.
“It’s a way of not renouncing your objective while creating waiting time, within the margin of which you can negotiate on different fronts to either make independence effective from a certain time, or to submit to a legally guaranteed referendum,” Vintro said.
But there is no indication whatsoever at present that the Spanish government would be inclined to entertain such an option, or that the European Union would intervene unless asked to by Madrid. Other lawyers also point out that Catalonia’s circumstances are by no means the same as Slovenia’s – for one thing, in 1991 the European community was intervening to defuse an armed conflict.
Updated
At five past four Spanish time, Laura Sanz was putting the finishing touches to her homemade placard, which read: “Catalonia will be the tomb of Francoism.”
The 19-year-old student had come down to the Passeig de Lluís Companys to back the pro-independence government as the Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, prepares to address parliament at 6pm local time.
“I want there to be an independence declaration,” she said. “But I don’t think there will be because the Guardia Civil will come and take Puigdemont away. If that happens, there’ll be a big mess tomorrow. The city will shut down; we’ll paralyse it like we did before.”
Asked if Catalonia would become independent, she said: “I hope so. You have to be optimistic.”
Updated
Our Madrid correspondent Sam Jones is outside the Catalan parliament in Barcelona
Catalan farmers are using their tractors to show their support for independence. Two days before the referendum on 1 October, a large convoy of tractors rolled into central Barcelona in a show of secessionist strength. Down by the Arc de Trionf, close the Catalan high court, a giant screen has been set up and the PA system is being tested. Thousands of independence campaigners are due to arrive here over the next two hours to watch the session in the nearby parliament.
Updated
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage as the Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, sets out his plans for independence in a speech to the regional parliament due to begin at 6pm local time.
Puigdemont had promised to make a unilateral declaration of independence within 48 hours of the 1 October referendum but has so far refrained from doing so, calling instead for mediated negotiations with the Madrid government.
Police are guarding public buildings and have closed off the Citadella park surrounding the parliament building as tensions mount between those eager to see the birth of a new republic, and others opposed to independence and fearful of a backlash.
The Spanish government in Madrid has repeatedly said the referendum was illegal and unconstitutional and that it will use all legal means at its disposal to prevent Catalonia breaking away. Prime minister Mariano Rajoy has threatened to impose direct rule.
There is no firm indication of whether Puigdemont will formally declare Catalonia’s secession or take a less confrontational route, possibly by announcing a more symbolic recognition of independence to be negotiated and mediated by the international community.
