Spain moves to dismiss Catalonia’s secessionist government

THE hesitation is over. On October 21st Mariano Rajoy (pictured, left), Spain’s prime minister, announced that his government will ask the Senate to give it powers to dismiss the administration in Catalonia and to call a regional election there within six months. Whether this leads to a solution to the six-week stand-off over Catalan independence, or to an intensification of Spain’s constitutional crisis, depends on how much resistance the government will now face in one of the country’s most important regions.

Mr Rajoy acted after Carles Puigdemont (pictured, right), the president of Catalonia’s devolved administration, refused a formal request to clarify or revoke an ambiguous declaration of independence which he made and then “suspended” on October 10th. The government has opted to activate Article 155 of the 1978 constitution, which gives it the power to compel a region to obey the law but has never before been used. The Senate is expected to approve the government’s request by October 27th. Mr Rajoy’s conservative People’s Party has a majority in the upper chamber and on this issue has the support of the opposition Socialists.