Read in Catalan

The representatives from PP (Popular Party), PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) and Ciudadanos (Citizens) on the Spanish Congress's Board have put the brakes on the creation of the committee driven by PDeCAT (Catalan European Democratic Party) and ERC (Catalan Republican Left) to investigate the police attacks during the 1st October referendum.

Both pro-independence parties announced at the start of this month that they would call for the setting up of such a commission to find out "under what instructions" the attacks were ordered and "what was aimed to do with them". This was indicated by PDeCAT's spokesperson in the Congress, Carles Campuzano, who explained that his intention was nothing more than to have "someone" assume political responsibility for these attacks which were "a completely out-of-place exercise by the [Spanish National] Police and the Civil Guard".

"Brutal" police repression

However, the three Spanish parties agreed to ask for the Catalans to reformulate their request because it presupposes that there was "brutal and disproportionate police repression" that day.

Unidos Podemos (Together We Can), for their part, said that ERC and PDeCAT shouldn't have to redo their text because they believe that requests for the creation of such parliamentary committees often presuppose some fact that they are planned to investigate.

If the Catalan independence supporters do go ahead with editing their proposal and this reaches a vote in the Congress, it seems unlikely to be accepted, as it is unlikely that neither PP, PSOE, nor Ciudadanos will accept to start a commission over the role of the police on 1st October.