The Spanish government has called a last-minute press conference to respond to president Quim Torra's speech this evening. According to the government's spokesperson, Isabel Celaá, they found his words "anchored more to the end of the 19th and the 20th century than the 21st century". She summarised the speech as a "constant call to grand words turned into supreme concepts which are sometimes empty", giving as an example the president's calls for "liberty".
After attacking Torra, Celaá changed tone to recommend he start "dialogue within the law" on that which unites "all Catalans", whether they support independence or not, that which "has united them historically: self-government".
The spokesperson said that Torra's speech was of "the classic independence movement", "without too many novelties", aimed "exclusively" at independence supporters. She called on him to take "steps forwards" and open negotiations on improving Catalan self-government following prime minister Pedro Sánchez's offer to reform Catalonia's Statute of Autonomy, and negotiations between those who support independence and those who don't.
Celaá also warned that, whatever the verdict of the Supreme Court in the case against the pro-independence leaders, and regardless of Torra saying he won't accept anything other than acquittal, the Catalan government will "have to accept" it. She said "he's in his right" to not accept it personally, but that in Spain there's "a legal system which has safeguards and has appeals and possibilities".
"We want to continue forwards and find solutions together", she said before again urging Torra "to listen, to talk", not only with the Spanish government, but "between all Catalans". "It's precisely through this path that we can solve the political conflict there is in Catalonia, we give politics an opportunity," she said.