Read in Catalan

Following the warning from European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, saying that "the extensive support throughout Europe" for Spanish PM Rajoy "should not be underestimated", Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has issued a response. 

In a message published on his Twitter account, Puigdemont reminds Juncker that, in Catalonia, Rajoy's Popular Party only receives 8.5% of the votes. The president offers this fact as a counter to the supposed "extensive support" that Rajoy would have in Europe "for his policies on Catalonia", according to Juncker. Puigdemont goes on to ask: "Does Juncker have any regard for European citizens' votes and opinions?"

In an interview published in Spanish daily El País, president Juncker warned Puigdemont that he and the rest of the Catalan government were "making a major mistake" if they underestimated the European support for Spanish prime minister Rajoy and, consequently, for his actions with respect to the Catalan independence process.

In the same interview, the president of the European Commission gives the view that “Catalonia is a large, a huge worry” for the European institutions, and he labels the current situation as a “disaster”. It "has rarified the political atmosphere, it has generated an internal fracture in Spanish and in Catalan society”, he says. Juncker also asserts, as he has previously affirmed when talking about the Catalan case, that “nationalism is poison".