Spain asks Catalonia leader to act sensibly

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy urged Catalonia's leader yesterday to "act sensibly" and renounce an independence bid to head off a threat by Madrid to impose direct rule, a prospect that has sent shock waves across the country.

Rajoy issued his appeal in the national parliament where he sought to win more political support for his threat to take direct control of Catalonia today unless the rebel regional government drops its plan to break away.

The move would need only a vote in Spain's upper house, where Rajoy's People's Party holds an absolute majority.

It would be the first time in Spain's four decades of democracy that direct rule has been imposed.

That prospect in the euro zone's fourth-largest economy has prompted hundreds of Catalan firms to move their headquarters, led Madrid to cut economic growth forecasts and rattled the euro.

Regional leader Carles Puigedmont has already defied Madrid once this week, reiterating on Monday an ambiguous independence declaration he made last week and immediately suspended.

"I ask Puigdemont to act sensibly, in a balanced way, to put the interests of all citizens first," Rajoy said yesterday, mentioning both residents of the autonomous region, which produces a fifth of Spain's wealth and has its own language and culture, and the rest of the country.

Today's deadline is Puigdemont's last chance to abandon an independence declaration which Madrid has rejected as illegal. "It's not that difficult to reply to the question: has Catalonia declared independence? Because if it has, the government is obliged to act in one way, and if it has not we can talk here," Rajoy said in parliament.