European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker gives a press
conference on Greece at the EU headquarters in Brussels on June 29,
2015. The European Union said on September 28, 2015 the landmark victory
of Catalan separatists in elections was a subject for Spain to deal
with internally. PHOTO | JOHN THYS | AFP
BRUSSELS
The European Union
said Monday the landmark victory of Catalan separatists in elections was
a subject for Spain to deal with internally.
Spain was
plunged into uncertainty after groups that want to break Spain’s
richest region away as a new state in Europe won control of Catalonia’s
parliament on Sunday.
“The European Commission, as you
know, as a matter of principle does not comment on regional elections.
This is a domestic issue for Spain,” Commission spokesman Margaritis
Schinas told reporters.
“It is not for the Commission
to express a position on questions of internal organisation related to
the constitutional arrangements of a particular member state.”
REAPPLY FOR ENTRY
Jean-Claude
Juncker, the president of the European Commission, was “informed” of
the result but had not had any immediate contacts with the government in
Madrid and regional government in Catalonia, Schinas said.
However,
the European Commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation EU, has
previously said that an independent Catalonia would have to reapply for
entry to the bloc as a state in its own right.
The
position, set out by then-Commission president Romano Prodi in 2004 and
repeated by his successors since, states that “when a part of the
territory of a Member State ceases to be a part of that state, e.g.
because that territory becomes an independent state, the treaties will
no longer apply to that territory.
“A newly independent
region would, by the fact of its independence, become a third country
with respect to the Union and the treaties.’’
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