(Bloomberg) -- Spanish prosecutors' order that the Catalan regional police must accept more central-government control was rejected by the separatist region's administration, adding a new level of defiance to the illegal effort to hold an independence referendum on Oct. 1.
Prosecutors on Saturday ordered a unit of the Madrid-based Interior Ministry to coordinate the operations of the Civil Guard, the National Police and the local Mossos d'Esquadra -- as the Catalan police department is known. Hours afterward, a senior Catalan government official rejected the move, saying he would study all possible legal challenges.
“The Mossos won't renounce exercising their functions in loyalty to the Catalan people,” regional Interior Department chief Joaquim Forn said in brief televised comments. “We don't accept this interference of the state, jumping over all existing coordination mechanisms.”
The development may deepen concern in Spain that the 17,000-strong Mossos force may not be fully committed to helping quash an illegal independence referendum planned in the nation's largest regional economy. The standoff came a day after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government acknowledged it's sending more reinforcements to help the Mossos control street demonstrations and carry out a separate court order to halt the referendum that's sponsored by Catalonia's separatist administration.
Officials in Madrid have quietly hired cruise ships to moor in the Port of Barcelona as temporary housing as they amass what El Correo newspaper said may be more than 16,000 riot police and other security officers before the planned poll.
Civil Guard Colonel Diego Perez de los Cobos, chief of staff of the Interior Ministry's security department, was named by the prosecutor to coordinate the efforts of the three police corps to block the referendum, a government press officer said.
Catalan police chief Josep Lluis Trapero, during a meeting with the heads of the other police forces on Saturday, rejected giving up his control to the central government, Forn said.
Read more: Catalan History of Grievance Leaves a Divided Spain: QuickTake
Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia's president, called the independence vote in an attempt to push the secession movement forward after decades of political and legal fights over the region's traditions and language. Since Rajoy took office in 2011, he's been embroiled in persistent clashes with separatists seeking to foment a backlash against Madrid. Catalonia is home to about 7.5 million people, or 16 percent of the population, but accounts for a fifth of the economy, on a par with Portugal and Finland.
“They are liquidating the rights of all citizens,” Prime Minister Rajoy said in a speech before members of his People's Party in Palma de Majorca. “They should stop with the absolute disrespect of the law, which it is ridiculous, and causes unnecessary tensions.”
About 40,000 people took to the streets of Barcelona on Wednesday to protest Rajoy's clampdown using bused-in officers from the national Civil Guard who searched local-government offices and arrested at least 14 officials.
Members of the Catalan National Assembly, a group of separatist activists, set up a security cordon outside the economy department's headquarters, although a Civil Guard squad inside chose not to try to leave, as demonstrators vandalized their vehicles. The Mossos watched impassively for more than 12 hours, apparently offering no help to the trapped crew. On Friday, Spanish prosecutors opened a probe into the events for possible charges of sedition.
The dispute over Catalan demands for a referendum has highlighted fault lines in Spain's 1978 constitutional model which affords regions a large to degree of autonomy to run services such as health, education and policing. The Constitutional Court ruled that Catalonia lacks the unilateral right to self-determination because fundamental matters such as changing the country's borders can only be decided at a national level.
The uneasy power-sharing accord that the Mossos have had with the Civil Guards for decades frayed further this week when a union of Civil Guard senior officers issued a Sept. 20 statement calling on Rajoy's government to take sole charge of the Catalan police.
“It should avoid letting political considerations jeopardize citizens' security and the country's image,” the Association of Civil Guards said.
Local Hero
While Mossos chief Trapero reports to the regional government, his force's funding is mostly provided by Madrid and it's supposed to take orders from judges and prosecutors from across the country.
Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution allows the central government to take control of a regional administration if it poses a threat to the national interest. Rajoy has already made moves in that direction. Earlier this week, the budget ministry took over management of Catalan's finances and will be making salary payments to more than 200,000 public workers in the region, including the police.
Any more direct challenge to the Mossos would be fraught with risk because Trapero, its leader, has become something of a local hero since leading the response to the terrorist attacks in August. Separatists are selling T-shirts with his face printed on them.
--With assistance from Maria Tadeo and Ben Sills
To contact the reporters on this story: Esteban Duarte in Madrid at eduarterubia@bloomberg.net, Todd White in Madrid at twhite2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net, James Amott
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