Junts per Catalunya, Republican Catalan Left and the CUP won 70 of 135 seats in the latest election last night.
The secessionist parties defied poll predictions to secure an absolute majority with 47.5 percent of the popular vote. The unionist bloc won only 43.4 percent of the vote. The unionists insisted however that they would continue to fight against the independence project.
Speaking from Brussels on Thursday, ousted Regional President Carles Puigdemont said: “The Catalan republic has beaten the monarchy of Article 155. The Spanish state has been defeated”. A record 82 percent of Catalonia’s 5.5 million voters came out to cast their ballots.
Puigdemont was ousted after Spain took direct rule of the regional, after he forced through a referendum on Catalan independence.
The vote has created a major headache for the European Union. The EU ignored heavy-handed policing from Madrid during the Catalonia referendum which they said was as unlawful, forcing Puigdemont and other Catalan officials to flee to Brussels.
Puigdemont has been increasingly critical of the EU, saying recently that the EU was a “club of decadent and obsolescent countries controlled by a small few and closely linked to increasingly debatable economic interests”.
He also hinted at a possible Catalan referendum on EU membership. “They’re constantly telling us we’re going to be left out of the EU but the ones who should take that decision are the citizens of Catalonia.
“Let’s see what the people of Catalonia say.”
Puigedemont has demanded the full restoration of Catalonia’s “legitimate” government and the prosecutions of independence leaders dropped.