News of the Las Vegas shooting over the weekend obscured the bombshell headlines across the Atlantic that will have far-reaching ripple effects.
Catalonia, a province within the dominion of Spain held a referendum on independence, in defiance of government orders to cease and desist.
Amid violent clashes with EU police who shut down more than 100 polling location, Catalans voted overwhelmingly to declare independence from Spain.
Now reports are surfacing that Catalan leaders will formally declare independence next week.
It’s a turn of events very similar to what happened in the lead-up to the American revolution.
What’s more, after the European Union was rocked by the Brexit vote, Europe’s already faltering economy will likely fall further as rumors of civil war abound.
Here’s more from Reuters…
Catalonia will move on Monday to declare independence from Spain, a regional government source said, as the European Union nation nears a rupture that threatens the foundations of its young democracy and has unnerved financial markets.
Pro-independence parties which control the regional parliament have asked for a debate and vote on Monday on declaring independence, the source said. A declaration should follow this vote, although it is unclear when.
Catalan President Carles Puigdemont earlier told the BBC that his government would ask the region’s parliament to declare independence after tallying votes from last weekend’s referendum, which Madrid says was illegal.
“This will probably finish once we get all the votes in from abroad at the end of the week and therefore we shall probably act over the weekend or early next week,” he said in remarks published on Wednesday.
The constitutional crisis in Spain, the euro zone’s fourth-biggest economy, has shaken the common currency and hit Spanish stocks and bonds, sharply raising Madrid’s borrowing costs.
On Wednesday, the Ibex stock index, fell below 10,000 points for the first time since March 2015 as bank stocks tumbled. In a sign of the nervous public mood, Catalonia’s biggest bank, Caixabank, and Spain’s economy minister had earlier sought to assure bank customers that their deposits were safe.
