The Government will prioritize the control of the Mossos and of the finances

The Government is preparing to make exceptional decisions on the Government and the Catalan Administration in the Council of Ministers next Friday, October 20. The control of the areas of Interior and Finance, with a reinforcement of those already on the latter, are listed first, under Article 155 of the Constitution. The focus is not far removed from the functions of the presidency, which could temporarily take over a territorial delegate from the central government. Acting on the regional presidency is very present but it is the measure that most doubts raised in the Executive.

The Government has studied the situations that can be found if the President of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, maintains today the ambiguity as to whether or not the independence of Catalonia is declared. Everything that is not a no, will be interpreted as a yes by the Government of Mariano Rajoy. The Executive is already at 10 o'clock in the morning of next Thursday for himself, as he fears with enough ground, the 72 hours run for the President of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, to revoke that statement. Nothing suggests that he will comply with the instructions, so that next Friday's Council of Ministers will take decisions to activate Article 155 of the Constitution on the grounds that the Catalan autonomous community does not meet the general interest.

Temporary control of the Interior and Economy areas by the Central Administration is well studied, government sources say. The control of the Presidency, and therefore the removal of Carles Puigdemont, has been endorsed with reports of constitutional legality. All of them, but above all, the latter, are measures as "drastic" as "dramatic". These are the expressions used by the sources consulted knowing the texts studied and shuffled to arbitrate the measures that leave in suspense the temporary power of the Government of the Generalitat.

Article 155 of the Constitution, by its lack of concreteness and regulation, allows filling it of content as the Government needs. This governmental interpretation, therefore, is contrary to the thesis that it would be the hardest measure that could be taken. The application of laws of great exceptionality, such as the one of site, or to decree the states of alarm, allow less modulation than the one that can be arbitrarse from the article 155, indicate governmental sources.

"The possibilities of 155 are many and they are all studied", say from the Government who have participated in the reflection on them. The evaluation of the same has been carried out by the Government alone, and this with the PSOE. Also with Citizens, although with much less detail and intensity than with the PSOE, recognize in all the areas concerned.

The crossing of information shows that control of the economy continues to be basic so that not only continue the measures already taken by the Ministry of Finance on the finances of Catalonia but will increase. In the event that the Government of the Generalitat continued with the development of the law of transitoriness, suspended by the Constitutional Court, the central Government would take the reins of that counseling in full. Financing is a parcel of control "essential", but it is no less the Interior, which involves public order.

The experience of October 1 served the Government to acknowledge its error that the autonomous police force was going to respect the judicial requirements. Interior competition will be taken over by the central government if Puigdemont does not back down, according to government sources. Public order may be altered, not as a fact in itself, but as a response to other measures that can be taken from the central government, such as intervention in other areas of autonomy, according to sources consulted.

These considerations are expressed with great apprehension but with the firmness in the decision to adopt the necessary measures before the possibility of situations of resistance occurring to give the power to the central Government. The question of whether the directors of Carles Puigdemont will remain in office if he has to relinquish his responsibility at the request of the central government is answered with a "predictably, no". The solidarity of the President's team would make them quit whenever Puigdemont did not tell them to continue.

Territorial delegate

These situations that can lead to social protests of unpredictable scope could be avoided with the holding of elections in Catalonia as soon as possible.

The problem is how to get to the call for elections without the President of the Generalitat and the Parliament of Catalonia. Again 155 seems to be able to provide coverage to such an exceptional extent, even though there is division among constitutionalists; not so in the Government.

The Executive knows that the socialists have, above all, political doubts, above the constitutional ones, considering that to call elections from Madrid would provoke a strong social answer. These ask for elections, but they demand it from Carles Puigdemont; that it is he who exercises his competence.

If all this is not produced by Puigdemont's null collaboration, before arriving at the elections, not only would two or three departments be controlled, but the central government, through the respective ministries, would assume the day-to-day competence of each counseling, explain in government sources. In front would be a territorial delegate. And all temporarily, they insist.