Ireland's taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has today expressed support for dialogue between the Spanish and future Catalan governments as the way to resolve the political crisis in Catalonia following the independence process.
"On Catalonia, one of my favourite parts of the world, Barcelona is one of my favourite cities, I think that the only solution is dialogue and I hope that the central government in Madrid will engage in dialogue with the new government in Catalonia," Varadkar said today.
Varadkar was answering a question from Catalan MEP Jordi Solé, who noted that the taoiseach's speech on the future of Europe coincided with the first session of the new Catalan Parliament, with 8 deputies who "cannot be there right now (...) because they are either in jail or in exile".
"Do you envisage an EU where honest politicians can be sent into exile or must be forced into jail because they fulfilled a democratic mandat? Do you envisage an EU where, again, peaceful people are beaten by police forces just because they want to vote, they want to exercise a basic right?", the pro-independence MEP asked the Irish prime minister.
The interaction took place during the debate after the taoiseach's keynote speech on the future of the European Union in the European Parliament in Strasbourg.