Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has attributed the violence from the Spanish state towards the 1st October independence referendum as the reason Barcelona hasn't been chosen for the new headquarters of the European Medicines Agency. "Until 1st October, Barcelona was the favourite. With violence, democratic regression and [article] 155, the [Spanish] state has sentenced it," he said.
Puigdemont sarcastically describes Barcelona's elimination in the first round of voting as a "new success of [article] 155". The other "successes" he lists being the imprisonment of "civil society leaders and half the legitimate government", the forced exile of the other half of the Catalan government and the "eradication of self-government". "Now we can add impoverishing the territory" to the list, he writes.
Translation: Barcelona will not welcome the European Medicines Agency. It's a new success of [article] 155: imprisoning civil society leaders and half the legitimate government, forcing the exile of the other half, eradicating self-government and now we can add impoverishing the territory. Until 1st October, Barcelona was the favourite. With violence, democratic regression and [article] 155, the [Spanish] state has sentenced it.
The president repeated his message on Twitter. In the post, he includes a number of related news stories, including CNN's headline on the violence: "The shame of Europe", and reporting on the imprisonments. The last of the stories is about Barcelona's elimination from the competition to welcome the relocation European agency.
L'èxit del 155: empresonar líders civils i la meitat del govern legítim, forçar l'exili de l'altra meitat, erradicar l'autogovern i ara ja hi podem sumar empobrir el territori. Fins l'#1Oct, BCN era la favorita. Amb violència, retrocés democràtic i el 155, l'Estat l'ha sentenciat pic.twitter.com/xmGDFHkJUO
— Carles Puigdemont (@KRLS) 20 novembre 2017
Accusations against the independence movement
In this way, Puigdemont stands up to to the accusations from the Spanish government and pro-union parties that the independence movement is responsible for the loss in the vote.
The Spanish Health minister, Dolors Montserrat, herself used the independence argument in a statement to the media just after learning the news. "I would dare say that this might be one example of the direct damage, another example, which the Catalan independence movement has brought us," she said.