A sea of around 45,000 supporters of Catalan independence demonstrated in Brussels on Thursday to back deposed president Carles Puigdemont and urge the EU to stop siding with Spain over the region's independence drive. Demonstrators chanted "Wake up Europe!" and waved Catalonia's red, yellow and blue separatist flag as they marched past the European Union headquarters in the Belgian capital.
"Have you ever seen a demonstration like this anywhere to support criminals? No!," Puigdemont said in a speech to the crowd, referring to Spanish criminal charges against him, as cries of "president, president" rang out. Puigdemont and four former ministers fled to Brussels in November, saying they wanted to take their cause to the European level after Spain charged them with sedition and rebellion over Catalonia's independence referendum in October.
The 28-nation EU has so far strongly backed the Spanish government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy over the biggest political crisis to hit the country for decades, saying the Catalan issue is an internal matter for Madrid. On Monday, Spain dropped a European arrest warrant for the five, but Puigdemont said he would stay put for now as they still face arrest in Spain if they return for regional polls in Catalonia that Madrid has called for December 21. "We have come to ask Europe to wake up and to see that there is no democracy in Spain," Montserrat Mante, 73, from the town of Badalona, near Barcelona, told AFP.
"The countries of the EU must push Mr Rajoy to enter talks and to accept the result of a referendum, whatever it is," said Mante, wearing a woollen hat to guard against the cold.
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