Spanish government meets for Catalan crisis

madrid - The Spanish Council of Ministers will meet in a special session on Saturday because of the situation in Catalonia. Premier Mariano Rajoy is then expected to appeal to Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to bring the region back under direct control of Madrid.

It would be the first time that recourse was made to Article 155. That part of the constitution allows the government to suspend the Catalan self-government. The Prime Minister and the leader of the Socialist Opposition Party PSOE also agreed on Friday that new elections should be held in the region in January.

The government in Madrid and the Catalan regional government have been on a ramp for some time now. The Catalans organized a referendum on independence against the sentence of Madrid. The national authorities committed to disrupting the illegal polling. Yet more than 2 million people voted, over 90 percent of whom voted for independence.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont announced Thursday that the government's parliament may call for independence if Madrid continues to keep a dialogue. The government announced on Saturday that 'in the interests of the Spaniards, including the citizens of Catalonia, the constitutional order should be restored' in the autonomous region.