Dear Sir or Madame,
Thank you for your e-mail about the current situation in Catalonia and Spain. Our Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament includes Catalan colleagues and we care a lot about the current conflict. We have members from Spain who favour independence as well as those who are skeptical about it. Given the situation our Group asked for a debate on this issue in the European Parliament, which took place 4 October in Strasbourg: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+CRE+20171004+ITEM-013+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN
I experienced police violence first hand myself, during my time in the ecological movement against nuclear energy. Violence against peaceful protest is never acceptable. Our group has condemned the violence in Catalonia in clear words.
In this conflict, my sympathy is with everyone who calls for a solution through dialogue. My support, in this, goes to my colleague in the Greens/EFA Group, MEP Ernest Urtasun: https://www.facebook.com/eurtasun/videos/1775090802784258/ Also, in this I support the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, and the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk. The latter called on Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy for a solution without the use of force and dialogue. He also called on Mr Puigdemont to respect the constitutional order and not to announce a decision that would make a dialogue impossible: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2017/10/10-tusk-committee-regions/
We Greens believe only negotiations can bring a solution to the Catalan question. We will continue to support the dialogue with all political means possible. The most recent announcements by the Spanish prime minister only strengthen me in this view.
With Green European greetings
Sven Giegold