Referendum raises hackles

Referendum raises hackles

Lawyers representing the government have lodged a legal appeal against plans by a village in northeastern Catalonia to stage a referendum on independence for the region, judicial sources said on Wednesday. Arenys de Mun...t, a village of just 8,000 near Barcelona, has called the non-binding referendum for Sept. 13. The initiative — launched by a separatist association — is backed by all parties in the village council bar Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s Socialists. The villagers were to be asked whether Catalonia should become an independent state within the EU. Villages cannot call popular votes on anything except local matters, the state lawyers argued, saying that a local vote on a question of national importance could encourage other localities to organize similar polls.

Sílvia Martínez