Catalan tensions back as Spain warns to send over police

Bloomberg

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez threatened to deploy national police to the restive Catalonia region, as tensions escalate between Madrid and Barcelona.
The central government sent three letters to the pro-independence Catalan administration this week warning that the regional Mossos police had failed to ensure basic security during recent protests, which paralysed several highways for hours with impunity. Sanchez said he would send as many national police as are necessary to Catalonia to ensure order is upheld.
“In recent days we have heard rhetoric from some independence movement leaders that is inflammatory and unacceptable,” Sanchez said in an address to parliament.
“The government will not accept any lapse in the functions of those entrusted with public order in Catalonia.”
Sanchez has been trying to ease tensions between Madrid and Barcelona since relying on the support of Catalan separatists to come to power in June. As part of the bridge-building exercise, Sanchez said he will stick to his plan to hold a cabinet meeting in Barcelona next week, when his ministers will approve an increase in the monthly minimum wage to 900 euros ($1,019).
Catalan pressure on the central government is likely to escalate ahead of a trial in early 2019 of the leaders of last year’s push for independence. Two of the accused, among seven separatist leaders being held on remand, started a hunger strike December 1. Meanwhile, Sanchez’s Socialist party suffered an upset in this month’s Andalusian regional elections, in what many pundits said was a voter backlash to his rapprochement with the separatists that would provoke the premier to be tougher on the independence movement.