BRUSSELS (Sputnik) — Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, said Friday that he supported Romano Prodi and Jose Manuel Barroso, his predecessors in the office, in their stance on Catalonia's upcoming independence referendum, as well as the decisions of the Spanish parliament and constitutional court, which earlier outlawed the vote.
"We support the position of the [Romano] Prodi commission, which was upheld by the [Jose Manuel] Barroso commission. We are committed to observing the legal provisions. The Spanish Constitutional Court has made a decision, the Spanish parliament made a decision, and we support them," Juncker told reporters at a press conference after the EU Digital Summit in Estonia's Tallinn.
The European Commission president added that the Catalonia issue had not been discussed at Friday's summit in Tallinn.
The European Commission, led by former Italian Prime Minister Prodi in 1999-2004 and Barroso in 2004-2014, stated its commitment to the rule of law in Spain, supporting legal decisions of the country's legislative and judicial bodies with regard to Catalonia's attempts to achieve independence.
In early September, Catalonia’s Parliament passed a bill enabling an independence referendum to be held on October 1. The decision incited uproar in Madrid, and the central government subsequently challenged the motion in the Spanish Constitutional Court, which ruled the plebiscite unconstitutional. The Cortes Generales, Spain's parliament, has repeatedly rejected to approve independence bids of Catalonia over the last years.
