Rajoy on police raids: “Government is doing what it has to do, fulfilling its obligations, and we'll do it until the end”

The Spanish pPresident, Mariano Rajoy, has justified the arrests and raids happening on Wednesday in several Catalan government buildings. In a statement in Congress, Rajoy said that it is all "part of a judicial operation to guarantee that the law is respected".

"Government is doing what it has to do, fulfilling its obligations, and we'll do it until the end," he added. The Spanish president described his government's actions as "sensitive, moderate and proportionate".

Rajoy said that the Catalan leaders "were already warned" that they were committing an "illegality" in trying to organize an independence referendum. "The Spanish State has to react, logically. They were already warned.

They knew that the referendum cannot be celebrated and I urge them to rectify, to go back to normality and common sense, because, I insist, the referendum cannot be celebrated." The Spanish President described the situation in Catalonia as "extremely serious". "We are doing what we have to do, and what we are obliged to do."

The Catalan MP Gabriel Rufián, from left-wing ERC, had asked Rajoy about the police operations. "We woke up this morning with Guardia Civil agents in front of the houses of our friends. You and your lackeys are now arresting democratically elected Catalan officials because of their ideas and I ask you, I urge you, to take your dirty hands off Catalan institutions," he said.

In fact, Catalan MPs from ERC and PDeCAT, the two parties governing in Catalonia, have abandoned the Spanish Congress plenary in protest against the police raids.