Catalan president argues Madrid's proposed measures are disproportionate

Catalonia's nationalist regional government has alleged before the Spanish Senate that suspending the region's autonomy is an "aberration" which will lead to an "extraordinarily grave" situation, even graver than the one the central government says it is attempting to solve.

Senators in Madrid reportedly received the allegations at 0903 BST, three minutes past the stipulated deadline and just as the Catalan parliament was due to start its own deliberations on whether to issue a unilateral declaration of independence and on how to respond to Madrid's expected decision to go ahead and trigger article 155 of the Spanish Constitution the next day.

In a somewhat unexpected turn of events for some observers, overnight the Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, announced he would not travel to Madrid to defend his actions, which some hoped might open a window to direct dialogue, instead dispatching a representative.

Via his account on Instagram, on Wednesday evening Puigdemont said: "We won't waste time with those who have decided to raze Catalonia's autonomy. We continue".

In his allegations to the Senate Committee which was preparing the groundwork for a hearing the next day on whether to approve the central government's decision to invoke article 155, Puigdemont said: "[Article 155 establishes that the government in Madrid] may issue instructions to all officials in the autonomous region of Catalonia, as necessary, so that they carry out their constitutional and legal obligations or in order to protect the general interests of Spain."

That, Puigdemont argued, does not mean removing the current regional government, going on to argue that the proper interpretation of that article only allows the government to enforce those measures needed to ensure that Catalonia stop its activities linked to the independence process.

Instead, he continued, Madrid's petition to be allowed to remove the top government officials, call elections and to be given control of the local police and state media, had exceeded what was constitutionally allowed.

By way of an immediate reaction, Spanish assets were little changed following the above news, with Madrid's top flight Ibex 35 trading lower by 0.18% or 17.50 points to 10,134.80, while the yield on the benchmark 10-year government bond was down by one basis point at 1.64%.