Catalan leader family ‘leave Spain’ ahead of declaration

Catalan President Carles Puigdemont is expected to announce a shock snap election and withdraw the region’s declaration of independence, local news reports.

Mr Puigdemont is set to make the decision official in a televised address at 1.30pm local time Thursday, following reports that his wife has left the country with their two children.

Catalonia’s main newspaper La Vanguardia, said today Puigdemont is going to dissolve the regional parliament and call a snap election by the end of the year.

Decision time: Carles Puigdemont is expected to declare Catalan independence today, as it is reported his wife Marcela Topor, pictured together in January, has left the country

But earlier today, Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras said the Spanish government had given independence supporters no option but to ‘proclaim a new republic’.  

A snap regional election could defuse Spain’s deepest political crisis in decades – sparked by the October independence referendum in Catalonia which Madrid has branded ‘illegal’.

A formal declaration of independence, on the other hand, could see Puigdemont charged with sedition, a crime carrying a 30 year maximum jail term.

Regardless of his choice, the Catalan cabinet is set to become the first regional government in Spain to be removed in four decades of democracy.

On Friday, the Senate in Madrid is expected to authorize the central government to directly rule the splintering region of 7.5 million. 

At risk: A formal declaration of independence could see Puigdemont charged with sedition, a crime carrying a 30 year maximum jail term

At risk: A formal declaration of independence could see Puigdemont charged with sedition, a crime carrying a 30 year maximum jail term

Empty home: Neither Ms Topor, an actress-turned-journalist, nor Mr Puigdemont has been seen at their house for eight to ten days, a neighbour said

Empty home: Neither Ms Topor, an actress-turned-journalist, nor Mr Puigdemont has been seen at their house for eight to ten days, a neighbour said

Meanwhile, local media reports that his wife actress-turned journalist Marcela Topor, has left their family home with their two children, and returned to her native Romania. 

The £600,000 villa in Girona, near the French border used to be under police protection, but neither Puigdemont nor his wife or their two daughters have been seen at the home for over a week, neighbours say. 

‘It’s odd because since Carles Puigdemont has been president, the Mossos [regional police] have been keeping watch on the neighbourhood 24 hours a day. Now they’re not around,’ the neighbour told news website Vanitatis.

Other Spanish news outlets have also reported that Ms Topor may have travelled to Romania because her husband is about to make himself an enemy of the Spanish state by declaring independence.

Ms Topor is the editor of Catalonia Today, an English-language magazine and website based in Girona her husband helped launch in 2004 before he left journalism to go into politics.

Judgement day: Puigdemont is seen with Deputy President, Oriol Junqueras, left, and regional Presidency minister, Jordi Turull, right as they make their way to take part in the weekly regional cabinet meeting in Barcelona, on Tuesday

Judgement day: Puigdemont is seen with Deputy President, Oriol Junqueras, left, and regional Presidency minister, Jordi Turull, right as they make their way to take part in the weekly regional cabinet meeting in Barcelona, on Tuesday

She also hosts the television programme Catalan Connections, which features interviews in English with resident foreigners in Catalonia. 

The couple met  20 years ago when Ms Topor was touring her husband’s native province of Girona with a British theatre company.

Mr Puigdemont reportedly became so enamoured that he travelled to her home town of Iasi, 230 miles north of Bucharest, to woo her and get to know her family.

They married 17 years ago with a civil ceremony in the Costa Brava resort of Roses and an Orthodox wedding ceremony Romania.

Ms Topor, known as Mars, speaks English, French, Romanian, Spanish and Catalan, and friends describe her as ‘sweet, educated, determined and hard-working’. 

Puigdemont is understood to be living alone in the Catalan President’s official residence, situated in a residential wing of the historic palace called the Palau de la Generalitat which is the seat of the Presidency and the Government of Catalonia. 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk