MADRID, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Catalan regional parliament will hold a session on Thursday in order to consider its response to the decision taken by the Spanish central government on Saturday to apply Article 155 of the Constitution, regional officials said on Monday.
Applying Article 155 would hand control of many Catalan institutions to Madrid as well seeing Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont and his government sacked.
The Spanish Senate will meet on Friday to ratify Article 155.
The spokesman for pro-independence Junts pel Si coalition, Lluis Corominas, confirmed on Monday that the Catalan regional assembly would sit before the Senate decision in Madrid, saying the session had been called in response to the "institutional violence" announced by the Spanish government on Saturday.
Corominas refused to confirm a report in the Spanish online newspaper "Publico" that the session would see a unilateral declaration of independence for Catalonia.
He said the session would contain an "analysis of the current situation" and that Catalan authorities would continue to "offer dialogue and mediation as an instrument to resolve conflicts".
In another move on Monday, the coordinator of Puigdemont's PDeCAT party, Marta Pascual, told reporters "there was a possibility" that the Catalan leader could travel to Madrid to address the Senate.
This could happen on either Wednesday or Thursday, before it meets to discuss Article 155, with Pascual saying the party was "comfortable" with that possibility.
Earlier on Monday morning, Spanish Deputy Prime Minister, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, had opened the door to such an eventuality.
Puigdemont, said the deputy prime minister, was welcome to go to the Senate to "make the declarations which he believes to be opportune", and that the Senate has the capacity to modify the measures (Article 155) until the last moment.
Elsewhere, Catalan Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Romera gave an interview on BBC Radio Four saying that if Article 155 was applied, Catalan civil servants would refuse to take orders from Madrid, adding that the Catalan people had "decided which government and parliament it wants".
