A SENIOR SNP figure has called for the European Union to impose sanctions to “encourage” Spain into a legitimate and binding referendum on Catalan independence.

Chris McEleny also called for an arrangement similar to the Edinburgh Agreement between the Scottish and UK governments that allowed Scotland’s referendum to go ahead.

The leader of the SNP group on Inverclyde Council and a former candidate for the party’s depute leadership, said the Spanish government’s actions in jailing Catalan ministers for promoting democracy violated the EU’s founding principles.

His remarks came as a Belgian government minister appeared to break ranks with her party leader and call for a political – not a judicial – solution to the crisis.

McEleny told The National: “It is the policy of the European Union to intervene when necessary to prevent conflict or to respond to emerging or actual crises. What we have in Catalonia and Spain is clearly a democratic crisis.

“A fundamental and overarching objective of the EU is to defend democratic principles and human rights.

“Locking up elected leaders for promoting democracy is a clear violation of the founding principles of the EU.

“To defend democracy, and to ensure the people of Catalonia have their internationally recognised right to self-determination, it is time for the European Commission to consider sanctions against Spain.”

McEleny added that two things were absolutely clear: “The people that voted in the Catalan referendum voiced a thunderous ‘Sí’ to an independent republic. Secondly it’s evident that the Spanish government refuse to accept the legitimacy of the referendum and its overwhelming outcome. The solution to ensure a democratic outcome is in my view therefore simple, the EU should explore sanctions that would ‘encourage’ Spain into agreeing to a legally binding referendum, a ‘Barcelona’ agreement, just like Scotland’s Edinburgh Agreement.

“I would be confident that the people of Catalonia will again make their voices heard, only this time the international community and Spain would absolutely have to welcome the birth of a new nation to Europe and to the world, if that is what the people of Catalonia determine that they wish their future to be.”

Meanwhile, Marie-Christine Marghem, the Belgian environment minister, has said the Catalan crisis should be solved by political and not judicial means.

Speaking in an interview with the French-language Belgian public broadcaster RTBF, she said that Belgium would have 60 days to decide how to respond to any European arrest warrant for Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan president who was

deposed by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

Marghem, from the Reform Movement Party of Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, said that Puigdemont’s legal position was “based on elements of the democratic right that we must respect”.

“We must not intervene in the national sovereignty of a country, we must respect the constitution of this country,” she said.

Michel had earlier ordered members of his executive not to comment on the political situation in Catalonia.