Catalan self-rule vote plea rejected in Congress
PP and the main opposition Socialist Party support UPyD motion to reject call for referendum
The ruling conservative Popular Party and the main opposition Socialist Party voted on Thursday in favor of a motion presented by the centrist UPyD group to reject a formal joint plea by the center-right Catalan nationalist group CiU, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) and the left-green ICV to be allowed to hold a vote in Catalonia on the region's status within Spain.
The Catalan regional assembly last year approved a motion to ask the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy for leave to hold the self-rule vote.
The PP and the UPyD uphold the idea of the "indivisibility" of the Spanish nation enshrined in the Constitution but Socialist leader Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba has made several calls for the magna carta to be amended to allow for a federal system of government.
