CATALONIA will not become a member of the European Union overnight should it become independent after the October 1 referendum, according to the president of the European Commission.

Jean-Claude Juncker said yesterday that Brussels would respect a Yes vote, but added that a newly independent country wold have to follow the same accession procedures as other states.

His comments came in an online question and answer session, when he was asked if the Commission would recognise the outcome of the poll.

“The Commission does not involve itself in internal domestic debates,” said Juncker.

“We have always said that we would respect the rulings of the Spanish Constitutional Court and the Spanish parliament. If there were to be a yes vote for Catalan independence we would respect that choice.

“But Catalonia will not become an EU member state the day after that vote. It would have to follow that same procedure as other countries for accession.”

Juncker’s remarks echoed the stance made by his predecessor, Jose Manuel Barroso.

EU accession negotiations are an arduous process involving compliance with all EU standards and rules and winning the consent of all EU governments. This means that Spain could block Catalonia’s accession if it so wished. Croatia became the most recent new EU member in 2013 after first applying in 2003.

Catalonia, meanwhile, is to stop sending its weekly accounts to Madrid, defying a demand by central government to prove it is not using public money to promote its indyref.

Catalan’s deputy governor Oriol Junqueras wrote to Spanish budget minister Cristobal Montoro, telling him the state would no longer comply with the obligation, as it implied “political control that is not related to the objectives of budget stability or to the purposes of state legislation in this matter”.

Madrid ordered Catalonia to start providing the weekly figures in July, warning that it would lose access to some public funds if it used state money to organise the poll.

Elsewhere, the official website of the Catalan referendum was taken offline late on Wednesday, after Spanish police delivered a court order to the web domain company.

However, almost immediately, its content returned to the internet after the Catalan government launched two new sites: ref1oct.eu and ref1oct.cat.

President Carles Puigdemont told Catalan Public Television: “The world of electronic communications does not have borders.

“They can shut down one website, but if you know in advance this might happen, you automatically launch a new one.”

The new site has been registered through EuroDNS, a Luxembourg-based company, which could make it more difficult for the Spanish government to shut down. It is multilingual, and gives information about the poll, as well as running a promotional video that has also been banned by Madrid. The original site went online in the early hours of September 7, after the Catalan Parliament passed the bill outlining the legal framework for the poll and the Catalan Government officially called the vote.

Closer to home, a new film festival arrives in Scotland later this month, exploring the relationship between the two countries.

Homage to Catalonia – Scotland’s Catalan Film Festival will offer a mix of films in Edinburgh and Glasgow highlighting the best of the Catalan genre between September 27 and October 6. It will also feature spoken word and events.

Alberto Valverde, from Edinburgh-based guerilla film collective Cinemaattic, which is coordinating the event, said: “This is a fantastic selection to find out what’s going on both rural landscapes of Catalonia and its ever-inspirational capital Barcelona.”