The Catalan CCMA and the news council for the Spanish public broadcaster have made a formal statement to defend the independence of the public broadcaster.

Through a statement published on Twitter, RTVE’s news council highlighted the contradiction of interfering with the CCMA to secure the broadcast of unbiased information when the same rule doesn’t apply to RTVE. “Public media should serve the citizens, not the Government. Any government,” said RTVE’s news council.

“Faced with intervention, as announced by the Government of Spain, the CCMA stands firmly by its mission to offer all the citizens of Catalonia, in compliance with its parliamentary mandate, a public service of the highest quality, committed to ethical, democratic and pluralistic principles,” added the CCMA through a statement supported by many journalists.

Despite having been criticised before for its biased information in favour of the independence movement, the corporation sees itself as “a guarantee of truthful, objective and pluralistic information”.

According to the broadcaster, such commitment to quality information is supported by the audience, as news programmes and some of its original programming lead the viewing figures in Catalonia ahead of media giants such as Mediaset and Atresmedia.

The move to control the CCMA was announced by Madrid’s Government as a part of a set of rules to cut off the regional administration of Catalonia, following the political tensions that arose after the independence referendum held on 1 October.