European Council President Donald Tusk urged Catalonia’s regional leader on Tuesday not to declare independence, calling on Carles Puigdemont personally not to take a decision that would thwart dialogue, Reuters reported.

Tusk, a former Polish prime minister who chairs EU summits and seeks to reflect of the European Union’s governments, said during a speech to an EU regional forum in Brussels : “I ask you to respect, in your intentions, the constitutional order and not to announce a decision that would make such a dialogue impossible. Diversity should not, and need not, lead to conflict, whose consequences would obviously be bad for the Catalans, for Spain and for the whole of Europe.”