MADRID, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Monday rejected a suggestion from former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont that the Catalan region should leave the European Union (EU).

Puigdemont had made the suggestion in an interview on Israeli television from Belgium, where he is currently staying during the legal process to return him to Spain where he faces charges of rebellion, sedition, disobedience, and misuse of public funds, related to the Catalan independence referendum on Oct. 1 and independence declaration on Oct. 27.

Following the lack of support from the EU for the Catalan independence movement, Puigdemont said Catalans should decide if they wanted to remain part of Europe, to which Rajoy responded that the suggestion was "absurd."

What the region needed now, said the Spanish leader in a meeting with the press on Monday, was "to return to tranquility and normality," and that the EU was the region with the "highest level of democracy, freedom, and human rights in the world," as well as "the best" in issues such as health care and the welfare state.

"Puigdemont can say what he believes to be opportune, but it is the people who have to speak now and not him," Rajoy said in reference to the Dec. 21 regional elections for Catalonia which polls suggest will be a very close race between pro-independence and pro-unity parties.