MADRID, Jan 21, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Spain’s prime minister has said he will
meet the head of Catalonia’s separatist government in early February,
although discussion on any independence referendum will be off the table.
The meeting will come ahead of negotiations between Quim Torra’s regional
government and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez aimed at finding a way out of the
political crisis that has rocked Spain since 2017 after a disputed referendum
in the northeastern region.
Catalonia’s oldest and largest separatist party, the Republican Left of
Catalonia (ERC), demanded the talks about the region’s place within Spain in
exchange for its abstention in a confidence vote earlier this month that saw
Sanchez sworn in for another term.
“What we want is that they end with a vote on the part of the Catalan
population on an agreement,” the socialist leader said Monday of the
negotiations, without specifying if this deal could be on a new form of
autonomy.
But he excluded any referendum on Catalan independence, telling public
television that any vote would be a “vote on agreement, not on division”.
While the agreement between the Socialists and the ERC calls for an “open
dialogue of all proposals”, experts say any independence referendum would not
be legal under the current Spanish constitution.