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SPAIN-CATALONIA-POLITICS
Spain PM says talks with Catalan separatists to start this month
BARCELONA, Feb 6, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez
said Thursday that talks with Catalonia’s pro-independence regional
government on the region’s separatist crisis would begin later this month.
“We have decided to hold the first meeting of this bilateral commission”
between Spain’s central government and the regional government of Catalonia
“within this month, that is to say in February,” he said after meeting with
Catalan president Quim Torra.
“We must resume our dialogue…the results of the past decade are dismal.
No one has won. Everyone has lost,” he added.
Sanchez agreed to open talks between his central government and
Catalonia’s regional government as part of a deal to win the support of
lawmakers from Catalan separatist party ERC in the Spanish parliament that he
needed to form a government last month following a November 2019 general
election.
Catalonia has been a dominant theme in Spanish politics since the region
unilaterally declared independence in October 2017 following a referendum
deemed illegal by courts, prompting Spain’s biggest political crisis in
decades.
This was the first formal meeting with Torra since nine Catalan separatist
were sentenced to lengthy jail terms for their role in the failed 2017
independence bid, triggering mass protests in Barcelona and other Catalan
cities which sometimes turned violent.
Spain’s central government and Catalonia’s regional government have
sharply opposing views over the independence issue.
Separatists want to discuss the possibility of holding a legally binding
referendum in Catalonia, as well as an amnesty for their leaders who were
sentenced in October to lengthy jail terms over their failed 2017
independence bid. But the Socialists have already said that such a referendum
would be impossible.
The start of the talks comes as Catalonia’s separatist movement is wracked
by divisions. Torra last month called a snap election this year citing
tensions within his coalition separatist government made up of the ERC and
his more hardline Together for Catalonia (JxC) party.
He did not say when the regional vote would be held but pledged to
announce a date after the budget is passed, in the next few months.
Polls how Catalonia’s 7.5 million residents are almost evenly divided over
the issue of independence for the wealthy northeastern region, which has its
own distinct language and culture.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 2056 hrs