Oct 28, 2023 at 4:23 PM Update: an hour ago
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has made a U-turn in an attempt to form a government. On Saturday, Sánchez said in a speech that he still supports the controversial pardon deal for Catalan separatists.
“In the interest of Spain and in the interest of everyone who wants to live together in Spain, I support an amnesty in Catalonia. What happened, happened,” Sánchez said at a meeting of his socialist party PSOE in Madrid.
The PSOE lost the elections to the right-wing popular party Partido Popular (PP) in July. Nobody, except the very conservative VOS, wants to form a government with the PP. As a result, the incumbent Prime Minister Sánchez still sees opportunities to remain in office.
As expected, he was able to reach an agreement with the left-wing Sumar, but he still needs two smaller Catalan parties to gain an electoral majority. Sánchez therefore states that he still wants to grant amnesty to the members of those two Catalan separatist parties
Catalan independence referendum 2017
On October 1, 2017, the regional government of Catalonia held a referendum on declaring independence. A group of Catalan separatists led by Carles Puigdemont wanted to declare the Catalan Republic, independent of Spain.
The Spanish government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy (PP) strongly opposed the independence referendum. Spain’s constitutional court banned the referendum, but Catalonia allowed it to go ahead. The Spanish government then used violence to prevent people from going to the polls. More than a thousand people were injured.
Yet 42 percent of those eligible to vote were able to pass on their choice. No fewer than 90 percent voted for secession.
Support from independence parties highly controversial
The support of the independence parties is highly controversial, as they hoped to secede the region from the rest of Spain with an unconstitutional referendum in 2017.
The amnesty would include Carles Puigdemont, the then face of the secessionist movement. The politician has been living in Belgium for years to avoid the Spanish services, who want to arrest him for rebellion.
At the end of September, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Madrid to protest against possible amnesty for the Catalans. Several polls in Spain show that an overwhelming majority of the country is against granting amnesty.
Image: AFP
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Spain Abroad
2023-10-28 14:23:52
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