Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, who is poised to be king-maker for Spain’s new prime minister, demanded sweeping amnesty for pro-independence supporters as part of the price for his backing.
(Bloomberg) — Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, who is poised to be king-maker for Spain’s new prime minister, demanded sweeping amnesty for pro-independence supporters as part of the price for his backing.
After an inconclusive general election in July, Puigdemont’s small Junts party came out of near national irrelevance to hold the keys to finding a new administration for the euro area’s fourth largest economy. Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, now a caretaker, and Alberto Nunez Feijoo of the People’s Party are each just a handful of votes short of the majority needed to take the premiership.
Puigdemont told reporters on Tuesday that if his conditions for starting talks with either of the two parties are not met, his party will block any agreement and force repeat general elections.
“Abandon the judicial process against the independence movement,” the self-exiled Puigdemont said in Brussels, where he first landed after he fled Spain to escape justice following a botched independence attempt in 2017. He said parliament should approve an amnesty law. “We are ready to negotiate a historic pact if these conditions are met.”
He also called for the recognition of Catalonia’s legitimate right to independence, and a mechanism to monitor the fulfillment of agreements reached in negotiations.
A few hours later, Feijoo said he won’t accept those terms and called on Sanchez to do the same.
“This proposal is unacceptable and impossible,” Feijoo said after reaching an agreement with far-right party Vox to support his premiership bid. “I don’t want to pay the price set by Puigdemont to become prime minister.”
A day earlier, Puigdemont met with Yolanda Diaz, a deputy premier who leads a group of far-left parties currently ruling with Sanchez’s Socialists. Both parties said the meeting sought democratic solutions to the territorial conflict that nearly tore Spain apart.
Sanchez Edge
The Socialists are gearing up for talks with Junts, whose seven lawmakers voted in August for a Socialist to head parliament, in a victory for Sanchez that suggests he has an edge in the race for the premiership. Socialist officials have left the door open to meeting Puigdemont’s demand of an amnesty for him and hundreds of Catalan officials linked to the secession attempt — but they ruled out another independence referendum.
The PP initially ruled out sitting down with Junts, a party it accuses of being led by coup-mongers and fugitives.
Feijoo, considered a pro-business conservative, will be the first to try to form a government in a so-called investiture vote in parliament scheduled for Sept. 27. Feijoo, who was invited by King Felipe VI to seek the premiership, currently lacks the majority to win the vote.
If he fails, Sanchez will take a stab to convince Junts and other pro-independence parties to back his bid to continue with a leftist government. His administration has raised taxes on the rich, banks and energy firms to help pay for measures to ease the cost of living crisis.
If neither politician wins a majority, another election will be called for late this year or early next.
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