Catalan separatist leader to meet Spain's PM amid amnesty controversy
The main Catalan separatist party has said its exiled leader Carles Puigdemont was to meet with Pedro Sánchez in an announcement that the Spanish premier did not confirm.
"They will meet and hold talks as they should," Jordi Turull, secretary general of the hardline separatist JxCat party told Spain's TVE public television, without saying when or where it would happen.
The meeting would help "move forward the resolution of the political conflict" in Catalonia that has sparked years of tension between the separatist movement and the government in Madrid.
Speaking to reporters on arrival at a European Council meeting in Brussels, Sánchez said he had no meeting scheduled with Puigdemont, a member of the European Parliament who has not set foot in Spain since 2017.
"Looking at my agenda, I have a meeting on December 21st with (Catalan regional leader Pere) Aragonès," he added, saying details of his meetings were publicly available.
Sánchez began a new term in office in mid-November thanks to the crucial support of JxCat's seven lawmakers in exchange for a controversial amnesty deal for those facing legal action over the failed 2017 independence bid.
The amnesty bill is currently making its way through the Spanish parliament and will likely become law in the coming months, allowing the courts to drop the charges against hundreds of separatists.
The biggest beneficiary will be Puigdemont, Catalan regional leader at the time, who staged a banned referendum then made a short-lived declaration of independence, sparking Spain's worst political crisis in decades.
He fled to Belgium to dodge prosecution but the amnesty will let him return home.
The amnesty has enraged Spain's right-wing opposition which views Puigdemont as public enemy number one and prompted several huge street protests with demonstrators expressing fury at the plan.
More worrying for Sánchez is that the amnesty has deeply divided his Socialists, with a survey in El Mundo this week showing 45.8 percent of those who voted for him in July opposed the measure.
The suggestion Sánchez would meet the exiled JxCat leader was swiftly denounced by the right-wing opposition Popular Party (PP).
"We're talking about the prime minister of Spain meeting a fugitive from justice," fumed the PP's secretary-general Cuca Gamarra, saying Sánchez would only "humiliate himself even more" by meeting Puigdemont.
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"They will meet and hold talks as they should," Jordi Turull, secretary general of the hardline separatist JxCat party told Spain's TVE public television, without saying when or where it would happen.
The meeting would help "move forward the resolution of the political conflict" in Catalonia that has sparked years of tension between the separatist movement and the government in Madrid.
Speaking to reporters on arrival at a European Council meeting in Brussels, Sánchez said he had no meeting scheduled with Puigdemont, a member of the European Parliament who has not set foot in Spain since 2017.
"Looking at my agenda, I have a meeting on December 21st with (Catalan regional leader Pere) Aragonès," he added, saying details of his meetings were publicly available.
Sánchez began a new term in office in mid-November thanks to the crucial support of JxCat's seven lawmakers in exchange for a controversial amnesty deal for those facing legal action over the failed 2017 independence bid.
The amnesty bill is currently making its way through the Spanish parliament and will likely become law in the coming months, allowing the courts to drop the charges against hundreds of separatists.
The biggest beneficiary will be Puigdemont, Catalan regional leader at the time, who staged a banned referendum then made a short-lived declaration of independence, sparking Spain's worst political crisis in decades.
He fled to Belgium to dodge prosecution but the amnesty will let him return home.
The amnesty has enraged Spain's right-wing opposition which views Puigdemont as public enemy number one and prompted several huge street protests with demonstrators expressing fury at the plan.
More worrying for Sánchez is that the amnesty has deeply divided his Socialists, with a survey in El Mundo this week showing 45.8 percent of those who voted for him in July opposed the measure.
The suggestion Sánchez would meet the exiled JxCat leader was swiftly denounced by the right-wing opposition Popular Party (PP).
"We're talking about the prime minister of Spain meeting a fugitive from justice," fumed the PP's secretary-general Cuca Gamarra, saying Sánchez would only "humiliate himself even more" by meeting Puigdemont.
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