A senior Catalan official on Saturday said an offer of talks with Madrid over his region's independence push was aimed at negotiating secession from Spain, not stopping it.
Spain has given Catalonia's separatist leader until October 16th to clarify whether he intends to push ahead with independence, warning that Madrid could take control of the region if it insisted on breaking away.
Spain is trying to make sense of a decision by Catalan regional leaders to sign a declaration of independence then immediately suspend it. Here's some of the noteworthy reaction from the Spanish press to a confusing evening.
Police in Spain said on Tuesday they freed a young Spaniard kidnapped and held for a ransom of €35,000 ($39,000) for six days in southern Spain, and arrested ten French nationals.
Madrid's new administration faced its first casualty of office with the resignation of a councillor on Monday following a storm of criticism over anti-semitic tweets he had sent in 2011.
The leader of radical left-wing party Podemos, will meet Spain's King in Brussels on Wednesday, in what could be an awkward encounter after his party's comments on abolishing the monarchy.
Madrid's city hall stands accused of gagging free speech after cancelling a concert by Basque thrash rockers Soziedad Alkoholika on grounds that they could "incite public disorder".
Spain will seek deeper into recession this year and the unemployment rate, which is already at a record 26 percent, will rise further as it continues to feel the fallout of the collapse of a property bubble, the central bank said on Tuesday.
