{"id":531973,"date":"2025-10-27T22:16:42","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T22:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/531973\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T22:16:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T22:16:42","slug":"catalan-separatists-break-with-spanish-socialists-hobbling-pm-sanchez-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/531973\/","title":{"rendered":"Catalan separatists break with Spanish Socialists, hobbling PM S\u00e1nchez \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Spanish parliament passed the promised amnesty bill last year, but its full application has since been\u00a0halted by the courts<\/a>. Spain\u2019s Supreme Court has specifically blocked Puigdemont<\/a> \u2014 who fled Spain following the failed 2017 Catalan independence referendum and has since lived in exile in Waterloo, Belgium \u2014 from benefiting from the law, citing pending embezzlement charges.<\/p>\n

\"\"Carles Puigdemont said the Socialists no longer \u201chave the capacity to govern.\u201d | Gloria Sanchez\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The lack of change in his status quo is a source of deep frustration for the separatist leader, who in a 2024 interview<\/a> with POLITICO said his greatest desire was to \u201cgo home to Girona, to enjoy my homeland and be with my wife and daughters \u2026 to lead a normal life that will allow me to become anonymous once again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Puigdemont also cited the Socialists\u2019 inability to get Catalan recognized as an official EU language<\/a> as a reason for the break in relations. Spanish diplomats have spent the past two years lobbying counterparts in Brussels and national capitals and recently persuaded Germany<\/a> to back the proposal. But numerous countries remain opposed to the idea<\/a>, arguing the move would cost the EU millions of euros in new translation and interpretation fees and embolden Breton, Corsican or Russian-speaking minorities to seek similar recognition.<\/p>\n

The separatist leader added that the S\u00e1nchez government\u2019s reluctance to give Catalonia jurisdiction over\u00a0immigration<\/a>\u00a0within that region proved that although there might be \u201cpersonal trust\u201d between the Socialists and Junts\u2019 representatives, \u201cpolitical trust\u201d was lacking.<\/p>\n

Junts\u2019 members are now called upon to either ratify or reject the executive committee\u2019s decision in an internal consultation that concludes Thursday. The party\u2019s supporters, who include Puigdemont\u2019s most devoted followers, are expected to overwhelmingly back the move to break with the Socialists.<\/p>\n

Over the past two years Junts has hardly been an unwavering source of support for S\u00e1nchez\u2019s weak minority government<\/a>. The party has declined to back key bills<\/a> and stressed that it is not part of the \u201cprogressive\u201d coalition composed of the Socialists and the left-wing Sumar party, but rather a pragmatic partner that is solely focused on Catalonia\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n

At a meeting of the Socialist Party leadership in Madrid on Monday, S\u00e1nchez insisted the party should \u201cremain open to dialogue and willing to engage\u201d with Junts. <\/p>\n

Following Puigdemont\u2019s speech, Science and Universities Minister Diana Morant expressed doubts \u201cJunts\u2019 electorate voted in favor of letting Vox or the People\u2019s Party govern\u201d and said the Catalan separatists needed to \u201cchoose whether they want Spain to represent progress or regression.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Spanish parliament passed the promised amnesty bill last year, but its full application has since been\u00a0halted by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[1789,143380,143381,7706,473,32,2000,299,1824,5338,104,47982],"class_list":{"0":"post-531973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-belgium","9":"tag-carles-puigdemont","10":"tag-catalan-independence","11":"tag-catalonia","12":"tag-defense","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-eu","15":"tag-europe","16":"tag-germany","17":"tag-pedro-sanchez","18":"tag-spain","19":"tag-spanish-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115448445996192064","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}