MADRID, (Reuters) – Spanish acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez looked set to clinch another term in office after his Socialist Party (PSOE) yesterday secured the backing of Catalan separatist party Junts to form a government in a deal the country’s opposition condemned as “a humiliation”.
A law granting amnesty to those prosecuted over Catalonia’s attempt to secede from Spain was included in the deal, the text showed.
Santos Cerdan, a senior Socialist official, told a press conference in Brussels that, while his party still had “profound disagreements” with Junts, it had put them aside in the interests of forming a “stable government”.
The agreement included Junts lending its votes in parliament to support legislation for a full four-year term, he said.
But Junts, which seeks another independence referendum for the wealthy northeastern region, said supporting each law would depend on progress in talks involving Catalonia’s political conflict.
Debating and voting on the investiture will take place on Nov. 15 and 16, elDiario.es reported, citing parliamentary sources.
Sanchez’s conservative opponents have accused him of putting the rule of law in Spain on the line for his own political gain.
As a deal between Junts and the Socialists edged nearer in the past week, the mood in the country has become increasingly febrile, with protesters clashing with police outside the Socialists’ headquarters in Madrid.
Police fired rubber bullets and six people were arrested, authorities said, as officers tried to break up the demonstration.
Riot police chased protesters down one side street.
Earlier, fireworks and other objects were thrown at police as about 8,000 protesters, according to authorities, waved Spanish flags and demonstrated outside the Socialists’ headquarters in Madrid on Thursday.
Banners reading “Sanchez traitor” were held aloft by the demonstrators on the seventh night of protests in the Spanish capital.
Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox party who attended the protest, told reporters: “We are facing the end of democracy, the biggest attack on national unity ever.”
Other protests were taking place in Barcelona and Valencia.
Business leaders called an “urgent” meeting for Monday.
Police were searching for two men after the former head of Spain’s conservative People’s Party (PP) in Catalonia, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, was shot in the face in Madrid. They have not yet offered a motive for the attack.
PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo on Thursday called for further protests around Spain.
He accused Sanchez of “dragging our country towards a total and irreversible humiliation”.
“Our civil resistance will be long,” he added.
An amnesty could exculpate as many as 1,400 activists and politicians involved in the attempt to separate Catalonia from Spain.
Among the beneficiaries is Carles Puigdemont, the Junts leader currently living in exile in Belgium, because of charges he faces as Catalonia’s leader during the separatist drive in 2017.
If the amnesty is approved by congress, Puigdemont, 60, would be able to return to Spain and potentially run for office.
Puigdemont hailed the agreement between Junts and the Socialists as a “change of narrative” and a step towards resolving a “historic conflict” between Spain and Catalonia.
