Newly appointed Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will meet with the president of the Catalan government, Quim Torra, in the near future to discuss the ongoing crisis in Catalonia, according to the Spanish government
MADRID (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th January, 2020) Newly appointed Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will meet with the president of the Catalan government, Quim Torra, in the near future to discuss the ongoing crisis in Catalonia, according to the Spanish government.
Earlier in the day, Sanchez and Torra had a phone conversation.
"The President of [the Spanish] Government, Sanchez, told the head of the [Catalan] government, Torra, that, on the one hand, [he] wants to renew the dialogue, and, on the other, sincerely intends to try to settle the political conflict in Catalonia," the government said.
The date and place for the meeting have not yet been decided, but it is planned to take place after the official formation of a new Spanish government.
On Tuesday, Spain's Congress of Deputies approved Sanchez as the head of government. That became possible due to an agreement between Sanchez's Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) with the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), which promised to abstain and not voting against Sanchez during the second vote in return for holding negotiations on finding the way out of the crisis in Catalonia.
Catalonia has been in turmoil since the 2017 independence referendum, when the majority of voters decided to Spain, to the chagrin of Madrid, which called the vote unconstitutional. The latest wave of protests took place in October over lengthy prison sentences awarded to the politicians involved in organizing the referendum.
