Spain PM offers amnesty to Catalan separatists in controversial deal

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00:00 across to France 24, Sarah Moore standing by in Madrid. Sarah, good afternoon. What

00:04 do we know about this agreement? Well, a four-page document has been signed by the Catalan separatist

00:13 party Junts and the Socialist Party and basically it grants an amnesty potentially to thousands,

00:22 at least hundreds or probably thousands of Catalan separatists who were charged in relation

00:28 to two votes, one in 2014 and one in 2017 and also in relation to that independence

00:37 declaration that was made unilaterally in the autumn of 2017. Potentially it could involve

00:45 people who have nothing to do with independence, who are simply Catalan separatists close to

00:50 Carlos Puigdemont because there is the mention of the phrase "lawfare" and Carlos Puigdemont,

00:56 the former Catalan president, insists that some people are prosecuted in Spain because

01:03 they are separatists. That means that some of his allies who have been prosecuted and

01:09 convicted of corruption charges in Catalonia could also enter into a potential amnesty

01:16 law. This deal also talks about finding some kind of political solution to the conflict.

01:23 It does lay out the substantial differences that exist between the Together for Yes Catalan

01:30 Party and the Socialists. It says, for instance, that the Catalan separatist party considers

01:37 that referendum to have been legitimate while the Socialists considered that it was an illegal

01:44 referendum. All of that to be negotiated in a set of negotiations to kick off in November,

01:53 says this deal. Sarah, I'm just curious, what's the reaction

01:56 been like to this deal and could it come back and haunt Pedro Sánchez down the line?

02:05 This amnesty is very unpopular and the People's Party have already branded this deal humiliating

02:12 and said that they will fight it in the courts and in the Senate where they have an absolute

02:18 majority. What will worry Pedro Sánchez, the Socialist caretaker prime minister, is

02:24 that many in his own party have criticised it. They feel that it blows up the principle

02:29 of solidarity by awarding potentially more money and more privileges to a very wealthy

02:36 region. We've even seen the former Socialist prime minister, Felipe González, the prime

02:42 minister in the 1980s and 1990s. He says giving an amnesty to people who broke the law is

02:49 a bad idea. Many worried that it sets a bad precedent for the rule of law in Spain.

02:57 Sarah, thank you very much for that. Sarah Morris reporting there from Madrid.

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