Spain's Socialists to grant amnesty to Catalan separatists in return for support of new govt

  • last year

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Transcript
00:00 The streets of Spain were packed Thursday night with droves of far-right nationalists
00:04 upset with a new deal to appease Catalonian separatists.
00:08 "You are a whore, you are a whore!"
00:13 They are furious that acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his ruling Socialist Party
00:17 have offered amnesty to Catalonians who attempted to secede from Spain in 2017.
00:23 The Socialist Party said Thursday that the deal will allow Spain to heal.
00:27 "It's an agreement that offers a historical opportunity to solve a conflict, a political
00:32 conflict that should and can only be solved by politics.
00:36 Only through negotiations should disagreements be solved."
00:40 But the deal is also important to secure the political future of Sánchez.
00:44 He came in second in the general election in July and only became acting Prime Minister
00:49 when the Conservative People's Party could not secure enough support to form a government.
00:54 To remain Prime Minister, Sánchez will need the support of two Catalonian separatist parties.
00:59 This deal will help achieve that.
01:02 The leader of the People's Party said the deal was humiliating.
01:05 "We are talking about giving in to blackmail that would turn the Supreme Court into an
01:13 oppressor and would strike at the foundations of justice, weaken our state of autonomy and
01:18 put an end to the equality of Spaniards enshrined in the constitution."
01:25 Surprisingly, Sánchez had also deemed such an amnesty to be unconstitutional in the past,
01:30 making this a very large policy pivot.
01:33 The Socialist Party now has three weeks to seek parliamentary support for a new Sánchez
01:38 government before fresh elections are triggered.

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