Talks on Catalonia conflict begin in Switzerland
Published: Saturday, Dec 2nd 2023, 21:30
Updated At: Saturday, Dec 2nd 2023, 21:31
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Representatives of the Spanish governing party PSOE and the Catalan Junts party of separatist leader Carles Puigdemont began confidential talks in Switzerland on Saturday about a settlement to the long-running conflict. The first meeting "went well", said PSOE negotiator Santos Cerdán shortly before flying back to Madrid from Geneva. The socialist said nothing about the content of the talks or whether Puigdemont himself took part in the meeting near Geneva.
Spain's head of government Pedro Sánchez had agreed to the negotiations in order to secure the votes of Puigdemont's Junts party in the parliament in Madrid for his re-election as prime minister just over two weeks ago. Puigdemont wants Catalonia to secede from Spain, while Sánchez wants to prevent this and defuse the conflict through dialog and concessions.
Junts had insisted that the talks with the PSOE be accompanied by a neutral organization that would verify possible results and monitor their implementation. According to the PSOE, the diplomat from El Salvador in Central America, Francisco Galindo Vélez, will accompany the talks as a mediator and certify a possible outcome, the Spanish media announced in the evening.
The renowned Swiss Henri Dunant Center for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD or HDC) will also assist in the negotiations. This private foundation based in Geneva, which claims to have been discreetly mediating in conflicts around the world for decades, had already accompanied the dissolution of the Basque terrorist organization ETA in Spain and verified it in 2018.
The meeting was reportedly held outside of Spain so that Puigdemont, who lives in exile in Belgium, could possibly attend in person. In his home country, he would be arrested immediately for attempting to break Catalonia out of the Spanish state in 2017 as the then head of the regional government with an unconstitutional independence referendum.
Sánchez has also promised Junts and the second separatist Catalan party ERC an amnesty for his re-election. However, this still has to be approved by parliament, which could take months. Spain's conservative opposition is up in arms against concessions to Catalans.
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