Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez intends to meet with Quim Torra, the separatist president of Catalonia, for talks in the first weeks of February about the wealthy region's independence aspirations.
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The situation in Catalonia represents a political crisis that needs a political solution, Sanchez said in an interview with Spanish broadcaster RTVE.
Sanchez brokered a deal with the largest Catalan party, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), at the beginning of January, agreeing to engage in dialogue quickly in exchange for the party's abstention from the deciding parliamentary vote that ushered in his term and his new government.
Sanchez won the second and decisive vote in the Spanish parliament on January 7 to form the first coalition government in the country's recent history, squeezing by on a thin margin of 167 votes in favour to 165 against.
To maintain power, Sanchez is now under pressure to keep his word to the ERC.
The conservative opposition has been been critical of the deal, saying that Sanchez was making himself a hostage of the Catalan separatists and undermining the constitution.
Catalonia's secessionist crisis is one of Spain's most intractable political problems - one that only worsened after a referendum for independence in October 2017 was declared illegal.
The country's previous conservative government subsequently placed the region under forced administration, and many senior Catalan politicians from that period were jailed or left the country in exile.
Australian Associated Press