Catalan-Spanish talks on independence to resume on Wednesday without Junts

Catalan and Spanish government officials will meet in Madrid on Wednesday morning at 10 am to resume talks on independence. 

This will be the first so-called 'dialogue table' meeting in 10 months as the last one was held in Barcelona last September.

This comes a week and a half after Catalan president Pere Aragonès and Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez met in Madrid on July 15, their first meeting since news of Catalangate, the espionage of at least 80 people with ties to the independence movement with government-grade spyware, broke. 

Unlike the last September, neither Aragonès nor Sánchez will be in attendance on Wednesday. But, as already occurred in September, junior Catalan coalition partner members Junts per Catalunya will not be in attendance either.

Presidency minister Félix Bolaños, labor minister and vice PM Yolanda Díaz, culture minister and former head of the Catalan Socialist party Miquel Iceta, as well as territorial policy minister and spokesperson Isabel Rodríguez will be representing the Spanish side. 

Catalonia will send presidency minister Laura Vilagrà, business minister Roger Torrent, as well as interior minister Joan Ignasi Elena and culture minister Natàlia Garriga – all from senior partner Esquerra Republicana, which has long taken a less confrontational stance with Spain than Junts.  

Junts will not attend

Junts has once again decided not to participate in these talks as only members of the Catalan and Spanish governments have been allowed to attend.

In fact, of the four names Junts had put forward, only one is of a Catalan government official: vice president Jordi Puigneró. The other three are formerly imprisoned independence leaders Jordi Turull and Jordi Sànchez, who were pardoned but are still barred from holding public office, as well as the party's spokesperson in Spain's Congress, Míriam Nogueras.