Madrid admits incipient talks with Catalonia on the self-determination issue but rejects allowing a vote

Madrid (ACN).- The Spanish Deputy Prime Minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría made it clear that “members of the Spanish Government” and “members of the Generalitat [Catalan Government]” have been holding meetings in the past few weeks, including the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy. “We inform about some of them and about others, we do not, considering the delicate subject”, she stated. Sáenz de Santamaría insisted that talks were just starting; “we are in an incipient phase”, she stressed, “to acknowledge that channels for negotiation have to be found”. In the last few weeks, several voices have been insisting on the need to find a negotiated way out of the current political conflict between Catalonia and Spain.

Despite saying that she is open to negotiations, Sáenz de Santamaria totally rejected the main demand from a broad majority of Catalan society, for allowing a self-determination vote to take place in Catalonia. The Deputy PM did not want to disclose any part of the Spanish Government’s strategy on how to handle the issue.

Nonetheless, she praised the figure of the ‘number 2’ of the Centre Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU), Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida, as a valuable interlocutor. A few weeks ago, Duran called for finding a third way between independence and the current status quo. In addition, he asked Rajoy to make a move and offer a political answer to Catalonia’s claims.