SPAIN’S Socialist Party struck a deal today with a Catalan separatist party to grant an amnesty for potentially thousands of people involved in the region’s failed secession bid to enable them to form a new government.

Socialist lawmaker and party official Santos Cerdan announced the deal in Brussels after sealing the agreement with the party led by Carles Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium after holding a regional independence referendum for Catalonia in defiance of Spanish law.

“This is a political agreement and an agreement for an amnesty,” Mr Cerdan said.

Following inconclusive national elections in July Mr Sanchez, Spain’s leader since 2018, will still need the backing of a small Basque party but he is thought likely to get it.

An amnesty has been the crucial part of difficult negotiations by representatives of Mr Sanchez’s caretaker government to win the support of two Catalan separatist parties. 

Mr Cerdan said that the amnesty legislation will cover all crimes and alleged crimes related to the Catalan separatist movement from 2012 until now.

He said” “Our goal is to start a new chapter … where the errors of the past are no longer obstacles to overcome.”

In recent weeks thousands of people, mainly from the far right, have targeted the Socialist Party headquarters in Madrid to protest at the proposed amnesty.