Spain's cabinet to pardon jailed Catalan separatist leaders on Tuesday

[June 21, 2021]    BARCELONA (Reuters) - The Spanish government plans to pardon the nine jailed leaders of Catalonia's failed 2017 independence bid on Tuesday, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez gestures as he explains his plan to issue pardons to a dozen Catalan separatist leaders, at Gran Teatre del Liceu, in Barcelona, Spain, June 21, 2021. REUTERS/Albert Gea

With the pardons that the cabinet still has to rubber-stamp in its weekly meeting, Sanchez aims to ease tensions in the northeastern region and kick-start negotiations between the central government and Catalan authorities.

"Confrontation didn't serve to solve any problem," Sanchez said in speech at Barcelona's iconic opera house in an event attended by around 300 members of the Catalan civil society.

"To reach an agreement someone must make the first step," he said. "The Spanish government will make that first step now."

Opinion polls show about 60% of Spaniards - as well as all opposition parties - are against freeing the nine politicians and activists who were jailed in 2019 for their role in the chaotic and at times violent events that triggered Spain's biggest political crisis in decades.

(Reporting by Joan Faus, editing by Inti Landauro and Andrei Khalip)

[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.