Will pardoning Catalan leaders calm Spanish tensions?
Spanish PM hoping to create ‘spirit of dialogue’ as separatist leaders vow to fight on

A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced that his government will pardon the nine leaders of Catalonia’s failed 2017 independence referendum in an effort to promote reconciliation in the divided nation.
“To reach an agreement, someone must make the first step. The Spanish government will make that first step now,” Sanchez told members of Catalan civil society at an event in Barcelona, adding that it should promote “a spirit of dialogue and concord”.
But the move “could be unpopular and risky”, Reuters reports, as “separatist protesters in Barcelona clamour for a new referendum on independence and opposition parties in Madrid threaten to challenge the pardons in court”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Inflamed tensions
In 2019 Spain’s Supreme Court sentenced nine Catalan leaders for their role in an unauthorised independence referendum and a short-lived declaration of independence. They included Oriol Junqueras, the deputy head of Catalonia’s government during the 2017 referendum, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison, and Raul Romeva, who was sentenced to 12 years for his role as Catalonia’s foreign affairs chief.
Speaking to The Times from his prison cell in Bages county, Jordi Cuixart responded to the news of his pardoning with a message of defiance.
“The pardons wouldn’t solve the political conflict between Catalonia and Spain,” Cuixart, president of Catalan organisation Omnium Cultural who was serving nine years, told the paper. “It is not an act of magnanimity granting the pardons.
“I should not have been in jail for merely exercising my right to freedom of speech and protest. I was condemned for asking people to go to vote,” he continued, adding that the pardons merely showed “the “weakness of the Spanish state”.
Cuixart’s refusal to accept his imprisonment was replicated by a boycott of Sanchez’s speech in Madrid by Catalonia’s pro-independence government. Opinion polls show “close to half” the population support independence, Reuters says.
Meanwhile, separate polls “suggest about 60% of Spaniards are against freeing the politicians and activists”, the news agency adds, with plans in place for opposition parties to challenge the pardons in court.
Sanchez’s political opponents have “threatened to launch legal challenges in Spain and Europe” if the pardons go ahead, EU Observer reports, with the centre-right Popular Party (PP) saying it would start a parliamentary battle of “institutional pressure” against the plan.
PP also said “that it will appeal against granting pardons at the Supreme Court”, the news site says, while far-right Vox party said it would “organise street protests if Sanchez pardons the separatist figures”.
Sanchez would find it difficult if the pardons are challenged in Spain’s highest court, which has already said it is against “total or partial” clemency, adding that the Catalan leaders have not shown “the slightest evidence or faintest hint of contrition”.
The prime minister faces a struggle balancing the competing demands of Spain’s majority parties, and the minority movement for Catalan independence, with Catalonian demonstrators claiming that even a pardon would be a “farce”, Reuters says.
“Pardons are a small thing, the truth is that they’ve taken our freedom of speech at all levels,” a pro-independence protester told the news agency. “We have our legitimate government in prison or in exile, and this is very serious in a democracy.”
Balancing act
Granting pardons is an “attempt to calm tensions in the 300-year-old dispute” over Catalan separatism, writes The Times’ Spain correspondent Isambard Wilkinson. But “it is a gamble that most Spaniards oppose – including 60% of Sanchez’s Socialist voters”.
The reaction of both pro- and anti-independence Spaniards, including the opposition parties, has shown “the risk of destabilising his fragile coalition government and refilling the sails of the independence movement”, he adds.
Sanchez told the assembled members of Catalan civil society that the measure would begin to heal the divided nation, ending his speech with the words: “Catalonia, Catalans we love you.” But speaking about unity is a far bigger task than achieving it.
Sanchez is unlikely to dwell on the pardons, The Times’ Wilkinson adds. Instead he will be hoping that “the political agenda will move on quickly” amid “hoped-for economic improvements and a successful vaccination campaign”.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Joe Evans is the world news editor at TheWeek.co.uk. He joined the team in 2019 and held roles including deputy news editor and acting news editor before moving into his current position in early 2021. He is a regular panellist on The Week Unwrapped podcast, discussing politics and foreign affairs.
Before joining The Week, he worked as a freelance journalist covering the UK and Ireland for German newspapers and magazines. A series of features on Brexit and the Irish border got him nominated for the Hostwriter Prize in 2019. Prior to settling down in London, he lived and worked in Cambodia, where he ran communications for a non-governmental organisation and worked as a journalist covering Southeast Asia. He has a master’s degree in journalism from City, University of London, and before that studied English Literature at the University of Manchester.
-
'The United States needs to up its game'
Instant opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass Published
-
'Accepting defeat is Rishi Sunak's only hope of victory'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week Staff Published
-
Royal family website attacked by Russian hackers
Speed Read Pro-Kremlin group claim responsibility just two weeks after King Charles condemns invasion of Ukraine
By The Week Staff Published
-
'Accepting defeat is Rishi Sunak's only hope of victory'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week Staff Published
-
What Slovakia's pro-Russia election result means for Ukraine
Speed Read The victory of former Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico's populist Smer party has raised concerns of waning support for Kyiv in Western democracies
By Peter Weber Published
-
'Labour risks making private schools a conclave for the super-rich'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week Staff Published
-
Rebuilding Ukraine: What would it take?
In Depth Russia continues to raze large sections of Ukraine, but that gives Kyiv a unique opening to build a better country — if somebody is willing to pay
By Peter Weber Published
-
Is it time the world re-evaluated the rules on migration?
Today's Big Question Home Secretary Suella Braverman questions whether 1951 UN Refugee Convention is 'fit for our modern age'
By The Week Staff Published
-
A Ukraine election in 2024: how it would work
The Explainer Zelenskyy hints that country is ready for March polls but logistical, security and democratic obstacles remain
By Harriet Marsden Published
-
How Ukraine's claimed kill of Russia's top Black Sea Fleet admiral could affect the war
Speed Read Ukraine says it killed Russian Adm. Viktor Sokolov and 33 other senior commanders in an audacious and expertly timed strike in Crimea
By Peter Weber Published
-
Azerbaijan attacks disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, breaking cease-fire
The 'local anti-terrorist' strikes in the ethnic Armenian enclave threaten to reignite a war with implications for Russia, Turkey and the West
By Peter Weber Published