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Is Spanish PM's Catalan amnesty deal 'selling out country' or 'de-escalating political situation'?

Spain’s Pedro Sánchez was reelected as prime minister by the nation’s parliament on Thursday, when he leveraged a controversial amnesty deal to get the critical support from Catalan separatists to stay in power. Sánchez, Spain's Socialist leader since 2018, was backed by 179 lawmakers in the 350-seat lower house of parliament to form a new minority leftist coalition government. Only right-wing opposition deputies voted against him. The vote came after nearly two days of debate among party leaders that centered almost entirely on an amnesty deal for Catalonia’s separatists that Sánchez agreed to in return for vital support to unlock another four-year term. Sánchez won the vote after clinching the support of six smaller parties — including two Catalan separatist parties that command 14 seats— in recent weeks, allowing his Socialists to once again team up with the left-wing Sumar (Joining Forces) party in government. It remains to be seen if Sánchez can maintain enough support to exhaust his mandate that can run until 2027 given that some of his backers are parties that want to break Catalonia, or the Basque Country, away from Spain. Spain’s inconclusive national elections on July 23 left a highly fractured parliament. The center-right Popular Party received the most votes in the elections but failed to get enough support to form a government because of its alliances with the far-right Vox party, which finished third. The amnesty deal would clean the slate for hundreds of Catalan separatists in legal trouble following the northeast region’s illegal 2017 secession bid that sparked Spain’s biggest crisis in decades. That includes benefiting former Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont, who is a fugitive from Spanish law and considered public enemy No. 1 by many Spaniards. Despite lingering disagreements, the two Catalan parties as well as two Basque ones said they would back Sánchez on Thursday but let him know that he must fulfill the economic and political deals reached with each of them. For more on the Spanish prime minister's reelection, despite controversy over amnesty for Catalan separatists, FRANCE 24's François Picard is joined by Dr Andrew Dowling, Contemporary Historian and Senior Lecturer in the Hispanic Studies Department within the School of Modern Languages at Cardiff University.