Spain and Catalonia break the ice and return to dialogue

USPA NEWS - Following their meeting last week between the presidents of the Spanish Government, Mariano Rajoy, and the regional Government of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, the two governments confirmed Thursday the end of the estrangement motivated by threat Catalan independence and speak again.

Twenty-four hours earlier, technicians from both governments reached agreements on financing, child protection and reduction of administrative burden Catalan, which will avoid the Constitutional Court, thereby bringing the conflict between the two administrations. Since the beginning of the previous legislature, the regional Government of Catalonia presented 52 demands in the Constitutional Court and the Government of Spain 36.

Some of these demands are related to the Catalan independence process, which also caused an unprecedented estrangement between the presidents Mariano Rajoy and Artur Mas. The latter replaced by Carles Puigdemont, the new responsible of the Catalan Government has initiated an approach to the Government of Spain, whose confirmation was held Thursday.

At the Moncloa Palace in Madrid, the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, and Vice President of the Catalan Government, Oriol Junqueras, they met. A "cordial in the forms" meeting, according Junqueras, which allowed icebreaker in institutional relations between the two governments. "Today, it is easier to talk a few months ago," he admitted the Catalan vice president told reporters, but added that persist irreconcilable differences on issues such as the independence of Catalonia. "The political positions are very different," said Oriol Junqueras. "I will not stop being independence and it is very difficult for the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister fan of independence is made".

Investment, financing and transfer of competences were the topics addressed two vice presidents and those who were approaching. Technicians of the two governments continue to negotiate in the coming weeks, in an attempt to build bridges. But the future of relations between Catalonia and Spain is pending on what happens after the elections on June 26. The Government that emerges from those elections.