BARCELONA, Spain (AP) " Catalonia's new separatist chief plans to deliver one message to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in their highly-anticipated meeting next month: an authorized ballot over Catalan secession from Spain is the only solution to the country's worst political crisis in decades.
"We will go to the meeting with the Spanish Prime Minister ready to discuss the major issue ...ok which is the right to self-determination for Catalonia," Catalonia's regional president Quim Torra told The Associated Press in an interview on Monday. "We won't budge from it."
Sanchez and Torra are set to meet on July 9, invited Torra to a meeting in Madrid on July 9, the first meeting between the heads of Spain's central and Catalonia's regional governments since Torra's predecessor Carles Puigdemont defied Spanish authorities and held an illegal referendum before making an ineffective declaration of independence last October.