PM's PSOE Reach Agreement In Principle w/Separatist Junts On Speaker

Catalan newspaper El Periodico reporting that acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and the Catalan separatist Together for Catalonia (Junts) have reached an agreement in principle for the latter to back the former's nominee for speaker of the Congress of Deputies. The prospect of Junts backing the PSOE's Francina Armengol, the former regional president of the Balearic Islands, for the speakership was first speculated on 16 August.

• El Periodico reports that Junts Secretary-General Jordi Turull informed the party executive that a last-minute deal has been reached that will see the use of the Catalan language normalised in the Cortes Generales (parliament), the reactivation of a commission of inquiry into the 'state sewers' deep-state scandal, and investigations into the '17-A' terrorist attacks in Catalonia in 2017.
• While the agreement on a speaker is one thing, this does not necessarily mean that Junts' support for Sanchez in a PM investiture vote is forthcoming. In order for that to happen, Turull and leader-in-exile Carles Puigdemont are demanding an amnesty for around 4,000 people facing cases related to the 2017 illegal Catalan independence referendum, and a legalised referendum on self-determination. Turull stated that "I have not gone to jail for Cercanías [commuter railways] and the financing".
• Reaching deals with the PSOE on these issues are going to be much harder to reach than this deal on parliamentary speaker.