Madrid,
\nNationalists regained control of Catalonia\u2019s government on Saturday and immediately pledged to seek independence for the wealthy region, posing a swift challenge to new Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez who took office on the same day.<\/p>\n
The new Catalan cabinet was sworn in after months of tensions with the Central Government, ending Madrid\u2019s seven-month direct rule of the region, imposed by Sanchez\u2019s predecessor after separatists declared independence.<\/p>\n
Sanchez, a Socialist who has said he wants talks on Catalonia but opposes any independence referendum, was sworn in about an hour earlier on Saturday, a day after parliament ousted conservative Mariano Rajoy over a corruption scandal.<\/p>\n
The unexpected coincidence of the Central and regional governments taking power minutes apart could open a new chapter after dramatic months that have seen Catalan politicians jailed or fleeing abroad.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis government is committed to moving towards an independent state in the form of a republic,\u201d Catalonia\u2019s new leader Quim Torra said after the cabinet\u2019s swearing in ceremony in which separatists shouted \u201cLlibertat! Llibertat!\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s talk, let\u2019s deal with this question, let\u2019s take risks, you and us. We need to sit around the same table and negotiate, government to government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Madrid, Nationalists regained control of Catalonia\u2019s government on Saturday and immediately pledged to seek independence for the wealthy region, posing a swift challenge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32983,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32981\/revisions\/32983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}