Parliament to vote on controversial law to offer amnesty to Catalan separatists

Demonstrators protest against Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez and the amnesty law outside the European parliament in Strasbourg (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias, File)

Spain’s lower house of parliament is to debate and vote on Tuesday on an enormously divisive amnesty law that aims to sweep away the legal troubles of potentially hundreds of people who were involved in Catalonia’s unsuccessful 2017 independence bid.

Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez agreed to push through the law in exchange for parliamentary support from two small Catalan separatist parties, which enabled him to form a new minority leftist government late last year.