Catalan president Quim Torra and Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez will not, in the end, meet on 21st December, Catalan public television TV3 has stated. Sánchez, who will be in Barcelona on that date to preside over the cabinet meeting he has convened in the Catalan capital, will not meet with his Catalan counterpart because Madrid discards a full bilateral meeting of the two governments, and Barcelona wants more than just a photo opportunity or "meeting for coffee" of the two leaders.
This week, the Catalan president made the proposal to Sánchez of a summit meeting between the two governments in the Generalitat palace, coinciding with the cabinet meeting. The director of the Catalan president's office, Josep Rius, outlined the plan in a letter sent on Tuesday, in Torra's name, to the Spanish leader's chief of staff, Iván Redondo.
In the press conference following the Catalan cabinet meeting on Tuesday, spokesperson Elsa Artadi said that there had been no confirmation "via official channels" that the Spanish cabinet meeting announced for 21st December was going ahead, but that in any case, the Catalan government wanted to take advantage of the possibility to "propose an encounter" which, according to the request made, would be between the executives of the two governments, not just between the two leaders, which was the idea that Pedro Sánchez had been working with. In the end, there will be no meeting.