Catalan party backs talks instead of breaking away

The party of ousted Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont now favours talks with Madrid to achieve independence instead of pushing to break away from Spain unilaterally, its coordinator said yesterday. Spanish media said that Puigdemont’s Pdecat party and its ally, the far-left ERC party, will abandon a call for Catalonia to break away “unilaterally” in their programmes for a Dec 21 regional election.