MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Spanish authorities are willing to cooperate with the new government of Catalonia "within the law," Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Monday.
Pro-independence parties won an absolute majority in parliament in the regional elections, held in Catalonia on Sunday.
"The new government…will continue to find the same loyalty and readiness for dialogue. We have always had it, we have it and we shall continue to have it, but always within the law," Rajoy said, as quoted by the Tribuna Valladolid newspaper.
Over 80 percent of the two million Catalans who participated in an unofficial November 2014 vote supported seceding from Spain.
In the pre-election campaign, the coalition of pro-independence parties pledged to set processes in motion for the autonomous region to separate from Spain within 18 months after the elections should they win a majority.
