Ex-regional president Carles Puigdemont among high-profile beneficiaries after MPs approve law by 177 votes to 172

Spanish MPs have given their final approval to the deeply divisive amnesty law that the country’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, offered Catalan separatists in return for helping him back to power after last year’s inconclusive general election.

The new law, approved by 177 votes to 172 in Spain’s 350-seat congress of deputies, will apply to about 400 people involved in the symbolic independence referendum of November 2014 and the illegal unilateral poll that followed three years later, which triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in four decades.

Regional election will also indicate whether Spanish prime minister’s conciliatory approach has paid off

Voters in Catalonia are heading to the polls on Sunday to cast their ballots in a snap regional election that will gauge the strength of the waning independence movement and indicate whether the conciliatory approach of Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has paid off.

The election was called in March by the Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, a member of the moderate pro-independence Catalan Republican Left party (ERC), after opposition parties voted down the budget proposed by his minority government.

Pere Aragonès says vote validated his decision to pursue political negotiations with Pedro Sánchez

Catalonia’s president has hailed a “new stage” in the quest for regional self-determination after a vote by MPs backing the Spanish government’s deeply divisive amnesty law, and vowed to continue pushing for a mutually agreed referendum if he wins another term in May’s snap election.

Pere Aragonès, who has led the regional government for the past three years, told the Guardian that the amnesty – demanded by Catalan separatist parties in return for helping Spain’s Socialist-led coalition back into power after last year’s election – had validated his decision to pursue political negotiations with the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez.

Passing of bill will come as relief for PM Pedro Sánchez, who has gambled his political future on the concession

Spain’s congress has approved the controversial and divisive Catalan amnesty bill that regional separatists demanded in return for helping the country’s Socialist-led coalition government back into office after last year’s inconclusive general election.

The passing of the bill, which was approved by 178 votes to 172 in Spain’s 350-seat parliament, will come as a relief for the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, who has gambled his political future on the concession.