Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s relationship with his Catalan nationalist parliamentary allies is at an all-time low, casting doubt on the stability of his minority government.
On Thursday, Sánchez’s Socialist Party and its coalition partner Sumar are expected to reject in the parliamentary presiding council an initiative by the separatist Together for Catalonia (JxCat) for the prime minister to face a confidence vote.
JxCat, whose leader is the self-exiled former Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, called for the vote alleging that the government has failed to fulfil promises it made in exchange for the party’s support following the formation of a new Spanish government in November 2023.
For JxCat secretary general Jordi Turull, the outcome of the presiding council’s deliberation on the proposal for a confidence vote, which gauges a government’s parliamentary majority and can lead to it being removed, “is not harmless or a small thing”.
“If they don’t allow it to go through [parliament] that means they don’t feel capable of re-establishing trust and if that’s the case and they won’t keep their word then we will have to take decisions that the Socialist Party doesn’t like,” Turull said.
Sánchez’s left-wing coalition depends on an array of smaller, mainly nationalist, parties. However, the relationship with the hard-line, centre-right JxCat, which has seven members in the Spanish Congress, has been particularly tumultuous. Sánchez has made several concessions to JxCat, including the creation of a controversial amnesty law to remove pending legal action against hundreds of Catalans for nationalist activity. But although Puigdemont was expected to be the highest-profile target of the law, legal obstacles have prevented him from benefiting from it. Last August, he made a brief appearance in Barcelona before avoiding arrest and returning to Belgium, where he has been living since 2017.
Puigdemont’s exclusion from the amnesty has been the cause of ongoing tension between the government and JxCat. The party has also accused Madrid of failing to deliver on promises to transfer immigration controls to Catalonia and to ensure that Catalan is recognised as an official EU language.
The government insists it is doing what it can.
“Regarding what is within our remit, we fulfil our commitments,” said government spokeswoman Pilar Alegría. Earlier this week, Sánchez told foreign ambassadors in Madrid that making sure Catalan has EU language status “will be one of our main political priorities in 2025″.
Many see JxCat’s warnings as part of a strategy to accelerate the fulfilment of promises and to prove to its own voters that it is not a docile partner of Sánchez, rather than a genuine move to unseat the government.
“With the confidence vote, Puigdemont wanted to highlight the fact that the legislature depends on its seven MPs,” noted Ferran Boiza, editor of El Periódico de España.
If a confidence vote were to go ahead, Puigdemont’s nationalists would need the support of the main opposition conservative Popular Party (PP) and the far-right Vox to defeat Sánchez. The aggressive unionism of both — particularly Vox, which has advocated the outlawing of pro-independence parties — makes them unlikely allies for JxCat and Turull has said that the idea of working alongside the far-right party was “a macabre joke”.
Both the PP and Vox have repeatedly called for Sánchez to face a parliamentary censure motion, which is more forceful than a confidence vote and has the express aim of removing the government, but JxCat has ruled out supporting such a move.
On Friday, Puigdemont is due to meet with fellow JxCat leaders in Brussels to discuss the relationship with the central government. The party could use its members of parliament to veto the 2025 national budget, which is yet to be approved.
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