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Sources say Sánchez won’t submit to a vote of confidence.
News Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
At a press conference in Brussels on Monday, he announced that his party, the right-wing separatist JxCat (Together for Catalonia), had on the same day registered a petition in parliament against Sánchez (PSOE/S&D) for a vote of no-confidence. [Joan Valls/Urbanandsport /NurPhoto via Getty Images]
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez cannot be trusted and must face a no-confidence vote, or the budget is at risk, said former Catalan president and leader of JxCat Carles Puigdmont.
At a press conference in Brussels on Monday, he announced that his party, the right-wing separatist JxCat (Together for Catalonia), had on the same day registered a petition in parliament against Sánchez (PSOE/S&D) for a vote of no-confidence.
“Today, Sánchez continues to show that he cannot be trusted”, Puigdemont told a press conference that marked the first anniversary of the agreement signed between JxCat and the PSOE in November 2023.
At the conference, the JxCat leader also sowed doubts about whether he would support the 2025 national budget, which is essential for Sánchez’s executive and which he rejected last summer.
“Even if the question of confidence (by the Spanish PM) is passed, how can we negotiate budgets with such defaulters (PSOE)? They have not earned this confidence”, he warned.
Despite the threats, government sources said on Monday that Sánchez had no intention of submitting to a vote of confidence, EFE reported.
Meanwhile, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the main opposition Partido Popular (EPP), warned on Monday that the government had only two options in the face of Puigdemont’s new threat: offer “more concessions to separatism” or end the current mandate by calling early elections.
The fragile stability of Sánchez’s coalition with the left-wing Sumar platform depends on the support of JxCat’s seven deputies in Madrid, as well as the other seven of its left-wing separatist rival, ERC, and the support of the two main pro-independence Basque parties, PNV and EH Bildu.
To stay in power, Sánchez had to make major political concessions to JxCat and the ERC.
These include the approval of a controversial amnesty law to pardon hundreds of separatist activists involved in illegal actions between 2012 and 2023, including the serious secession attempt in Catalonia in October 2017.
Puigdemont’s party also lamented the “lack of political will to make effective, in a complete and agile way, the agreements acquired” between the two parties.
According to the former Catalan president, Sánchez’s lack of political will “has not made it possible to create the basis of trust that was intended and that is necessary to guide the rest of the legislature”, which is due to end in 2027 unless early elections are called.
Growing mistrust between the two sides
Puigdemont had hoped to benefit from the amnesty law that came into force last June, hoping he could return to Spain without fear of being arrested in connection with the events of 2017. But he is still in self-imposed exile in Waterloo, after a fleeting trip to Barcelona last summer.
The lukewarm trust that existed between the PSOE and JxCat in November 2023 has gradually deteriorated.
A few weeks ago, Miriam Nogueras, spokeswoman for JxCat in Madrid, warned the government that its support for Sánchez was not a blank cheque and stressed that the government would have to win the support of Puigdemont’s party ‘vote by vote’.
An example of the mistrust between the two parties was the decision to include an international “verifier” from the outset to act as a mediator or facilitator in their talks, which usually take place in Geneva.
In this regard, Puigdemont on Monday lamented the “lack of coordination” between what is negotiated in Switzerland and what is then implemented by the government.
“Those of us who have given him (Sánchez) our trust feel that he has not honoured that trust and has not put it to good use. It is our duty and our right to ask him for it”, added the former Catalan president.
Among the points of the agreements that the PSOE – and the government – have not respected are the demand for the official status of Catalan in the European institutions and the full implementation of the amnesty law.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)
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