The executive leaders of Spain’s pro-independence party Together for Catalunya (Junts) voted yesterday to withdraw support from the Socialist Party PSOE.
The move comes with accusations that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE has violated the Brussels Agreement, the 2023 deal that allowed him to stay in power in exchange for concessions to Catalan nationalists.
President of the Junts party, Carles Puigdemont, said at a press conference yesterday that the pact was “broken”, accusing the PSOE of a “breach of duty”. He also alleged a lack of political will to deliver on promises on Catalan amnesty, the transfer of immigration powers and recognition of Catalan as an official European Union language.
“We have reached political agreements but they have not been implemented in a timely or proper manner,” he said.
Yesterday’s announcement puts Sanchez’s political future in danger, observers said.
Without Junts’ handful of parliamentary votes, the PSOE-led coalition loses a thin majority, jeopardising not only next year’s budget but also the government’s ability to function effectively.
“The Spanish Government will not be able to resort to the investiture majority, will not be able to approve a budget and will not have the capacity to govern,” declared Puigdemont, warning that the era of Socialist stability “has come to an end”.
Junts party members will now have to approve of the leadership’s decision in a vote scheduled for in the next few days.
“There isn’t enough trust, and mutual trust doesn’t exist. There is personal trust but not at the political level,” Puidgemont added.
Speaking yesterday, PSOE spokeswoman Montse Mínguez insisted: “This government is the best thing for Catalonia and this government is the best thing for Spain.”
Earlier in October, Puigdemont expressed his growing dissatisfaction with Sánchez’s handling of the deal between the two parties.
Speaking ahead of the Junts leadership decision, Pablo Fernández of the left-wing Podemos party, downplayed the threat.
Antonio Maíllo, the general co-ordinator of the United Left party, sounded the alarm over the potential rise of the Conservative Vox party if Junts pulls the plug.
Maíllo urged Spain’s fractured Left to close ranks, claiming that only a “united and useful” candidacy can stop the advance of the “far right”.
