EuropeAnalysis

Catalan nationalist support paves way for new Sánchez coalition

Spanish Socialist expected to win investiture vote next week

Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont arrives to give a press conference in Brussels on Thursday.

Guy Hedgecoe's face
Guy Hedgecoe in Madrid
Thu Nov 9 2023 - 16:47

Spain’s Socialists have reached an agreement with Catalan nationalists that paves the way for acting prime minister Pedro Sánchez to form a new coalition government, amid opposition fury at the content of the deal.

The accord revolves around a new amnesty Bill that would benefit hundreds of Catalan activists and politicians who have been facing legal action linked to their efforts to secede from Spain.

Mr Sánchez faces an investiture debate and vote next week which are expected to culminate in him securing a majority and forming a new administration, thus avoiding a January general election.

On announcing the deal, Santos Cerdán, who represented the Socialists in the negotiations, said the Catalan territorial issue was “a conflict that remains unresolved.”

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He added: “We want to open a new era in history to seek a political and negotiated solution.”

Mr Sánchez’s Socialists lost the July general election but the conservative Popular Party (PP), which won, failed to form a government in September. With the support of the leftist Sumar alliance secured as his junior coalition partner, Mr Sánchez also needs the backing of an array of regional nationalist parties in order to govern, the most demanding being those in Catalonia.

Last week, the Socialists agreed the terms of the amnesty with the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), which governs the region, as part of an accord that also cancelled part of Catalonia’s debt owed to Madrid. However, negotiations dragged on with Together for Catalonia (JxCat), the hardline pro-independence party of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, due to disagreement over details of the law.

With those issues now ironed out, JxCat, which has seven seats in Congress, is now willing to support Mr Sánchez in the upcoming investiture, providing him with a fragile majority.

The amnesty law, whose full content is yet to be revealed, will benefit Catalan activists and politicians who were facing legal action for separatist activities dating back to 2012, including a failed independence bid six years ago. The agreement with JxCat also includes a commitment to pursuing negotiations in an effort to reach a consensus on Catalonia’s relationship with Spain, with a “verification mechanism” overseeing that process.

It also includes a reference to JxCat’s aim of Catalonia holding a binding, Scotland-style referendum on independence. However, the accord lays out the Socialist Party’s opposition to such a vote and “rejection of any unilateral action”.

Mr Puigdemont, who has been living in Belgium since 2017 to escape the Spanish judiciary, emphasised that his party will constantly evaluate whether the Socialists are fulfilling their part of the deal which, he added, “resolves nothing on its own”.

“The extent and ambition [of this agreement] will depend on us,” he said, speaking in Brussels. “We have not fixed any limit beyond the will of the Catalan people.”

However, this deal does appear to represent a change of tack for Mr Puigdemont and his party, which had previously criticised the willingness of its nationalist rival, ERC, to negotiate with Madrid. The decision to engage with Mr Sánchez’s future government suggests JxCat is toning down its unilateral approach.

The political right has portrayed the amnesty as unconstitutional — a charge the Socialists reject — and claims it encourages illegal separatist activity.

PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo warned that Mr Sánchez had “surrendered to the demands of the independence movement”. The PP’s president of the Madrid region, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, went further, claiming that “they have smuggled a dictatorship in through the back door”.

Supporters of the PP and the far-right Vox have been among those demonstrating against Mr Sánchez and the amnesty each night this week outside the headquarters of the Socialist Party.

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