Pedro Sánchez believes that he can hold out despite the new slamming of the door by Junts, which has considered broken the investiture agreement that Carles Puigdemont sealed with the then Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, in Brussels. In the Government they do not see significant changes with respect to the position that the independence party has had until now, which has kept the Executive in suspense in numerous votes and has threatened to break up on several occasions since November 2023. “For us the situation is the same as always: working to reach agreements,” they point out in Moncloa.
“We are going to work as always, vote by vote,” add those same sources after the decision of Puigdemont, whose party has unanimously decided to end the negotiation with the PSOE, in the absence of support from the bases. “They will not be able to approve the Budgets and they will not be able to govern,” the former president expressed in an appearance without questions after the meeting in Perpinyà (France): “They will have the power, but they will not be able to exercise it.”
However, the Government is trying to remove the specter of ungovernability. “Of course the legislature is going to continue,” says one of Sánchez's hard core people. “We are aware of our parliamentary minority, from the first moment, but that reality has not been an obstacle for us to go week by week passing laws and governing,” he reflects.
Moncloa sees no differences with the previous situation
“No difference,” says a minister about Junts' new position with respect to what they were already doing. The pro-independence party added its votes to those of PP and Vox to overthrow the law reducing working hours, which was Yolanda Díaz's star measure, and had now threatened to reject the judicial efficiency law, which is a key project of Félix Bolaños, despite initially supporting it.
The text of the agreement signed by Puigdemont and Cerdán in Brussels referred to the “stability of the legislature, subject to the progress and compliance of the agreements.” The key to providing stability to the legislature was then interpreted as support for the General State Budgets. By getting the first ones, in Moncloa they assumed then that the way was clear until 2027.
However, in these almost two years of relationship characterized by tensions and ultimatums, the Government assumed that the scenario of a budget failure was plausible. Even Sánchez tried to dispel doubts by assuring that he would continue in Moncloa even if the public accounts for 2026 did not go ahead. “They were not going to support them,” says a minister after Puigdemont's words.
The unknown: until when?
With this statement from the president, Moncloa has already traveled part of the way to move forward without a budget update. The big unknown is how long it can continue. The decision is exclusive to Sánchez, who is responsible for pressing the nuclear button for electoral advancement. And he will do it when it suits him. For now there are no signs in the presidential cabinet that point to an early date, although the socialists are in more spirit than before the summer, when they saw the abyss with the imprisonment of Cerdán. Later, after the leadership in international matters with the rejection of Israel for the genocide in Gaza and the recognition of the Palestinian state as well as Feijóo's errors, the PSOE took a breath and saw the PP in a complicated moment due to crises such as the breast cancer screenings in Andalusia or Mazón's new lies about his management on the day of the fateful dana.
“We will have to continue trying to convince Junts in each of the norms that we bring to Congress,” says a prominent socialist leader who recognizes that it is “too early to assess the effects of this decision.” “Junts also has to be the one to explain the scope of its decisions,” admits a minister. For the moment, the Government considers that they have to go game by game. “Maximum respect for Junts. Hand always extended to continue dialogue and reach agreements,” state government sources.
“Soon to assess the effects”
The belief of the sources consulted since Puigdemont launched the last order to the Government is that the only end of the cycle would occur if Junts supported a motion of censure with PP and Vox and they do not see that as feasible. “I don't think Junts is interested in an electoral advance, honestly,” says a person from the hard core of the PSOE, where they also consider that a right-wing government harms Puigdemont's interests, so they consider that they can reach a balance that maintains the assisted breathing of the legislature.
“We respect the internal dynamics of all the parties. There is dialogue, an outstretched hand and negotiation, and it is worth it. We are going to insist on this. It is worth talking, negotiating and reaching agreements,” said PSOE spokesperson Montserrat Mínguez, after publishing the Junts decision, which will now have to ratify its militancy, but before Puigdemont spoke. Mínguez, who is a deputy for Lleida, has assured that the continuity of the Government is “the best for Catalonia and the best for Spain.” And in the Government they deny the major breaches of the agreements that Puigdemont denounces. “We are complying with what was agreed. In what is in the hands of others, we are working to ensure that it is fulfilled,” they say in the PSOE.