The leader of the Spanish Socialist Party, Pedro Sánchez, was sworn in as Spain’s new prime minister on Thursday with a majority of 179 votes, including backing from Catalan and Basque separatist parties.
Partido Popular (PP/EPP), the main opposition force, and the far-right Vox party (ECR), voted against (171 votes), reiterating that they will step up their democratic “resistance” to the controversial Catalan amnesty law, including at the EU level, in the European Parliament.
The first session of Sánchez’s (PSOE/S&D) investiture debate began on Wednesday with tough words from Vox president Santiago Abascal, who accused Sánchez of having “staged a coup” for his pacts with Catalan separatists on an amnesty law to pardon those involved in the 2017 secessionist attempt in Catalonia.
He further compared Sánchez to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, EFE reported.
The PSOE’s parliamentary spokesman, Patxi López, reproached on Thursday the PP for its harsh statements against the amnesty law and its attacks on the prime minister, while asking the party for “moderation” in its statements, which bring them closer to the far-right, he said.
“Don’t keep feeding the beast (of Vox), because it will end up devouring you. Don’t turn your frustration at not having the government into invitations to hatred,” López warned, El País reported.
“Legitimate, democratic and constitutional”
In his speech, Sánchez said that from now on a new era is starting in Spain in which the progressive government will pay more attention to the “plurinationality” of the state. As a symbolic gesture, he thanked in the co-official languages (Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician) the nationalist and separatist parties that have backed him.
The new prime minister emphasised that his investiture was “legitimate” and stressed that a “legitimate, democratic and constitutional” government would emerge from it, and called on the PP to admit its “defeat” after the 23 July snap elections, public radio and television RTVE reported.
As expected, Sánchez won the backing of the Catalan separatist parties Together For Catalonia (JxCat) and Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), the Basque pro-independence parties PNV (moderate nationalist) and EH Bildu (far-left nationalist), the regional party Coalición Canaria (Canary islands) and the regional formation Bloque Nacionalista Gallego (BNG, Galicia).
Vox, which has taken Sánchez to court this week for alleged crimes of “cooperation with terrorism” relating to the future amnesty law, is the third largest force in parliament and governs with the PP in several regions and municipalities.
However, the backing of the Catalan and Basque separatists, who will secure the stability for the four-year legislature – including the approval of the national budget – is not for “free”.
Last week, JxCat leader and former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, in self-exile in Belgium after the serious events of 2017, warned Sánchez that he would closely monitor, through several control commissions and an “international mediator”, that his (right-wing separatist) party’s pact with the PSOE is fully complied with.
Sánchez needed the “yes” of the seven JxCat MPs in Parliament to return to power.
Last minute scare by the Catalans
The suspense was in the air until the final moments, with no certainty on whether JxCat would vote in favour of Sánchez’s investiture or abstain, after the discontent caused in Puigdemont’s party when the prime minister on Wednesday referred to the amnesty law as a “pardon” for crimes that – in the opinion of the Catalan separatists – they did not commit.
Finally, JxCat’s spokesperson in Parliament, Míriam Nogueras, confirmed only a couple of hours before Thursday’s vote that the separatist party would vote “yes”, El Periódico de Catalunya, reported.
“We respect the agreements we have reached. Months ago we began negotiations [with the PSOE] that continue today, and the investiture (…) is just one of the points of the agreement we have signed,” Nogueras told Catalan radio station RAC1.
Meanwhile, EH Bildu’s spokesperson in Parliament, Mertxe Aizpurua, warned Sánchez that the party [with its six seats] backs him “without games, speculation, threats or warnings” but that their support is in exchange for advances in more competences from Madrid to the Basque Country.
It is not a “blank cheque”, she stressed.
Sánchez’s first government ran from June 2018 to January 2020. At that time his coalition partner was Unidas Podemos (EU Left), at that time led by Pablo Iglesias, who was one of his vice-presidents and minister of social rights.
His second mandate ran between 2020 and July 2023, when snap general elections took place.
The “Sánchez III” government, in coalition with the progressive platform Sumar, kicked off formally on Thursday.
[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]
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