Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was accused of betraying the Spanish people in the Catalan political crisis and of bad governance, among other serious accusations, by the Vox party, who have tabled a censure motion against the prime minister.
The motion, drafted by veteran economist and former communist party member Ramón Tamames was filed by Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, on Monday, EURACTIV’s partner EFE reported.
At a press conference Abascal explained that Vox does not “want to stand idly by” nor can it “pretend” before a government “that attacks national unity” and “that is guilty of going against the rule of law“, about the political crisis in Catalonia.
“Vox has tried everything in this legislature (…) denouncing the Government in the courts (…) with two motions of censure and there will be those who say that Vox makes mistakes, and I agree, but no one can say that Vox has looked the other way”, Abascal explained after presenting the text of the motion in the Parliament’s registry, with the backing of the 52 MPs of his parliamentary group.
Vox bases its motion of censure against Sánchez on five reasons, and in the introduction of the text, the party alludes to the “urgent obligation to expel the Government and call general elections”.
Vox is currently the third force in the Spanish parliament and governs together with the PP in the Castilla and León region.
The motion of censure, however, has no chance of being adopted, but in Vox’s opinion, it can be useful to highlight before the Spanish public opinion the bad governance and serious mistakes made by the Spanish left-wing coalition.
To be successful, the motion of censure requires an absolute majority in Parliament (176 votes), an almost impossible goal given the negative positions expressed by other political groups.
PSOE’s Deputy Secretary General and Spanish Finance Minister, María Jesús Montero, stressed that the party would analyse the censure motion with “seriousness” in order “not to play into the hands of anti-politics” and again attacked the PP for abstaining and not opposing the far-right.
“For us not to play into the hands of anti-politics is to give seriousness to this motion,” Montero said at a press conference at the headquarters of the PSOE in Madrid.
Meanwhile, PSOE’s junior partner in the coalition, left-wing Unidas Podemos (GUE-NGL), said on Monday that it has not yet decided how it will react to Vox’s motion of censure and is considering different formulas with other left-wing partners to see how to respond to this “absurdity”, party sources told EFE.
Municipal elections will be held in May in Spain – a vote many views as the first litmus test for Sanchez’s governing coalition with Unidas Podemos.
General elections will be held in December when Spain is in the final month of its EU Council presidency, which starts on 1 July for six months.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.EURACTIV.es)
Source: euractiv.com
