JUST when Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez thought he had enough votes for his minority administration to pass his first budget since 2018, his hopes were yesterday dashed.
The Socialist PM had reached an agreement with smaller Catalan and Basque parties, such as ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia) on budget measures that included ending Spain’s oversight of Catalan finances – a hangover from the introduction of direct rule following the 2017 indyref.
One of the ERC’s leaders, Pere Aragones, the Catalan vice-president, announced the terms of the agreement on Wednesday, including an allocation of €2.3million (£2m) to Catalonia and granting the Barcelona government direct control of its share of EU reconstruction funds.
Catalan parties helped Sanchez into office in 2018 after ousting Mariano Rajoy’s conservatives in a no-confidence vote. However, they voted against his budget measures in protest at the jailing of pro-indy leaders, leading to two snap elections and months of political instability.
That instability returned yesterday when the leader of the centre-right Citizens party, Ines Arrimadas, withdrew from negotiations and announced they would be voting against the measures.
“Sanchez has preferred to take the hand of Oriol Junqueras and Arnaldo Otegi,” she said, in reference to the jailed ERC boss and former Catalan vice-president, Junqueras, and the head of the left-wing pro-Basque independence party EH Bildu.
Speaking in Madrid, Arrimadas said the accounts did not meet the requirements for a “centre party” to support them.
Sanchez chose the “radical option” as opposed to her “moderate one”, she said. “We are doing the right thing and we will continue to do the right thing.”
The Citizens’ vote was a minor victory Pablo Iglesias, who leads the coalition partner Podemos, who wanted to curtail their influence on budget negotiations.
Arrimadas added: “Spaniards will continue to see that there is a party that thinks in Spain and does not think in its political party.”
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