The Dilemma of Whether to Give Sánchez More Time

For the Catalanist parties that joined the parliamentary majority supporting Pedro Sánchez’s government in 2023, the current balance of power in Spain may be as favorable as they are likely to find in the short term. Yet the majority has reached the final stretch of the legislature exhausted and broken, with everything taking on a distinctly pre-election character.

The center-left bloc has moved forward for three years, but it has not completed its goals. Its two main Catalanist allies, Junts and Esquerra Republicana, need more time. Their priorities include an amnesty for the leaders of the 2017 Catalan revolt and reform of regional financing. The amnesty remains tied up in the judicial agenda, while the autonomous communities governed by the PP and Vox alliance are firmly opposing measures that could benefit their regions if that would allow Sánchez’s government to claim a success.

That leaves Junts and Esquerra in the awkward position of having to breathe life into a government they are also willing to distance themselves from and criticize, as shown during the parliamentary debate over the Ceuta crisis. Even Sumar and the Comuns, which form part of the executive, are acting as though they have one foot inside and one outside the coalition.

It is difficult to say which party is in the weakest position. The Socialists face intense pressure from the right, in the streets, the courts and conservative media. Sumar has lost Yolanda Díaz and is trying to regroup, as are Podemos and Compromís. Esquerra’s participation in Spanish political debate under Gabriel Rufián has again exposed a gap between the party’s prominence and its internal support. The Comuns remain in a flat period after Ada Colau’s peak.

Junts has become a local expression of a wider European trend: moderate right-wing parties moving toward more extreme positions, close to xenophobia. That shift rejects the formula Jordi Pujol used to build his party and its political successes. Junts is now retreating from its initial support for Sánchez just as the Socialists face fierce attacks from the PP, Vox and the judicial right over the amnesty.