The Congress approves with the votes of PP and Junts that Sánchez resign or submit to a confidence vote

MadridThe Congress approved this Thursday, with the votes of the PP and Junts, that the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, resign or undergo a confidence vote. After the vote, the right-wing bench rightly shouted "resignation" while the socialist deputies responded with applause to Sánchez, who left the hemicycle with an immutable smile. It is a symbolic vote, as Sánchez has no intention of making any move, but politically the alliance of Junts with the right to put pressure on the Spanish government is relevant. The gesture comes after yesterday Míriam Nogueras asked Pedro Sánchez to step aside and make way for another candidate for the presidency of the Spanish government.

In fact, the confidence vote is one of the requests that Junts had made a year ago, when they demanded that the Spanish president submit to it if he did not comply with the investiture agreements. The group finally ended up withdrawing it in exchange for agreeing with the socialists on an international mediator to intervene in the negotiations. A year later, the Junts deputies voted in favor of the PP's motion that called for this confidence vote, but also for the resignation of Pedro Sánchez due to the judicial cases surrounding the PSOE. The original text also included the request to call early elections, but the Congress's board — with the votes of PSOE and Sumar — vetoed this part, which could not be put to a vote.

Although the PP continues to maintain that it will not present a motion of no confidence, the instrument that could really force Sánchez's fall, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has claimed that Thursday's vote is "decisive" and proclaimed that it "will go down in the history of Spanish parliamentarism". "From today onwards, the president is acting against the absolute majority of Congress," he argued in statements in the corridors of the lower house. The PP leader said he "takes good note" of the result of the vote promoted by his party, although he refused to anticipate events or future alliances with Junts. From the PP, they see Carles Puigdemont's party as unpredictable, because this Wednesday they avoided voting with them in the Senate on an initiative to request early elections, which the Junts deputies have been demanding for weeks.

"Zero" political effect

This is why the Popular Party insists that, despite Thursday's vote, they will not register a motion of no confidence until they have guaranteed votes for it. "We will see what it consolidates into," said Feijóo, who believes that the Junts supporters should be the ones to let him know if they are willing to move from symbolism to real action against Sánchez. Precisely this scenario is what leads sources in the Spanish government to argue that the PP's motion, approved with the votes of Junts and Vox, has "zero" political effect. The same sources argue that they have managed to move forward other votes in the same plenary session.

Specifically, with the votes in favor or abstention of Junts, the socialists have approved the bill that criminally punishes conversion therapies for LGBTI+ people, a transfer of ownership and competencies of the AP-9 highway to Galicia, as well as the decree that subsidizes transport for young people during the summer. Thus, for now, this further step by Junts in criticizing the Spanish government maintains the same scenario of continuity for a legislature with an uncertain end, but which, for the moment, does not seem imminent.