The Spanish government has held its last plenary session of the year in Congress –The first one with José Luis Ábalos suspended as a deputyBittersweet, but without major surprises. On the one hand, the government again lost the vote on the stability plan (deficit and debt targets), something that was already expected. But on the other hand, it managed to pass a series of social measures: aid for those affected by the La Palma volcano, the increase in civil servants' salaries, and the processing of the reform of the law on the rights of people with disabilities and the reform of the dependency law. Added to this are the so-called Junts decrees, with the demands of Carles Puigdemont's party, which the PSOE unblocked in an attempt to rebuild the relationship, and which also passed. The Spanish government is viewing the plenary session's outcome with enthusiasm: "There's a lot of noise, but we managed to pass the votes," government sources say. However, Pedro Sánchez opted for remote voting this Thursday and did not attend what was the last session of 2025 in Congress. where the topic of conversation has been the latest arrests due to suspicions of corruption surrounding the Spanish government and the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party)..

Pedro Sánchez made it clear this Monday in an interview on Spanish National Television (TVE) that the legislature will continue even if he fails to approve the 2026 state budget. Without underestimating the political value of the budget, he considers it an "instrument" to carry out the government's actions, but "not an end in itself," and that he can continue to deploy his two with the two. In this way, he anticipated a hypothetical parliamentary defeat—at this point, the numbers don't add up, and it doesn't seem like Podemos is willing to give the PSOE any breathing space—and the Spanish government is already beginning to construct a narrative in which its partners will also have to assume responsibility for the legislature continuing without updated accounts.

Pedro Sánchez has chosen not to formally announce that he will not present the 2025 budget, although as of April 23, it's obvious that there's practically no point in presenting a draft when the stability path hasn't even been approved. "The government is committed to presenting the budget. A 2% commitment, we have to do it as soon as possible," the Spanish president said in his appearance on Tuesday. Letting the days pass is a way of confirming that he will not present this year's accounts, but he avoids an announcement that would be detrimental to him because it would show that he doesn't have the support in Congress. A window of opportunity to move forward. defense and security investment plan announced this Tuesday without going through the lower chamber. If accompanied by new accounts, it would hardly find the necessary support to approve figures that would put the increase in military spending in black and white. The Spanish government has opted for budgetary engineering to finance an investment plan that still cannot count on new money from Europe.

The last time the Congress of Deputies rejected a draft state budget was on February 13, 2019. Faced with votes against from parties such as PDECat and ERC, among others, Pedro Sánchez called early elections. According to sources from Moncloa consulted by ARA, this will not happen again this year. The Spanish president has no intention of approving a budget if he does not have his support guaranteed. He has made this decision taking into account that Junts, ERC and Podemos are currently very far from providing oxygen to the PSOE and Sumar government to last the entire legislature.

The Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) has reached a new agreement with the Spanish government for the budgets of the State, as ACN advanced and ARA has confirmed. To avoid presenting an amendment to the totality of the budget, it agreed that PSOE would approve the new media law alongside ERC, it has now agreed a 6% quota of new productions for co-official languages (Catalan, Galician and Basque). Thus, 30% of platforms such as Netflix's catalogue will have to be made up by European productions, half of them in state languages. Of these, 40% will have to be in Catalan, Basque or Galician. Thus, 20% of the European catalogue would be in co-official languages. The budget also includes €10.5 million to encourage the creation of content in co-official languages.