Junts Moves Closer to PP

Is Junts Preparing the Ground to Make a Deal with PP in the Face of an Imminent Fall of President Pedro Sánchez's Government? It's one of the hypotheses gaining traction amid the latest movements in Congress and the Senate. Faced with the desperate situation of the socialist government, Carles Puigdemont could be seeking shelter in a future right-wing government.

Junts took another step this Tuesday, voting alongside PNV in the Senate to force the Government to present the Budget. It's significant, not only because it highlights the weakness of a Government without an approved budget. Also because President Pedro Sánchez's partners are joining the parliamentary offensive of the opposition.

Only ERC and Bildu have supported the Government, albeit reluctantly. This shows the fracture between the two blocks of the left and the right. It's bad news for President Pedro Sánchez, who keeps the government with an ideologically polarized coalition.

Madrid-Catalonia Air Bridge

The motion by which the Senate urges the Government to fulfill its constitutional obligation to present the budget is not binding. But the abstention of Junts and PNV achieves the effect that PP sought. This is none other than to highlight the coalition's fracture at the moment of greatest weakness for the Government.

Junts's abstention is framed in the growing tension of Puigdemont's party with PSOE. Junts has threatened to withdraw its support if the socialists don't fulfill the agreements before the summer. With this year's budget extended, and next year's in the air, Sánchez is starting to seriously consider throwing in the towel.

The theory from Podemos that Sánchez will call early elections next year to coincide with the Andalusian elections seems less and less far-fetched. Faced with this possibility, Junts needs to seek some sort of continuity for its demands in the future government. Hence the approach to PP.

An approach that is not only strategic but also coincides with the rightward shift that Junts is experiencing. This connects Madrid politics with Catalan politics. The budget blockade in Madrid correlates with Illa's distancing in Catalonia.

Future PP-Junts Coalition?

Junts has marked a particular right-wing accent in the budget debate in Catalonia, trying to drag PSC into tax cuts. Also in Congress, it has voted on several economic motions alongside PP and PNV. Both in Madrid and Catalonia, this distances them from ERC and Comuns, who are the ones holding up the socialist governments.

In Junts, there is the conviction that their social and economic project is more congruent with PP than with PSOE. Also in the strategic plan. The fall of Sánchez's Government would isolate and weaken PSC, and relaunch Carles Puigdemont's candidacy as an alternative government in Catalonia.

The stumbling block remains Vox. Junts finds it very difficult, if not impossible, to enter a conservative coalition where the far-right is present. Doing so would greatly question the discourse that Junts has been marking in Catalonia in its particular competition with Aliança Catalana.

While the uncertain scenario of Spanish politics remains unsolved, Junts manages to put pressure on the Government and set the narrative in Catalonia. Quite the opposite of ERC, which consolidates itself as a priority partner of President Pedro Sánchez in Madrid and Salvador Illa in Catalonia.