Acting deputy PM to meet with Puigdemont in Brussels to discuss electoral impasse

Spain's acting deputy prime minister, Yolanda Díaz of Sumar, will meet with former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont of hardline pro-independence Junts per Catalunya this Monday morning in Brussels.  

As was first reported by El Nacional online newspaper and confirmed by the Catalan News Agency (ACN), Puigdemont, who has lived in Belgium for almost six years in an effort to evade prosecution for the 2017 Catalan independence referendum deemed illegal by Spain, and Díaz will discuss Junts' potential support for a Pedro Sánchez prime ministerial bid. 

Díaz, however, is only negotiating on behalf of Sumar and not of the Spanish government, cabinet sources maintained. 

Because Spain's left-wing Socialist-Sumar bloc fell short of a majority in the July 23 general elections, it needs the backing of smaller regional parties, including Junts, to form a government - an abstention will not do. 

Although the conservative People's Party was the most-voted party and will face an investiture vote at the end of the month, it has yet to secure the backing of the requisite 176 MPs, even with far-right Vox's votes. 

This means the Spanish left has a greater chance of staying in power if it manages to sway Catalan and Basque nationalist parties, as was the case in early 2020. 

But almost four years ago, an abstention from left-wing pro-independence Esquerra Republicana was enough to make Sánchez prime minister. This time around, however, he will need both Esquerra and often diametrically opposed Junts to vote for him. 

There have been some signs of a Socialist-pro-independence thaw in recent weeks, with the Catalan pro-independence parties voting to make the Socialists' Francina Armengol congressional speaker and a draft bill to allow Spain's co-official languages to be spoken in the chamber, and Sánchez himself has defended talks with Esquerra and Junts as a way of "leaving behind the rift of 2017."

But if neither Sánchez nor the People's Party's Alberto Núñez Feijóo are able to form a government, Spaniards will be heading to the polls once again in a few months' time.