Congress Bureau postpones Junts' confidence motion against PM Sánchez for second time
Government buys more time to negotiate with Puigdemont's party
The Spanish Congress Bureau has agreed for a second time to postpone a decision on whether or not to process the non-legislative proposal (PNL) from pro-independence party Junts that calls on Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez to submit to a vote of confidence.
A source indicated that the issue "is being left to be studied" with no specific date set for a decision. The initiative will continue to be analyzed in the coming weeks because it creates a precedent, the source said.
For practical purposes, they added, this postponement has no impact because Junts do not have a quota to submit an initiative to a Congress plenary session until mid- or late February. Therefore "there is no rush" to resolve the issue of processing the proposal.
The bureau has not asked Junts to reformulate the text, something which had been raised as a possibility.
Government buys time
With the postponement the governing parties, the Socialists and Sumar, have bought time, with the aim of keeping negotiations with Carles Puigdemont's party open.
The first secretary of the Bureau, Comuns co-spokesperson Gerardo Pisarello, said the parties are studying the initiative "to see how it can be adapted to the regulations," with the aim of being able to "continue talking about things that are important in Catalonia and Spain," such as "the implementation of the amnesty, budgets, rent caps, the minimum wage and reducing working hours."
Before the bureau meeting, Carles Puigdemont already summoned the Junts party leadership to Brussels for a meeting on Friday, January 17, while the Spanish government called on Junts to keep negotiation channels open.
Spain's Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, called on the pro-independence party not to "lose everything that has been built, and what can be built in the future."
Second postponement
The bureau's decision on Thursday morning comes one month after a first postponement on December 17, after Junts registered the initiative earlier that month.
The Spanish government is opposed to the initiative, arguing that only Sánchez himself can decide to submit to a confidence vote, but this week Junts had warned they would take decisions that "the Socialists will not like" if the bureau voted against the proposal.
It remains to be seen whether the decision to postpone for a second time will do anything to ease tensions within the fragile alliance between pro-independence Junts and Spain's governing Socialists.