First parliamentary setback for new Spanish government

The new Spanish government has had its first major setback after Congress failed to approve raising the debt limit by 4.4%. While the People's Party (PP) and Ciutadans (Cs) opposition parties voted against the proposal, left-wing Podemos, as well as pro-independence ERC and PDeCAT parties, who supported the Socialists in the motion of no confidence that saw the PP government ousted from power, chose to abstain.

Treasury minister Maria Jesús Montero said the government will now begin working on a budget for 2019 in accordance with the current debt limit set by the previous PP executive. Yet, the Spanish government also intends to present the proposal to Congress again in a few months (as the law allows) and will negotiate with the opposition parties to gain support.

With the failure to pass a higher debt limit, which had been given the green light by Brussels, Montero regretted that the opposition parties had caused the Spanish government to lose some six billion euros of spending, although she also said that it would not stop the government from drawing up a budget for 2019 based on the previous debt limit.

Meanwhile, Socialist party spokesman José Zaragoza regretted the position adopted by the Catalan pro-independence ERC and PDeCAT parties, and he pointed out that their siding with the opposition will deprive the Catalan government of an extra 500 million euros in the next budget: "We now have less spending," he said.

Podemos and the Catalan parties argue that the law of budgetary stability needs reforming, so as to bypass the veto of PP, which has a majority in the Senate. As PP had already said it would vote against the proposal in the Senate, Podemos and the pro-independence parties preferred not to back a measure doomed to failure, while also reminding Sánchez that without their support his Socialist government stands alone.