PNV and Junts, the two nationalist and theoretically conservative partners of the progressive coalition government, agree: the XV legislature is over, it has no future, and the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, should already press the button to call early elections. The pressure from PNV and Junts has not yet had any effect on Sánchez, who insists on maintaining that he wants to complete the mandate until the summer of 2027 despite the string of alleged corruption cases plaguing the PSOE, and has plunged the PP once again into another internal debate about what to do, whether to wait for the wear and tear to convince those partners to overthrow Sánchez now or dare to use the motion of no confidence as a gamble in uncertainty. The Catalan and Basque nationalists keep hammering that they do not want to know anything about a PP motion of no confidence in which Vox plays any role.
The Junts spokesperson in Congress, Míriam Nogueras, publicly announced last fall that her support relationship with the coalition government had ended and justified it by saying that the Executive had not fulfilled what was promised in the investiture pact, despite the political cost it meant for the PSOE to push the approved amnesty law and open relations with Carles Puigdemont. That has long ceased to be enough for Junts, in permanent competition in Catalonia and Madrid with ERC and locally with Aliança Catalana.
Nogueras, a month and a half ago, explicitly reiterated that distancing to President Sánchez himself in a control session of Congress, stating that it made no democratic sense to continue the legislature and try to govern without parliamentary support. That message has been repeated incessantly by all Junts deputies who have intervened since then, in any debate or commission.
Junts no longer finds the legislature useful. And neither does the PNV. The Catalan spokesperson emphasized this again on Friday in several interviews with national media, highlighting the symbolism for Catalonia of St. John’s Day, June 24, which is when the appearance requested by President Sánchez to present his view of what is currently happening with the cases assaulting the PSOE will most likely be held in Congress. “We usually, for St. John’s, burn what is not useful,” Nogueras repeated in several interviews.
“We are not here to put in and take out Spanish governments,” defended the Catalan spokesperson when asked if, given her end-of-term position, she could at some point support a PP motion of no confidence, even if simply to call elections. That is not the solution Junts advocates.
First, because of their rejection of any alliance with Vox: “Our red line was and remains Vox, and not just now, in fact we are the only party that refuses to participate in any initiative presented by that party,” Nogueras specified on RNE. Secondly, because Junts argues that the only person responsible who can call early elections or set a vote of confidence on his situation is Pedro Sánchez: “We do not have the button for elections nor the button for the motion, because with seven deputies we cannot make a motion,” Nogueras argued, in line with the PNV’s stance, which has also ruled out a motion of no confidence and states that “the legislature has come to an end.”
Regarding the vote of confidence, which is Junts’ main bet now, Nogueras did want to recall that former president Carles Puigdemont, from her party, called one in the past during a crisis situation and came out strengthened.
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The Junts leader categorically denied, moreover, that anyone from the PP had contacted her party to negotiate or probe anything related to the motion of no confidence. PP and Junts maintain basic parliamentary connections to know each other’s positions on some debates, especially economic ones, just as the Catalan nationalists do with some socialist officials for specific matters in process. Junts has also downplayed the meaning of its more usual conversations with the PNV, as ideologically and interest-wise sister parties, but has detached them from any joint action to overthrow Sánchez’s government or now boost the interests of Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s PP. Their priorities, like those of the PNV, have much more to do directly with the benefit they get from their votes in Madrid for the citizens of their respective territories.
Junts does not have much confidence in the explanations and promises Sánchez may make on June 24 before Congress. They maintain that accumulation of “filth,” as Nogueras called it, they have seen on other occasions. “On July 9 last year, President Sánchez already appeared,” after the scandal unleashed by the UCO report against Santos Cerdán within the corrupt network that supposedly profited from rigging public works contracts, “and told us that a series of anti-corruption measures would be implemented. Almost a year has passed and not only has nothing happened, nothing has been executed, but the situation is even worse.”
“Sánchez has a great shield: there is no alternative majority,” declared, in September 2024, in an interview with this newspaper, then PNV spokesperson in Congress, Aitor Esteban. More than a year and a half has passed and many things have changed: the socialists’ parliamentary situation is even more precarious; scandals have multiplied; Esteban is now the PNV leader and increasingly distances himself from the government, both in discourse and in some votes in Congress. But something remains unchanged: there is still no alternative majority. Because the PNV, although increasing pressure for Sánchez to end the legislature, shows no sign of suddenly changing sides, as in 2018, when it supported the motion of no confidence against Mariano Rajoy just days after having agreed the Budgets with him.
The repeated statements by Esteban, or the article in this newspaper by former lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu, have recently reinforced the feeling that the PNV does not want to remain tied to Sánchez. There is one circumstance that the jeltzales try to avoid at all costs: that the president makes the 2027 general elections coincide with the municipal ones. Those elections are especially relevant in the Basque Country, where the provincial councils, powerful bodies, are decided. All three are now in the hands of the PNV, which fears being harmed in a hypothetical super election Sunday dominated by the national debate.
The PNV members need to increase their critical tone toward the government, among other things because they have a certain electorate bordering with the Populars. But embarking on an adventure with a PP that has linked its fate to Vox would expose another flank, the most nationalist one. There the competition is increasingly tight with EH Bildu, the main threat to the historic jeltzale hegemony. This is maintained, apart from its own resilience, thanks to the PNV’s agreements with the Basque Socialist Party, both in the Basque government and in the provincial and municipal institutions, which could be put at risk.
The political cornering situation in which the PNV finds itself was evidenced last Tuesday in the intervention of its spokesperson in the Senate, Estefanía Beltrán de Heredia. Faced with a PP motion demanding elections now, the nationalist representative agreed that the current government is “incapable of governing.” “But if we look at you all…,” she hastened to add pointing at the Populars. Then, she mentioned the “200 corruption cases” of the PP “that would be enough to wallpaper this entire chamber” and “their steady partner Vox.” And she concluded: “Trust, none.” In the vote, the PNV – like Junts – abstained.
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