Catalan separatists voted to sever ties with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialists, further weakening his minority government. Citing a “lack of will” from the Socialists, separatist Junts’ party leader Carles Puigdemont said Sánchez had failed to carry out the promises made in 2023 when he persuaded Junts’ seven lawmakers in the Spanish parliament to back his bid to remain in power. The break is dire for Sánchez, whose government has no hope of passing legislation without the support of Junts’ lawmakers. The prime minister has not been able to get a new budget approved since the start of this term and has instead governed with extensions of the 2022 budget and EU recovery cash. Without the backing of Catalan separatist lawmakers, the Socialists have no way to secure the additional funds needed to comply with U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands Madrid increase its defense spending. Puigdemont said the Socialists no longer “have the capacity to govern” and challenged Sánchez to explain how he intends to remain in power. But the exiled separatist leader appeared to reject teaming up with the center-right People’s Party and the far-right Vox group to back a censure motion to topple Sánchez outright. “We will not support any government that does not support Catalonia, this one or any other,” the separatist leader said, apparently ruling out collaboration with the parties, both of which are opposed to the separatist movement and its nationalist objectives. INCOMPLETE COMMITMENTS During his press conference in Perpignan, Puigdemont reprimanded Sánchez and his Socialist Party for failing to keep its promises. In exchange for Junts’ crucial support in 2023, the prime minister’s party committed to passing an amnesty law benefiting hundreds of separatists and other measures. While many of those vows — among them, new rules allowing the use of Catalan in the Spanish parliament — have been fulfilled, others are pending. The Spanish parliament passed the promised amnesty bill last year, but its full application has since been halted by the courts. Spain’s Supreme Court has specifically blocked Puigdemont — who fled Spain following the failed 2017 Catalan independence referendum and has since lived in exile in Waterloo, Belgium — from benefiting from the law, citing pending embezzlement charges. Carles Puigdemont said the Socialists no longer “have the capacity to govern.” | Gloria Sanchez/Getty Images The lack of change in his status quo is a source of deep frustration for the separatist leader, who in a 2024 interview with POLITICO said his greatest desire was to “go home to Girona, to enjoy my homeland and be with my wife and daughters … to lead a normal life that will allow me to become anonymous once again.” Puigdemont also cited the Socialists’ inability to get Catalan recognized as an official EU language as a reason for the break in relations. Spanish diplomats have spent the past two years lobbying counterparts in Brussels and national capitals and recently persuaded Germany to back the proposal. But numerous countries remain opposed to the idea, arguing the move would cost the EU millions of euros in new translation and interpretation fees and embolden Breton, Corsican or Russian-speaking minorities to seek similar recognition. The separatist leader added that the Sánchez government’s reluctance to give Catalonia jurisdiction over immigration within that region proved that although there might be “personal trust” between the Socialists and Junts’ representatives, “political trust” was lacking. Junts’ members are now called upon to either ratify or reject the executive committee’s decision in an internal consultation that concludes Thursday. The party’s supporters, who include Puigdemont’s most devoted followers, are expected to overwhelmingly back the move to break with the Socialists. Over the past two years Junts has hardly been an unwavering source of support for Sánchez’s weak minority government. The party has declined to back key bills and stressed that it is not part of the “progressive” coalition composed of the Socialists and the left-wing Sumar party, but rather a pragmatic partner that is solely focused on Catalonia’s interests. At a meeting of the Socialist Party leadership in Madrid on Monday, Sánchez insisted the party should “remain open to dialogue and willing to engage” with Junts. Following Puigdemont’s speech, Science and Universities Minister Diana Morant expressed doubts “Junts’ electorate voted in favor of letting Vox or the People’s Party govern” and said the Catalan separatists needed to “choose whether they want Spain to represent progress or regression.”

MADRID — With his conservative People’s Party comfortably ahead in polls and the Socialist-led government mired in scandals, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has never looked so close to becoming Spanish prime minister. In theory, Spain doesn’t need to hold a general election until 2027 but outrage over corruption investigations into the center-left party of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is building to such a fever pitch that the country could well be heading for a snap election. This weekend, Feijóo will lead an extraordinary convention of his party in Madrid to confirm his position as leader and amplify the idea that he is ready to govern. “Let’s end this nightmare,” he told supporters as he lambasted Sánchez. “We just want to know when he’s going to sign his resignation letter.” Actually removing Sánchez, however, comes down to tight margins in parliamentary alliances. When grilled about why he had not brought a motion of no confidence in the battered government on June 18, Feijóo told Sánchez: “I don’t lack willingness, I lack four votes.” At the national level, most polls show the People’s Party (PP) leading Sánchez’s Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) by a clear margin — echoing the 2023 election. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls puts the PP on 34 percent and the Socialists on 27 percent. “Feijóo knows that it’s now or never, because I don’t think he’ll have another chance like this,” said Oriol Bartomeus, a political scientist at Barcelona’s Autonomous University.  Despite winning the most votes in 2023, Feijóo was unable to form a governing majority. Instead, Sánchez managed to bring together a broad coalition of allies — perhaps most critically a handful of small Catalan and Basque parties, which abhor the PP’s strident hostility to separatism and its willingness to engage with the far-right Vox. The pressures Feijóo faces in Madrid have pushed him to team up with forces further to the right, where he’s found strong allies in attacking the leftist government. Many polls suggest the PP and Vox could together win enough seats in an election to form a majority. But none of this means Feijóo will find it plain sailing to take power. His own party also has a corrupt image, while he faces stiff competition from within its ranks. Despite the woes of the Socialists, Feijóo may still lack sufficient support to build a governing alliance. While he certainly has a prime opportunity, nothing is guaranteed. SOCIALISTS UNDER SIEGE The most recent investigations into corruption have been a gift for Feijóo and his party, who describe the Sánchez government as “a mafia.” On June 12, Sánchez apologized to Spaniards for having trusted Santos Cerdán, his party’s No. 3, who was implicated by audio recordings in a kickbacks-for-contracts scheme. The affair also triggered an investigation into another former senior Socialist and Sánchez ally, José Luis Ábalos, who had been transport minister. Cerdán, who denies involvement in the scheme, has been placed in preventive custody. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, 63, took the reins of the conservative People’s Party in 2022 as a seasoned moderate who had won four elections in a row in the northwestern region of Galicia, a PP stronghold. | Carlos Lujan/Europa Press via Getty Images The recordings included sordid discussions about prostitutes and apparent evidence that Sánchez’s allies had rigged voting when he won the PSOE primary in 2014. Meanwhile, other recordings seemed to show party operative Leire Díez offering favorable treatment to a businessman in exchange for damaging information about the Civil Guard unit probing individuals close to Sánchez, including his wife and brother. Díez says she was gathering material for a book. Regardless of the revelations, the prime minister has refused to resign or bring forward elections, arguing that the scandals are isolated cases and that he is keeping an extremist opposition out of power.  As long as his delicate parliamentary majority remains in place, there is little Feijóo can do to oust him. SWINGING TOO FAR RIGHT? Feijóo, 63, took the reins of the party in 2022 as a seasoned moderate who had won four elections in a row in the northwestern region of Galicia, a PP stronghold.  He has launched fierce attacks on the government for its willingness to engage with separatists and push through an amnesty law to benefit the pro-independence Catalans, which form a critical part of the fragile Sánchez coalition.  Facing pressure from the right-wing media, Vox, and PP colleague Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Madrid region and a potential competitor, Feijóo has variously described Sánchez as a caudillo — meaning “strongman,” a term used to refer to dictator Francisco Franco — “an international embarrassment” and “a veritable threat to democracy.” He has also taken this combative approach to Brussels, where the PP unsuccessfully tried to block the appointment of Spanish Socialist Teresa Ribera as European commissioner. In May, the PP successfully campaigned to thwart a Spanish government effort to make Catalan, Basque and Galician official EU languages — an important promise Sánchez made to the nationalist parties in his coalition. “Feijóo underwent a process of radicalization and now his position is one of a classic Madrid conservative leader,” said Bartomeus, who says he has still not won over many traditional PP voters. “But when you spend every moment warning of the apocalypse and then the apocalypse doesn’t come, you start to have a problem.” Frustrated, Feijóo has even floated the possibility Sánchez committed fraud in the 2023 general election. Pointing to apparent irregularities in the 2014 Socialist primary, he said: “If you’ve already robbed a jewelry store, why not rob a bank?” Such comments have drawn claims that the PP leader has strayed into the territory of Vox further to the right. “Feijóo is two interviews away from saying that the Earth is flat and vaccines kill,” said left-wing commentator Esther Palomera. NO STRANGERS TO SCANDAL The longer the famously resilient Sánchez digs in, the less time remains for Feijóo. That’s partly due to the high stock of two of his rivals in the PP: hardline maverick Ayuso and the moderate president of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno Bonilla, both seen as potential threats to take the leadership. The longer the famously resilient Pedro Sánchez digs in, the less time remains for Alberto Núñez Feijóo. | Magali Cohen/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images And that’s before we even get to the corruption problem within Feijóo’s own party. Sánchez took power in 2018 by removing the scandal-plagued PP of Mariano Rajoy from government. The judicial fallout from that era continues, with several cases involving conservative politicians still being processed.  In the spring of 2026, the “Operation Kitchen” case is due to come to trial, with former senior PP figures facing accusations of orchestrating a deep-state operation to destroy damaging evidence against the party. The trial could cement the idea that graft plagues both mainstream parties, bolstering the far right in polls. Meanwhile, the Socialists have reminded Spaniards of Feijóo’s former friendship with a notorious Galician drug trafficker, Marcial Dorado. In 2013, photos were published of the men on vacation together in the 1990s. Feijóo has never explained the circumstances of the relationship. Instead, he embraced the idea of being someone to whom success does not necessarily come easily. “Today, I tell you with all humility that I am better than the politician who achieves his objectives the first time around,” he said recently. Time is running out for him to prove that remains the case.