This is an important agreement for the reappointment of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. The Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and the radical left party Sumar agreed on Tuesday to form a “progressive government”. Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez and Sumar leader Yolanda Diaz, current Minister of Labor, “finalized the details of a government pact” resulting from negotiations initiated since the end of July,” the two indicated. political groups in a press release.
Pedro Sanchez has governed in coalition with the far left since 2020. The latter, however, must convince several independence parties to support him in turn to stay in power. The agreement signed between the PSOE and Sumar will thus serve as a “programmatic” framework for the next “legislature”, specify in their press release the two parties, who plan to officially ratify it at midday in the presence of the two political leaders.
It includes in particular “advances” in the field of work, “such as the reduction of working hours without loss of salary” and “the immediate implementation of a shock plan” against “youth unemployment”, and “the upward revision of Spain’s climate objectives, they add.
Block the right
Pedro Sanchez came second in the legislative elections on July 23 behind the Popular Party (PP, right) of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. But the latter, deprived of an absolute majority, failed to form a coalition, opening the way to a new left-wing government. For this, Pedro Sanchez must obtain the support of Basque separatists, in particular Bildu, a group considered to be the heir to the political showcase of the armed organization ETA (now dissolved), which has already made it known that it would vote for him in order to block the right.
He also needs the support of Catalan separatists, and in particular Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), a group behind an abortive attempt at secession from Catalonia in 2017, whose leader Carles Puigdemont fled to Belgium to escape Spanish justice.
The latter, who have seven deputies, have upped the ante in recent weeks alongside the other Catalan independence party, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), in particular by demanding an amnesty for those responsible for the attempted secession of 2017. This request is denounced by the right and the far right, and criticized within the Socialist Party itself.