Carles Puigdemont, leader of the Catalan separatist party Junts, has refused to join with the right-wing VOX and Partido Popular (PP) to table a no-confidence motion against Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez, describing the offer as a “macabre joke.”
He has, however, made it clear that Sánchez’s best interests are not in mind—remember that Junts introduced its own parliamentary measure just last month urging the PM to submit to a motion of confidence.
Instead, Puigdemont is capitalising on the Socialist-led government’s reliance on his MPs in Madrid to double down on his demands. Among those demands are the transfer of immigration powers to regional officials in Catalonia and for the government to campaign for Catalan to be made an official language in EU institutions.
Junts has previously criticised the government’s unwillingness to deliver its promises, and says—on migration, for example—that it will accept nothing less than “comprehensive management.”
Siegfried Muresan, vice-president of the centrist European People’s Party, described Puigdemont’s demands as proof that Sánchez is his “puppet.”
Junts may have refused to join ranks with PP and VOX to force Sánchez out, but its secretary general, Jordi Turull, did still call on Tuesday for the PM to submit to a vote of confidence. Parliament will meet on Thursday, to decide whether to accept this request.
