Sanchez Cabinet In Hot Water As Budget Draft Rejected, Catalan Sedition Trial Begins

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is under strong pressure as he faces right-wing anti-government rallies on the one side and a backlash from the Catalan pro-independence parties amid the start of a court hearing against regional politicians on the other, while his minority socialist government's budget draft fails to get the required support from forces on both political fronts and makes a snap parliamentary election very likely

BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th February, 2019) Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is under strong pressure as he faces right-wing anti-government rallies on the one side and a backlash from the Catalan pro-independence parties amid the start of a court hearing against regional politicians on the other, while his minority socialist government's budget draft fails to get the required support from forces on both political fronts and makes a snap parliamentary election very likely.

Earlier in the day 191 members of the lower chamber had rejected the government's 2019 budget draft, while 158 voted in favor and one abstained. Thus, the budget project will return back to the cabinet, but it may not put a new draft to vote for the second time.

The critical vote almost coincides with a key date in the history of the Catalan crisis, which was launched when the regional parliament declared Catalonia independent after over 90 percent of voters backed the cause during the October 2017 referendum. A day before, the Supreme Court started hearing the cases of Catalan politicians accused of sedition and embezzling state funds during the referendum.

Meanwhile, the government is also under pressure from the parties on the right of the political spectrum: the conservative People's Party (PP), the centrist Citizens party and the new hard-right party Vox party. On Sunday, they jointly held a massive demonstration in Madrid accusing Sanchez of mishandling the Catalan crisis and calling for an early election. According to the police, the rally drew some 45,000 people.

According to Monday media reports, Sanchez is considering the option of holding parliamentary elections on April 14, a year earlier than initially planned. The government's failure to garner support for the budget is likely to trigger this scenario.

PROTESTS ON THE RIGHT OF POLITICAL SPECTRUM

The demonstrators of the three parties claimed that Sanchez was betraying Spain by accepting a mediator in the dispute with the Catalan separatists. All three parties are strongly opposed to an independent Catalonia, so is the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), but with nuances.

Sanchez has been seeking to ease tension in the Catalan region by launching negotiations with the government in Barcelona, which regained power in May last year after being under direct rule by Madrid for seven months but remains defiantly pro-independence.

For the last year, the configuration of the minority government functioned more or less because Sanchez continued maintaining that the Catalan approach was unconstitutional despite the talks with the Catalan government.

Sanchez, however, has recently said that he will appoint a "rapporteur" for talks with separatists, while the PP party and Citizens argue that that such a move would mean giving in to separatist pressure and call for an early general election. All demonstrators, including small far-right groups adopted slogans such as "For a united Spain. Elections now! Sanchez out!"

Yet, Catalan politicians are also dissatisfied amid the start of the trial, which Jordi Sole, a European parliament member and the mayor of Caldes de Montbui in Catalonia, in a comment to Sputnik described as "the most embarrassing political trial that the European Union has ever seen in its entire history."

"It is the symbol of the failure of European values. We, Catalan separatists want to demonstrate to this Europe that has left us aside when our elected officials have been slammed up, that we are the ones who defend democracy," Sole added.

A spokesperson for former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, meanwhile, expressed hope for "total acquittal for all accused," stressing that only this outcome could restore credibility of the Spanish institutions.

"Of course, I hope for total acquittal for all accused. Absolution would obviously be a good solution for us, but also for Spain. It would show the credibility of the Spanish institutions. We remain open to proposals on the political front, but we are still waiting for a Spanish government brave enough to negotiate," the spokesperson told Sputnik.

According to the spokesperson, the fact that "the only idea to open a dialogue with Catalonia generates a political crisis" means that "Spain has a real problem," while Sanchez has "too much opposition within his own party. "

Meanwhile, the socialist government under Sanchez faced major problems in getting support for the 2019 budget in parliament, as the ruling PSOE party holds only 84 out of 350 seats in the lower chamber.

To get approval for the budget, the prime minister needed bipartisan support from the hard-left Podemos party and the Catalan nationalists. Catalan nationalist parties previously warned that their support for the budget depended on whether Sanchez's proposed talks would include the issue of independence.

Sanchez, however, once again ruled out on Monday that he would accept the possibility of a new Catalan independence referendum.

Dark clouds actually amassed over Madrid back on Friday, when Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo Poyato (PSOE) announced that the talks on the budget with Catalan parties were off, and that there would be no more proposals from Madrid.

"This government made a firm decision to build as many bridges as possible, but right now, the framework we have created is not being accepted by the pro-independence parties. Now we have to pass the budget in parliament. Without a budget approved, the political term would be cut short. We have done everything we could as a government," she told the Spanish media after Friday's cabinet meeting.

WHAT COULD GENERAL ELECTION BRING?

All polls indicate that the PP party, Citizens party and Vox would together win a majority in a general election.

In December, the three parties jointly won power in the southern region of Andalusia and formed since a regional government, ousting the Socialists, who had been in power there for 36 years.

According to Christian Behrend, a professor of constitutional law at Belgium's University of Liege, a new election would not change the status of Catalonia well enshrined in the constitution.

"Spain is a sovereign state with a well-structured constitution. Whatever the government that will come out of the general elections, if and when they take place, will have the legal legitimacy to suppress or restore at any moment the regional self-governance of Catalonia. Until now, all rules have been respected," Behrend told Sputnik.

Under the Spanish constitution, "independence cannot be decreed without the agreement of the Spanish Supreme Court," he added.

Assessing the electorate's mood, Izaskun Bilbao Barandica, a European Parliament member from the Basque region of Spain and former president of the Basque parliament, claimed that people rejected the cause promoted by VOX, PP and Citizens.

"The number of citizens that attended the demonstration on Sunday was much lower than expected. This fact means that nine out of ten Spanish people prefer dialogue than conflict. That is why I think that the better option is to continue until 2020 because the confidence that Sanchez got in the Spanish parliament needs an opportunity to prove that another governance is possible in Spain," she told Sputnik.

According to her, Sanchez's government, which took power in a successful no-confidence vote in Mariano Rajoy of the PP party, represents a shift in Madrid's stance by agreeing to a dialogue.

"During the last years the rule in Spain has been the refusal of dialogue. Spain needs also a democratic regeneration. The nearest cause of the fall of the last center-right government, led by was the evidence that the People's Party was illegally financed for years in a dark and corrupt way," she claimed.

She also went on to note that the negotiations proposed by Sanchez with an intermediary were actually "a very common technique to improve the development and outcome of a negotiation process," which was previously used by Rajoy and other prime ministers as well as elsewhere around the world.