Spain’s Socialists seek Catalan nationalist support to govern

Spain’s Socialists are due to open talks on Thursday with a Catalan pro-independence party as part of attempts to build enough support to form a new government.

The Socialists of acting prime minister Pedro Sánchez won a general election earlier this month but fell short of a parliamentary majority. They have agreed to govern in coalition with the leftist Podemos, but the two parties still need more support in the 350-seat Congress in order to win an investiture vote.

Although the Socialists appear to have the backing of an array of smaller regional parties, the parliamentary arithmetic is tight and the 13 seats of the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) could be key, even in the form of abstentions.

However, ERC’s insistence on discussing Catalonia’s right to self-determination and to hold a binding referendum on independence promises to be a hindrance to any agreement. The Socialists and most other unionist parties refuse to acknowledge this right on legal grounds.

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“Self-determination does not exist in our democracy and it has no basis in our constitution, which we all created for ourselves,” said Spanish deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo ahead of the negotiations. Instead, she said there was room to talk about “how Catalonia fits within the constitutional framework of our country”.

Podemos, which is not expected to take part in the talks, supports the idea of a Catalan independence referendum, although it advocates a united Spain.

Socialist concessions

Gabriel Rufián, a parliamentary spokesman for ERC, riled the Socialists by suggesting that because they lost a handful of seats in the election, it would be easier to wring concessions from them.

“As it’s a defeated Sánchez we’re talking about, we can get him to sit down and talk,” he said.

ERC’s members overwhelmingly voted this week in favour of holding formal negotiations with the Socialists before supporting the creation of a new government, which Mr Sánchez would reportedly like to see in place by Christmas.

However, there has been some debate over whether the talks should be between the Socialists and ERC or between the Spanish and Catalan governments, a format nationalists would prefer.

Adding to the tensions, on Tuesday the Catalan parliament approved a motion asserting the region’s right to self-determination and reprimanding the Spanish monarchy. The constitutional court had previously deemed the same motion unlawful, meaning the parliament’s action could open up a new legal front between Madrid and Catalonia.

Meanwhile, Mr Sánchez’s interim government has pushed through Congress a decree that seeks to clamp down on legal loopholes, which it believes the Catalan authorities have made use of in order to promote independence online. The decree, for example, attempts to prevent Catalan institutions using internet servers based abroad in order to thwart what has been called “the Catalan digital republic”.