Political tensions in Madrid have intensified as Junts, a basic Catalan party in the Spanish Congress, signals growing distance from the central government. Parliamentary spokesperson Míriam Nogueras has called for an early end to the current legislature, while the party has made clear it does not want Partido Popular (PP) leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo to become prime minister. Junts can withdraw support from Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, but backing a no-confidence motion naming Feijóo would mean supporting his appointment, not simply paving the way for elections.
That constraint is built into Article 113 of the Spanish Constitution. A motion of censure must be proposed by at least 35 deputies, one-tenth of the 350-seat Congress, and name a candidate to lead the government. It requires an absolute majority of 176 votes to pass. If successful, the named candidate is considered invested. The procedure cannot force an election without choosing a successor. A failed motion leaves the government in office, and its signatories cannot submit another during the same parliamentary session.
The parliamentary arithmetic explains why Junts is basic, but not automatically aligned with either bloc. In the 2023 general election, the PP won 137 seats, the PSOE 121, Vox 33, Sumar 31, ERC seven and Junts seven. Feijóo’s September 2023 investiture bid failed, with 172 votes in favour and 177 against. Sánchez secured investiture in November with 179 votes, including Junts’s seven deputies, after negotiations over an amnesty law and other political commitments. Junts’s support for that vote did not make it a coalition partner or guarantee the government’s survival for the full legislature.
Joining the PP and Vox in a censure vote could bring down Sánchez’s government, but it would also make Junts responsible for helping install a right-wing administration. That could carry a impressive electoral cost in Catalonia, where Junts competes with ERC and has built its profile around a harder-line national stance. Nogueras has rejected the prospect of making Feijóo prime minister, leaving the party to balance its demand for an early end to the legislature against its opposition to the most direct parliamentary route to replacing Sánchez.
Junts has also floated the so-called “vía Starmer,” an analogy drawn from UK politics. But a procedural comparison cannot change Spain’s constitutional rules: a successful motion of censure transfers power to its named candidate rather than automatically triggering an election. Early elections can instead follow a dissolution of the Cortes by the prime minister, subject to constitutional restrictions, or result from an investiture impasse. The proposal highlights Junts’s difficulty in seeking an end to the legislature without endorsing a replacement government led by Feijóo.
With the political field becoming increasingly polarized, Junts appears to be shifting into campaign mode. The party is expected to present itself as a pragmatic force that has extracted concessions from Madrid while accusing ERC of being too closely aligned with the PSOE. This approach, sometimes described as “peix al cove 2.0,” relies on Junts retaining enough seats to remain basic in the next Congress. Some 2026 polling estimates have put the party at four or five seats, while other projections place it closer to seven; these are estimates, not election results. One cited projection put the PP and Vox together at 195 seats.
Junts’s strategy of negotiating issue by issue while remaining outside the central government resembles the “peix al cove” approach: extracting incremental gains from Madrid and claiming credit for them. The model depends on retaining parliamentary use. If Junts loses seats, or if another bloc can form a majority without it, its ability to trade support for concessions would diminish. At the same time, the party’s effort to remain equidistant from the PSOE and PP could alienate voters as polarization sharpens.
As the possibility of a right-wing government looms, Junts’s traditional message of “ni dretes ni esquerres, Catalunya” may become harder to sustain, especially if Sánchez frames a future election as a choice between his government and an alliance of the PP and Vox. Voters may gravitate toward clearer alternatives in a high-stakes contest, putting pressure on Junts to explain how its parliamentary strategy serves Catalonia without enabling a government it opposes.
Political barometers, including the upcoming CEO survey, are part of the debate over Junts’s future influence in Congress. The party’s predicament illustrates the challenge regional actors face in a national arena increasingly defined by binary choices. Junts per Catalunya emerged as a impressive force in Catalan and Spanish politics following the 2017 independence crisis, and its parliamentary use has often enabled it to negotiate concessions from central governments. But as Spain’s party system becomes more fragmented and polarized, the space for nuanced positioning is narrowing. The next general election could reshape the balance of power in Madrid and Catalan influence at the national level.
