Junts has stepped up pressure on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, demanding his resignation and proposing that Parliament select a new candidate, even as the party backs selected opposition initiatives. Its shifting parliamentary tactics have unsettled the balance of power in Congress and exposed the government’s vulnerability on individual votes.
On 25 June 2026, Congress approved a Partido Popular (PP) motion urging Sánchez to consider submitting to a confidence vote and to resign over corruption cases involving political figures appointed or retained by him. The motion passed 178 to 171, with support from the PP, Vox, Junts and Unión del Pueblo Navarro; Coalición Canaria backed some provisions. It was voted on section by section. The Congressional Bureau rejected the original wording calling for an immediate general election, and the adopted request for a confidence vote was non-binding: it did not compel Sánchez to resign or initiate the procedure.
The motion called on Sánchez to “consider the chance” to submit to a confidence vote and demanded his resignation to assume responsibility for corruption cases involving officials “appointed and sustained directly” by him. Junts supported the motion alongside the PP and Vox while rejecting the idea that a shared vote amounted to an alliance. The party said that voting the same way as the two parties “does not mean voting together.”
During the session, Junts called for Sánchez to step aside, arguing that the government could no longer fulfil its commitments to Catalonia. The party did not take part in the debate on the PP motion but ultimately voted in its favor. Junts’s spokesperson in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, has described a strategy pursued since the party broke with the government and the progressive investiture majority last autumn. Junts says it considers itself released from its previous agreements with Sánchez because commitments were not met.
Since then, the party has called for a confidence vote and demanded early elections, while urging Sánchez to make way for a new leader, potentially an independent candidate. Junts has called its approach the “Starmer route,” referring to the UK prime minister’s resignation following local election losses and internal party criticism. The party has set no timeline for Sánchez’s departure. It says the proposal is intended to prevent the rise of the far right while allowing the current legislature to complete outstanding business.
The constitutional distinction between a confidence vote and a no-confidence motion is basic to the dispute. Under Article 112 of the Spanish Constitution, the president of the Government may ask Congress to express confidence in the government’s programme or a general policy statement; an opposition motion cannot itself force that procedure. If the government loses a confidence vote, the president must resign and the constitutional investiture process follows. The PP motion approved on 25 June could increase political pressure, but it could not itself remove Sánchez or set an election timetable.
Junts has also resisted backing a PP-Vox no-confidence motion, a separate route that could bring down the government, while presenting its own proposal as a way to avoid elections and a right-wing government with far-right participation. PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has urged Junts and the Partido Nacionalista Vasco to support a no-confidence motion. The confidence and no-confidence procedures differ, as do parliamentary dissolution and elections; each carries distinct consequences, so they are not interchangeable.
Junts has not ruled out taking part in a future investiture majority, while rejecting an investiture of Feijóo and a PP-Vox government. Its position is conditional: Josep Maria Cruset has said the PSOE could not count on Sánchez if it wanted to build an alternative majority with Junts. That stance leaves room for negotiations over a future government without amounting to support for the PP or a formal alliance with Vox.
Junts’s seven seats can prove decisive in close votes as the government faces pressure from the opposition and internal dissent. The vote on the PP motion showed that the party can align with opposition parties on a specific initiative while remaining independent from their political bloc. It heightened pressure on Sánchez, but did not itself change the government or trigger an election.
