Summary of the day
Pedro Sánchez has clinched a second term as Spain’s prime minister after winning an ill-tempered investiture vote that was dominated by his decision to secure the support of Catalan separatists with a controversial amnesty.
179 MPs voted in favour and 171 against, after a lengthy debate.
The socialist politician thanked everyone who had supported him, including in Galician, Catalan, Basque and Spanish.
Several European leaders, including German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, congratulated Sánchez.
The conservative People’s party (PP)‘s Alberto Núñez Feijóo said he “will lead the opposition, defending equality between all Spaniards and in the face of the huge assault on the rule of law,” adding: “History will grant [Sánchez] no amnesty.”
Spain’s socialist party said “democracy will always prevail in the face of noise and darkness, and today it has been demonstrated again.”
Vox’s Pepa Millán said “we ask for coordination with the PP against the coup majority.”
Podemos leader Ione Belarra said it remains to be seen whether Sánchez would include Podemos in his new government or opt to form an administration in which “only he is in charge”.
Hardline separatist Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) party spokesperson Miriam Nogueras warned Sánchez that her party’s support for his minority coalition government remained conditional. The party voted in favour of Sánchez as prime minister.
Updated
In a sign of tensions to come, Podemos leader Ione Belarra said that while “progressive people are breathing a sigh of relief” it remains to be seen whether Pedro Sánchez would include Podemos in his new government or opt to form an administration in which “only he is in charge”.
Hoy la gente progresista respira aliviada y nosotras con ella. Hemos frenado la posibilidad de un gobierno PPVOX. Podemos cumple con el mandato de las urnas del 23J. La pregunta ahora es si se conformará un gobierno de transformación con Podemos uno en el que sólo mande Sánchez.
— Ione Belarra (@ionebelarra) November 16, 2023
Despite controversy within Spain about an amnesty deal between the socialists and Junts, congratulations are pouring in from European leaders for Pedro Sánchez.
Herzlichen Glückwunsch an Pedro @sanchezcastejon zur erneuten Wahl zum spanischen Ministerpräsidenten. Ich freue mich auf die weitere gute Zusammenarbeit zwischen unseren Ländern.
— Karl Nehammer (@karlnehammer) November 16, 2023
Dear @sanchezcastejon, congratulations on your reappointment as Prime Minister of Spain!
— Gitanas Nausėda (@GitanasNauseda) November 16, 2023
Appreciate excellent bilateral cooperation between 🇱🇹&🇪🇸 and our productive work in 🇪🇺&NATO.
Looking forward to continue working together towards a safer& stronger Europe. pic.twitter.com/Kg5RBj0G26
Europe’s socialists are celebrating.
A huge victory for Europe: @sanchezcastejon is back.
— S&D Group (@TheProgressives) November 16, 2023
Together we will stop reactionary movements across Europe.
¡Adelante! pic.twitter.com/sRfNUOg0tp
The European Council president, Charles Michel, has also congratulated Pedro Sánchez.
Congratulations dear Pedro @sanchezcastejon on your re-election as prime minister of Spain.
— Charles Michel (@CharlesMichel) November 16, 2023
I look forward to continuing our work to make the EU stronger and fit for the challenges ahead.
🇪🇺🇪🇸
Felicidades querido Pedro @sanchezcastejon por tu reelección como Presidente del… pic.twitter.com/5yC9MgIvYs
Updated
Pedro Sánchez wins second term as Spain’s PM after Catalan amnesty deal
Pedro Sánchez has clinched a second term as Spain’s prime minister after winning an ill-tempered investiture vote that was dominated by his decision to secure the support of Catalan separatists with a controversial amnesty.
The vote on Thursday came almost four months after an inconclusive snap election in July in which Sánchez’s governing Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) was narrowly defeated by its conservative rivals in the People’s party (PP).
Sánchez won an absolute majority in the investiture vote, securing the support of 179 of Spain’s 350 MPs. But his victory has come at a high price and has depended on the backing of smaller regional parties, including Catalan and Basque nationalists.
Despite finishing first in July’s election, the PP proved unable to form a government with the support of the far-right Vox party and other smaller groupings.
Sánchez and his partners in the leftwing Sumar alliance, however, managed to cobble together the necessary backing for their coalition by acceding to the demands of the two main Catalan pro-independence parties to grant an amnesty to those involved in the failed push for regional independence six years ago.
Read the full story here.
Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, has also congratulated Pedro Sánchez.
“Estonia and Spain are good partners in the EU, close allies in NATO. Appreciate Spain’s commitment to collective defence in our region,” she said, adding: “Looking forward to making our cooperation even stronger.”
Congratulations, @sanchezcastejon, on your reappointment as Prime Minister of #Spain.
— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) November 16, 2023
Estonia and Spain are good partners in the EU, close allies in NATO. Appreciate Spain’s commitment to collective defence in our region.
Looking forward to making our cooperation even stronger. pic.twitter.com/cM6DCfdI3A
Vox asks PP for 'coordination'
Vox’s Pepa Millán said the party “is going to oppose this coup d’état by all legitimate means.”
Pedro Sánchez, she said, “has become a despot,” adding: “We ask for coordination with the PP against the coup majority.”
📺 TV en DIRECTO #Investidura | Pepa Millán (Vox): "Vox se va a oponer a este golpe de Estado por todos los medios legítimos. Sánchez se ha convertido en un sátrapa. Pedimos una coordinación con el PP contra la mayoría golpista" https://t.co/3GTXwJ9yYD pic.twitter.com/geNBHypvcC
— EL PAÍS (@el_pais) November 16, 2023
Updated
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has congratulated Pedro Sánchez.
“It’s good that we can continue working side by side. Because we see many challenges in the world from a very similar perspective. I will be happy to continue the close cooperation between Germany and Spain, as well as in Europe,” he said.
¡Felicidades, @sanchezcastejon! Es bueno que podamos seguir trabajando codo a codo. Porque vemos muchos retos del mundo desde una perspectiva muy similar. Me alegrará continuar con la estrecha cooperación entre Alemania y España, así como en Europa. pic.twitter.com/EfiPyRgt8v
— Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz (@Bundeskanzler) November 16, 2023
Updated
Feijóo: History will grant Sánchez no amnesty
The conservative People’s party (PP)'s Alberto Núñez Feijóo gave a flavour of things to come.
“Pedro Sánchez has won an investiture that was sealed in Waterloo. I will lead the opposition, defending equality between all Spaniards and in the face of the huge assault on the rule of law,” he said, adding: “History will grant [Sánchez] no amnesty.”
“Democracy will always prevail in the face of noise and darkness, and today it has been demonstrated again,” Spain’s socialist party wrote on social media platform X.
“We will continue to build a better country based on equality and social justice with a new progressive government,” it added.
Porque la democracia siempre prevalecerá frente al ruido y la oscuridad, y hoy se ha vuelto a demostrar.
— PSOE (@PSOE) November 16, 2023
Seguiremos construyendo un país mejor basado en la igualdad y la justicia social con un nuevo gobierno progresista.
Hoy podemos decir con orgullo que @sanchezcastejon es… pic.twitter.com/xmSJWLcRY7
Pedro Sánchez thanked everyone who supported him.
Note the thank yous in Galician, Catalan, Basque and Spanish
Me quiero dirigir a todos los grupos que hoy me darán su apoyo para renovar como presidente y formar un nuevo Gobierno de coalición.
— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) November 16, 2023
A los 179 diputados y diputadas que han comprometido su voto y que representan a más de 12,6 millones de ciudadanos que el pasado 23 de julio… pic.twitter.com/pzjHRB51QK
Updated
The European Greens have welcomed today’s vote.
Their co-chairs Mélanie Vogel and Thomas Waitz said:
In July, Spanish citizens said “¡No pasarán!” to the right and far right. And four months later, the most progressive and Green Spanish government to date has begun. The government will integrate the green transition in all public policy, and all climate policy will be socially just. This Spanish victory is a great inspiration for Europe and the upcoming European elections.
Updated
What's next?
Pedro Sánchez won the Spanish congress’s approval to become prime minister again with an absolute majority of votes.
The speaker of congress needs to inform king of vote result and Sánchez then needs to see the king to be sworn in – perhaps as early as tomorrow.
It will be a very difficult legislature, with the conservative People’s party (PP) and Vox on full offensive and Junts already warning Sánchez not to take its support for granted.
The bitterly divisive amnesty issue will endure while the legislation passes through parliament and will remain controversial as judges interpret it on a case-by-case basis once it is passed.
The PP will not want to be outflanked on the right by Vox when it comes to continuing to oppose the amnesty legislation, but it will have to tread carefully as previous attempts to ape Vox have alienated its centrist voters.
Vox, which exploded on to the political scene because of the Catalan crisis, will be looking to exploit the amnesty as fully as possible to help arrest its decline in the polls.
The far-right party fared pretty disastrously in July’s election, dropping from 52 seats to 33 as the PP won back disgruntled voters.
Sumar-Podemos tensions could also dominate the coming days and weeks.
Updated
Pedro Sánchez re-elected prime minister by congress
Spanish MPs have approved Pedro Sánchez as prime minister.
There were 179 MPs who voted in favour and 171 against.
Updated
Voting is now starting.
Herminio Sancho, the PSOE MP who had an egg thrown at him earlier this morning, has received an ovation from his colleagues. The PSOE’s spokesperson Patxi López warned that stirring up political hatred was having consequences on the streets.
📺 TV en DIRECTO #Investidura | Patxi López: "Ustedes alimentan a los que hoy mismo han acosado y tirado huevos a diputados de esta cámara". El PSOE se levanta para ovacionar al diputado Herminio Sancho, acosado hoy en un bar https://t.co/kHzNzpQyOk pic.twitter.com/qmURCP6bMR
— EL PAÍS (@el_pais) November 16, 2023
Updated
The European parliament will debate the state of the rule of law in Spain, Spain’s Citizens party said today.
🟠#ÚltimaHora
— Ciudadanos 🇪🇸🇪🇺 (@CiudadanosCs) November 16, 2023
Gracias al impulso de @CS_Europa y @RenewEurope, el Pleno del Parlamento Europeo debatirá la situación del Estado de derecho en España.
La ley de amnistía de Sánchez vulnera la separación de poderes y la igualdad ante la ley.
Seguiremos denunciándolo en Europa.
Updated
El Heraldo de Aragón is reporting that Herminio Sancho, the PSOE MP for Teruel, had an egg thrown at him by a protester while he and some colleagues were having breakfast in a bar near congress before the debate.
The politicians were then escorted to congress by police officers.
The proposed amnesty has also led to violent skirmishes outside the PP’s Madrid offices as police clashed with fascists and neo-fascists.
Updated
Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the populist PP leader of the Madrid region, has just addressed her decision to call Pedro Sánchez a “hijo de puta” (son of a bitch, if we’re being polite) after he mentioned her name in relation to an alleged corruption scandal during yesterday’s debate.
Here’s what happened yesterday:
The language in congress became blunter still after Sánchez reminded Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the PP leader, of an alleged corruption scandal involving a relative of the populist PP president of the Madrid region, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
Ayuso, who was sitting in the chamber’s gallery, was caught on camera responding to Sánchez’s jibe by calling him a “hijo de puta”.
Ayuso’s team initially told El País that she had pronounced the similar-sounding phrase “me gusta la fruta” (I like fruit), before admitting that she had indeed called him a hijo de puta.
They added: “The president’s reply to a baseless corruption allegation was the very least it deserved.”
Ayuso has recently accused Sánchez of enacting a “totalitarian” project and ushering in “a dictatorship through the back door”.
And here’s what Ayuso has just said to her opponents in the Madrid regional parliament:
The prime minister, in full abuse of power, used the podium in the house of national sovereignty, which is ever more diminished, to slander a regional president – me – and my family. Maybe you lot, who’ll take anything that’s thrown at you, would have done something else. But not me. Yes, I said it. I said ‘Me gusta la fruta’.
Remarks such as these tend to further endear Ayuso to her followers, even if they often eclipse the more sober pronouncements of her boss, Feijóo.
Me gusta la fruta. pic.twitter.com/kAtVhJmtFc
— Isabel Díaz Ayuso (@IdiazAyuso) November 16, 2023
Updated
The leader of Podemos, which teamed up with the PSOE to form the last government but which has been overshadowed by the emergence of the leftwing Sumar alliance, has warned Pedro Sánchez not to leave her party out of his forthcoming government.
Speaking outside congress, Ione Belarra said it would be “an enormous political mistake” for Sánchez not to give Podemos a ministry and called on him to do so while there was still time.
If Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz [the Sumar leader and acting deputy PM] maintain this veto on Podemos being in the next government, as it seems is going to happen, I think the possibilities of bringing in real change in this country will be seriously compromised – and that seems to us to be an enormous political mistake.
Podemos, which has slumped in the polls since emerging a few years ago to radically challenge Spain’s political status quo, has a complicated relationship with Sumar. More on that here.
Updated
The PP’s Esteban González Pons argued today that Pedro Sánchez was dividing Spain and was “blinded by his own ambition.”
📺 @gonzalezpons en @EspejoPublico: “Pedro Sánchez es un presidente que viene a dividir, que rompe el espíritu de la Transición, cegado por su propia ambición”.#EspañaNoSeRinde #TodoPorLaSilla pic.twitter.com/kqrdMLAW4C
— Partido Popular (@ppopular) November 16, 2023
Updated
Vox’s 33 MPs are not in the chamber at the moment because Bildu’s spokesperson was making her speech, but they’ll be back to vote.
Here’s what the party’s leader, Santiago Abascal, had to say to Pedro Sánchez yesterday before Vox left congress to join protests against the amnesty:
Your lies and your sinister laugh today will have reminded voters of Nero while Rome burned. Your lack of morality, the sense that you’ve lost your mind with this attack on the constitution, suggest … that this has gone from being an illegitimate government to being an illegal government. We’re facing a coup against the constitution and against the nation. You can spin your lies to whoever wants to hear them. We will be at the side of the Spanish people who are fighting against your coup. But have no doubt that we will be here tomorrow to vote against you and your plans.
Updated
The conservative People’s party (PP) is continuing its criticism of Pedro Sánchez inside and outside congress, hammering him for his deals with Junts and the ERC.
This is what the PP’s secretary general, Cuca Gamarra, just told the COPE radio station:
The problem our country has is called Pedro Sánchez. Pedro Sánchez is the problem because we’re talking about a politician who is capable of doing anything in his own interest and in order to remain in government in Spain. To get the seven votes he needed after losing the [general] election, he’s gone as far as signing and saying he’s going to deliver an impunity law in return for his investiture. There’s no doubt whatsoever that the danger Spain and our coexistence is facing is called Pedro Sánchez. That’s what we’re talking about.
The attack line is hardly new, but it is one we’ll continue to hear for a long time. Why?
For the simple reason that Sánchez opposed the amnesty until it became clear that issuing one was the only way to secure another term. It’s simple and effective – and very hard for the PSOE to deny.
Updated
The conservative People’s party (PP) leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, underscored Sánchez’s reliance on Junts as he arrived in congress this morning.
The investiture isn’t happening today or yesterday – it’s already a done deal that was agreed outside Spain, in Waterloo.
Waterloo is where the Junts leader, Carles Puigdemont, has lived since fleeing Spain to avoid arrest for his role in orchestrating the 2017 referendum.
Updated
Pedro Sánchez has thanked Bildu for its support – something else that won’t go down well with the PP and Vox.
Speaking in the investiture debate, Mertxe Aizpurua, an MP for the leftwing Basque nationalist party EH Bildu, called on Pedro Sánchez to govern to help working-class people.
You need to govern and think in the interests of the majority of working people and not in those of the big companies, banks and multinationals.
Aizpurua attacked the PP for its fierce opposition to the Catalan amnesty, pointing out that post-Franco Spain was born from the 1977 amnesty that aimed to leave the crimes of the dictatorship era in the past.
You rejected an amnesty for people who didn’t commit any crime, yet you revere the 1977 amnesty that gave total impunity for the crimes of Francoism and those who committed them.
Vox, which loathes Bildu for its links with the former political wing of the Basque terror group Eta, is not in the chamber this morning.
Updated
Spain’s investiture debate continues this morning, ahead of a vote today.
Updated
Junts will vote for Sánchez, spokesperson confirms
Despite her plainly worded warning yesterday, Junts’s spokesperson, Miriam Nogueras, has confirmed that her party will vote for Sánchez today.
She told the Catalan radio stations RAC1: “We respect the agreements we reach. Months ago we started negotiations that continue today, and Sánchez’s investiture is only one of the points of the agreement we have signed.”
Updated
It’s a big day for Pedro Sánchez. Here’s a photo of the socialist politician arriving for today’s session and vote.
Updated
Don't tempt fate, Junts tells Sánchez
Yesterday’s debate was every bit as tense, angry and bitter as one would expect given the issues at stake and the four months of tension and frantic negotiation that have followed July’s inconclusive general election.
But beyond the showdown between the PSOE and its partners and the PP and Vox, there were also signs of just how fraught the coming legislature is likely to be.
Pedro Sánchez’s assertion that “a united Spain is a better Spain” did not go down with his new backers in Carles Puigdemont’s hardline separatist Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) party.
Its spokesperson, Miriam Nogueras, warned Sánchez that her party’s support for his minority coalition government remained conditional.
“If we are here today it is to make things really change,” she said. “But if there is no progress, we will not approve any initiative presented by your government. It is linked to progress and compliance with agreements.”
Lest the message wasn’t clear enough, she told him “not to tempt fate”.
Junts was always bound to want to demonstrate its independence to MPs and the world – despite its deal with Sánchez – but her words will not be reassuring as the PSOE leader prepares for a new term.
Updated
Pedro Sánchez defends Catalan amnesty law as ‘demonstration of strength’
Spain’s acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has defended the controversial Catalan amnesty law that is set to deliver his socialist party a second term, saying the act of clemency towards hundreds of people involved in the push for regional independence is needed to promote “dialogue, understanding and forgiveness”.
Sánchez and his partners in the leftwing Sumar alliance have agreed to the amnesty in order to secure the key votes of the ERC and Junts, provoking a furious backlash from the conservative People’s party (PP) and Vox, who have accused Sánchez of caving into the separatists, hypocrisy and putting self-preservation before the national interest. The PP has called on the EU to weigh in on the proposed law, while Vox has suggested the acting prime minister is perpetrating “a coup d’état in capital letters”.
Speaking in congress yesterday as MPs held an investiture debate that will be followed by a vote today that he already has the numbers to win, Sánchez said the amnesty would help the country turn the page on the past.
“In the name of Spain and its interests and in the defence of coexistence between Spaniards, we’re going to grant an amnesty to those people who are facing legal action over the [Catalan independence] process,” he said.
“This amnesty will benefit many people, political leaders whose ideas I do not share and whose actions I reject, but also hundreds of citizens who were swept up in the process.”
Read the full story here.
Updated
Welcome to the blog
Good morning and welcome back to the Europe blog.
Today we will be focusing on Spain, where the acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is expected to win congressional backing for a new term in a vote today.
Send tips and comments to lili.bayer@theguardian.com.
Updated
