“Before anything else, Spain needs the most elemental thing: a government with autonomy to govern and a majority to defend the general interest above all.” These words from the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, at the Cercle d’Economia 2026 meeting, cut straight to the “elephant in the room” — as the Galician put it —: the new push for an instrumental motion of censure led by the People’s Party (PP).
The context matters and so does the strategy. Feijóo was addressing the leading business leaders of Catalonia and, before speaking about strategic autonomy, which was the meeting’s central topic, he reviewed the political panorama in a way that can only be read as a call to Junts. And Carles Puigdemont’s party has picked up the gauntlet.
“This demand is a calculated humiliation, a toll of extremely high political cost that forces the PP to confront its own contradictions directly”
Jordi Turull, secretary-general of Junts, has launched (while still in contact with Miguel Tellado, with whom, according to our sources, he maintains a good relationship) a bold move, or rather a taunt, at Alberto Núñez Feijóo: if the PP’s proposal to bring a motion of censureseriously considering it, the conservative leader must journey to Waterloo (Belgium) to negotiate, face-to-face, with Carles Puigdemont.
This demand is a calculated humiliation, a toll of extremely high political cost that forces the PP to confront its own contradictions. To understand how we have arrived at this boiling point and gauge the real risk Feijóo assumes, several pieces must be put together. Some of them have already been addressed by various analysts in this publication.
From the “Hasty” Motion to the “Indispensable” Motion
Exactly one year ago, in June 2025, when the sanchismo was teetering under the siege of the so‑called “Cerdán crisis,” which brought Ábalos and Koldo into the picture, the debate on the need for the PP to take the lead already monopolized talk shows and front pages. At that moment, the former Catalan PP deputy Joan López Alegre published an analysis that already spoke of a motion of censures, noting that it was precipitous at the time, but tomorrow indispensable.
“The mere threat of the motion would act as an emergency glue to force the investiture partners to close ranks around Pedro Sánchez”
Lopez Alegre argued that, while public opinion expected courage from its leaders, triggering the constitutional mechanism of censure at that moment would have been a colossal mistake. The main risk, he warned, was that the mere threat of the motion would act as an emergency glue to force the investiture partners to close ranks around Pedro Sánchez. In June 2025, neither Junts, nor ERC, nor Bildu, nor much less a PNV terrified by the possibility of losing the Lehendakaritza, were in a position to support the PP.
Today, twelve months later, that “indispensable tomorrow” seems to have knocked on the doors of Génova 13. Feijóo, aware that the legislature is dying because the PSOE cannot pass laws or budgets, has put on the table a purely “instrumental” motion of censures. His pledge to nationalists and sovereigntists is clear. He asks for their votes not to govern with Vox — whom he would exclude from the transitional government equation — but with the sole purpose of immediately dissolving the Cortes and calling early elections. On paper, the arithmetic might add up. In practice, politics is psychology, and Junts has decided to subject Feijóo to the ultimate stress test. The Galician knows he is not the preferred choice of voters of the PNV and Junts, hence this instrumental motion is the only imaginable scenario.
The Cost of Legitimizing Puigdemont
Turull’s demand (“meetings with the top leadership take place in Waterloo”) is a strategic move to the independence camp’s advantage and a trap for the opposition leader. Could the man who has built his opposition on an unrelenting denunciation of the amnesty law, who has driven hundreds of thousands of people into the streets against Sánchez’s deals with the independence movement, board a plane to Belgium to ask Puigdemont for his votes?
“A photograph of Feijóo shaking Carles Puigdemont’s hand at the Waterloo house would be considered high treason by a large part of his electorate”
The answer to that question, viewed through Feijóo’s survival prospects, should be a resounding no. The PP currently lives under the constant scrutiny of the hard wing of the right in society and the media. A photograph of Feijóo shaking Puigdemont’s hand at the Waterloo house would be considered high treason by a large portion of his electorate and, surely, would be exploited by Santiago Abascal to derail any vote leakage from Vox to the PP.
El independentismo lo sabe. Junts da la actual legislatura por agotada. Se sienten engañados por un Pedro Sánchez al que acusan de “comprar tiempo” con excusas parlamentarias e incumplimientos de los acuerdos. Pero Carles Puigdemont no va a regalarle gratis a Alberto Núñez Feijóo la cabeza del presidente del Gobierno. Si el PP quiere la Moncloa, aunque sea por unos días para convocar elecciones, tendrá que pagar el precio de lavar la imagen de Puigdemont, otorgándole la categoría de “hacedor de reyes” no solo para la izquierda, sino también para la derecha institucional.
Con todo, la política se hace entre bambalinas y lo que para muchos es un no de Junts a Feijóo puede significar que por detrás ya han empezado las negociaciones. En el escenario, todavía hipotético, de una moción de censura encabezada por el gallego con el apoyo decisivo de Junts, las relaciones entre Foment del Treball y la CEOE son más que importantes.
Foment occupies a special position as a bridge between Catalan business leaders and Madrid’s decision centers. Since Josep Sánchez Llibre took the helm of the Catalan employers’ federation, the strategy has consisted precisely of regaining influence in Spanish economic policy through close engagement with the CEOE and the main national political actors. In that context, an eventual understanding between the PP and Junts could be interpreted by business sectors as a chance to ease territorial tensions and open a new phase of political negotiation. Foment, historically favorable to institutional dialogue and greater integration of Catalunya into the spaces of decision-making at the state level, would find itself in a particularly comfortable position to facilitate informal bridges between both realms. Two days ago, Antonio Garamendi, president of the CEOE, expressed strong support for an electoral advance. Rather than acting as direct political actors, both organizations could play a role of accompaniment and economic legitimization of an operation that would require building trust between Madrid and Barcelona.
Is There a Beneficiary Spectator?
Meanwhile, at the Moncloa Palace, they practice the maxim that to govern is to endure, and to endure, today in Spain, is to ensure your enemies err before you do.
In a summer analysis in Agenda Pública, entitled The Spanish democracy deserves another policy, the editor and director of this outlet, Marc López Plana, reflected on institutional degradation. He warned then that “any option that involves resisting as if nothing happened here is not responsible,” but added a equally severe critique toward “an opposition that eagerly watches from the sidelines the slow degradation of the Government”.
“Pedro Sánchez continues to rely on the daily-survival tactic, leading a government with constant glitches and with a majority that is increasingly less operative in Congress”
That is, essentially, the situation of Spanish politics in 2026. Pedro Sánchez continues to rely on the daily-survival tactic, leading a government with constant glitches and with a majority that is increasingly less operative in Congress. Feijóo, for his part, finds himself pressured to press the nuclear button of the motion of censures, knowing that, of the six motions presented in the history of Spanish democracy since 1977, only one has prospered: precisely the one that propelled Sánchez to power in 2018. Back then, the victory was largely thanks to the unanimous rejection generated by the corruption of the PP at that time.
In moments of governance stalemate, democracy needs decompression tools. Both the Prime Minister and the opposition leader have the institutional obligation to define with what supports they count, whether to continue the legislature until 2027 or to end it immediately. The moment has come for each political leader to understand who they are, why they are there, and what place they occupy in this country.
Perhaps the option of an instrumental motion of censures is more a purely arithmetic act of voluntarism than a reality. Believing that one could weave a tacit and antiseptic alliance with the PNV and Junts with the mere pledge to keep Vox out of the Council of Ministers…
“For Feijóo, the problem is not the 176 votes needed to topple Pedro Sánchez, but whether he is willing to talk with Junts”
For Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the problem is not the 176 votes needed to topple Pedro Sánchez, but whether he is willing to talk with Junts and retract three years of harsh opposition. It is necessary to admit that the keys to the Spanish state, even for the right, reside in a chalet in Belgium. Perhaps he should have done it much earlier?
The motion of censures, that figure conceived by the drafters of the Constitution as a constructive mechanism to offer viable alternatives to the country, has today transformed into a field of mines. At present, it would no longer be “precipitous,” as López Alegre claimed. It would be, instead, a red‑letter tightrope walk without a safety net.
But perhaps the motion of censures is indispensable and there is only one option for Feijóo: to present a “losing” motion of censures (that is, without guaranteed prior support) and let us hear what Feijóo has to say to Spain. Amid all the noise, it is not always easy. Feijóo should not listen to those who say that an initially losing motion would simply bury all information about the alleged corruption cases affecting the PSOE. The time has come to listen to Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
