Catalan Leader Calls Snap Election After 2024 Budget Rejected

President of the Catalanan Generalitat (regional gov't) Pere Aragonès has called a snap election to take place on 12 May. This follows an emergency Cabinet meeting held in the wake of the defeat of the gov'ts 2024 budget. The budget was defeated by the narrowest of margins, 68 votes to 67. The election could have implications for Spanish politics well beyond Catalonia's borders, with PM Pedro Sanchez controversially reliant on the support of pro-Catalan independence parties to pass legislation at the national level.

• A bitter election campaign in Catalonia could further imperil the already strained relationship between Sanchez's centre-left pro-union Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and the pro-indpendence Together for Catalonia (Junts).
• Sanchez recently reached an agreement with Junts and Aragonès' Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) on the controversial legislation to give amnesties to individuals involved in the illegal Catalan independence referendum in October 2017. This has sparked renewed protestsagainst the gov't ahead of the vote in the Congress of Deputies expected to approve the legislation.
• Recent opinion polling shows a tight race in Catalonia. In the two surveys in 2024 so far, one has pro-independence parties winning a combined 69 seats (one above the 68-seat majority threshold) and one shows them winning 67 seats.
• The outcome of Catalan elections are viewed as important markers indicating support or lack thereof for independence. Whether pro-independence or pro-union parties win a majority and the overall vote share for pro-independence parties will be closely followed in Madrid.