PM Sanchez To Seek Investiture Vote, Will Need Separatist Junts' Backing

Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has stated that he will seek an investiture vote in the Congress of Deputies once it reconvenes on 17 August. Speaking to deputies from his centre-left Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Reuters reportsSanchez as saying "I will ask for parliament's confidence to form a progressive government," but would first seek to guarantee election for PSOE nominee for speaker recently elected deputy Francina Armengol, who was until the May regional elections President of the Balearic Islands.

• Armengol's speakership candidacy is viewed as an offer of cooperation to the Catalan separatist Junts party. Mallorca Daily Bulletin reports: "Armengol is said to have good relations with parties in Catalonia and the Basque Country and with the exiled former president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont."
• In order to win any PM investiture vote, Sanchez is set to require the supportof Puigdemont's Junts. This could require the offering of a referendum on self-determination for Catalonia, risking the wealthy community's exit from Spain.
• A curve-ball could come in the form of thespeculated offer from the centre-right Popular Party (PP) to the centrist Basque-interest Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) that it can hold the speakership if it backs PP head Alberto Nunez Feijoo for PM in an investiture vote.
• The PNV had ruled out supporting any gov't involving the right-wing nationalist Vox. However, Vox's recent announcement that it would be content to sit outside of gov't in a confidence-and-supply agreement could open a narrow path to a PP minority gov't.