Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez delivers a speech during a parliamentary session to report on last week’s European Council meeting in Madrid, Spain, July 17, 2018. REUTERS/Susana Vera/File Photo
July 27, 2018
MADRID (Reuters) – Political allies of Spain’s minority socialist government have pulled support for its budget hours before a key vote in parliament, in a move that casts renewed doubts over political stability in the euro zone’s fourth-biggest economy.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who controls only 84 seats in the 350-strong parliament, cannot pass the budget without those parties which brought him to power in June when they backed a motion of no confidence against his conservative predecessor.
If Sanchez fails to pass his budget plan, the future of his fragile, two-month-old administration could come into question.
Two Catalan regional parties, the Catalan Democratic Party (PdeCat) and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), as well as leftist Podemos have decided to abstain in the parliamentary vote to agree on a new deficit-cutting path, spokespeople for those parties told Reuters.
(Reporting by Belen Carreno, writing by Julien Toyer; Editing by Isla Binnie)
