Spain’s Sánchez Faces a Political Storm: How Long Can His Government Survive?

Pedro Sánchez’s government faces this autumn under pressure from a combination of the migration crisis, judicial pressure stemming from several corruption cases involving former Socialist leaders, and an increasingly difficult parliamentary majority. The question is no longer simply whether Sánchez can complete the parliamentary term, but how much room for manoeuvre his government still has.

The crisis in Ceuta has become the most immediate front. On July 30 and 31, more than 70,000 people entered the Spanish autonomous city irregularly from Morocco, according to figures released by the government. Over the following 72 hours, around 63,000 people returned to Morocco. The handling of the crisis has triggered an intense political confrontation between the government and the opposition.

Sánchez maintains that the authorities had detected an increase in attempted crossings, but that no available intelligence had anticipated an influx on such a scale. The government has published and declassified reports from the National Intelligence Centre (CNI), the Civil Guard, the National Police and other agencies in an effort to establish what information was available before and during the crisis.

The crisis comes as the Socialist Party (PSOE) is also facing considerable pressure from investigations and judicial proceedings. In June, Spain’s Supreme Court sentenced former minister and former PSOE organisational secretary José Luis Ábalos to 24 years and three months in prison, while Koldo García, the former adviser to Ábalos, received a sentence of 19 years and eight months for offences related to the face-mask case. These convictions concern individual responsibility and do not, in themselves, establish criminal liability on the part of the PSOE as an organisation or Sánchez.

The parliamentary arithmetic adds to the pressure. The PSOE and Sumar need to maintain agreements with parties such as ERC and Junts, Catalan pro-independence parties, and EH Bildu and the PNV, Basque nationalist parties, in order to pass much of their legislative agenda. These parties are not part of the government and have their own territorial and political priorities.

Junts, in particular, has demonstrated that its support depends on specific negotiations.

The General State Budget will be a crucial test. The government needs to secure enough votes to approve the 2027 budget, something that is far from guaranteed. Another budgetary deadlock would further reduce Sánchez’s political room for manoeuvre and could accelerate the decision to call an election.

This brings the electoral calendar into focus. Although the prime minister continues to publicly express his intention to complete the parliamentary term, he has also left open the possibility of holding elections during the first quarter of 2027 if parliamentary circumstances make it necessary. March 2027 is therefore emerging as a possible scenario, although no official election date has yet been set.

The dilemma facing the Spanish government is clear: approving the budget would buy time and keep the current parliamentary term alive; another failure could make an early election a politically much harder option to avoid.

For now, the government remains in office, but its room for manoeuvre is limited. The Ceuta crisis, the political consequences of the corruption cases, the demands of its parliamentary partners and budgetary uncertainty have created an increasingly complex situation.

The coming months will be decisive. Sánchez will have to demonstrate that he can transform a parliamentary majority based on individual agreements into a sufficiently stable majority capable of sustaining his government. If he fails, the prospect of elections in March 2027 could move from being a hypothesis discussed in Madrid to becoming a real possibility.