At a party gathering in La Garriga on 5 November 2026, Míriam Nogueras on 17 October, she said Junts could, with enough seats, “have a say in everything that Madrid happens”. Junts’s lead candidate for the province of Barcelona made this a central objective for the Spanish parliamentary election on 29 November 2026 She made the remarks at the party’s Consell Nacional in Catalonia.
Nogueras linked her statement to the role of pivotal parties in Spain’s fragmented parliamentary system. With narrow majorities, a mid-sized parliamentary group can help shape budgets, investment and legislative proposals, she said. This points to the institutional levers available in the Congreso de los Diputados: forming a government first requires an investiture vote, where the absence of an absolute majority makes cooperation necessary; the state budget and sectoral funding bills go through committees and the plenary, where every vote counts. The composition of the Congress’s Mesa and the work of its committees also have a major bearing on the agenda and the scope of proposals.
Junts presents itself as a force that can exert influence between political blocs and negotiate tangible outcomes for Catalonia. Nogueras’s message is aimed at avoiding deadlock and securing additional benefits for regions through negotiations, for example on funding, infrastructure and regionally significant powers. In recent weeks, the party leadership has repeatedly stressed that bargaining power in Congress is greatest when forming a government depends on the support of several parliamentary groups. What leverage actually becomes available will depend on the distribution of seats after 29 November 2026.
Other parties have responded to this positioning with some scepticism. Supporters of a stable two-bloc system warn that smaller groups wielding disproportionate influence could slow down or increase the cost of decision-making. Junts, by contrast, points to previous periods of narrow majorities, when regional concerns were taken into account in national legislation. In this context, the party speaks of a “central position” that it wants to Spain occupy.
In practice, Junts’s strategy is focused on gaining bargaining power in key votes. These include the investiture of the prime minister, passage of the state budget and policy areas with a direct impact on Catalonia. Whether, and in what form, agreements will be reached remains open; Nogueras made no pre-election commitments.
Editor: Mira Cadena (Article created with AI assistance).