Forum user: PP and Vox majority without Catalonia or Basque Country

Spain's Congress without Catalonia or Basque Country, according to a debate calculation

Do the subtraction, suggests one participant. A chamber of 284 seats, with an absolute majority set at 143, changes hands on the board: PP 128, PSOE 98, VOX 31, Sumar 23 and four scattered deputies split between Bildu, BNG, Coalición Canaria and UPN. The right sums up to 159, sixteen above the threshold.

The exercise is simple; the debate it opens is uncomfortable. If those two regions contribute more deadlock than wealth, the conversation stops being a problem of sums and becomes a question about the country's territorial fit. What stands out is not the result, but that some argue this outcome has been repeating itself for legislatures.

What changes in Congress and how much each region weighs

The distortion pointed out does not depend on a specific election. In 2023, the right started the count with 56 fewer MPs attributable to those two regions, compared to the 10 they contributed to the opposing bloc, according to another participant; in 2019 the gap was slightly larger, 59 versus 7. With these figures on the table, the thesis is that governability is decided by a handful of seats elected outside the provinces where the major blocs are determined.

Those who defend the scenario describe it as a more manageable Spain, less skewed, with alternation between right and left similar to what already exists. Those who reject it respond with the fine print: the 284 seats are not a different country, they are the same country with a part fruta.

Left-wing vote in the highest-income regions

The circulating percentages are the other pillar of the argument. In Catalonia, more than 65% of votes are left-wing, more than half far-left, according to that reading. In the Basque Country, the proportion exceeds 60%, with more than 40% in the same range. The repeated conclusion is that there is no parallel in Europe: regions with the highest income in their country voting predominantly left-wing election after election.

To that paradox is added another that confuses those pointing it out: right-wing formations like PNV and Junts end up operating within the left-wing bloc. The explanations crossing over are varied: the D'Hondt method, the way the Prime Minister is elected, a narrative of grievance against Madrid, an information and educational ecosystem sustained by everyone's money, and, above all, interest. "It is not solidarity or internationalism, it is advantage," summarizes that current trend: supporting the Government is paid for in competencies and money.

Neither engine nor exception: the GDP that no longer supports the narrative

For decades, the economic argument was fruta. Today it is debated. The combined Basque and Catalan GDP would weigh around what their population represents, and some argue they have ceased to be the country's great engines: in the Basque case, an economy sustained by pensions and public employment is described, and in industrial terms, it is claimed that Seville has already surpassed Biscay, with Asturias as a mirror image.

The counterpoint comes from another angle of the same debate: Portugal is poorer than Spain and, according to this reading, also happier. And there is a bill that cannot be forgotten in any subtraction: if a part leaves, it takes its corresponding share of the debt.

From banning parties to cutting funding for regional TV stations

The catalog of recipes appearing is broad and ranges from forceful to technical. Ban independentist formations. Require by law that a party runs in all provinces and wins a deputy in at least ten to count. Reserve territorial representation for the Senate and leave Congress for something else. Two-round electoral system. Cut public funding for regional television stations and the education system. Eliminate the autonomous community system. And a grand coalition between PP and PSOE in the German style, with a prior state pact.

At the bottom of the issue looms the *foral* regime (special fiscal autonomy), with the heavy vehicle levy set by Decree Foral 12/2023 of the Biscay Provincial Council serving as a reminder that there is regulation decided outside of Congress.

The cost of the operation: millions of Spaniards left behind

The most repeated objection is not economic. You cannot abandon millions of Basques and Catalans who feel Spanish, and they have enough already, that side argues. There is a second warning, more political: if the territorial issue disappears, so does one of the main voting drivers for the right in the rest of the country, meaning the 284-seat scenario is, in itself, a self-defeating hypothesis.

From another flank, it is pointed out that the problem is not the two regions, but the half of the country that accepts the pact with those who want to leave. And an idea that reappears: independentist parties have never formalized the exit, support for independence has deflated, and what they really seek is to negotiate and get paid. As for who insists on retaining those regions, there is also an answer: the average citizen, little; the Madrid establishment, quite a bit.

There remains a logical trap that no one fully dismantles. If those two regions are the ones deciding who governs a nation, then the problem is not with them. It is, by pure arithmetic, with the others.

---

Key data of the scenario

• Resulting Congress without Catalonia or Basque Country: 284 seats, absolute majority at 143.
• PP 128, PSOE 98, VOX 31, Sumar 23, Bildu 1, BNG 1, Coalición Canaria 1, and UPN 1.
  [*) Seat difference attributed to the two regions: 56 versus 10 in 2023 and 59 versus 7 in 2019.
• Left-wing vote: more than 65% in Catalonia and more than 60% in the Basque Country.