18
After the long period of Socialist majorities, the 1993-2000 period saw a return to
minority governments with non-statewide party support (Aguilera de Prat 2001, Heller
2002). In 1993-96, the Socialists’ electoral decline left them 17 seats short of a majority,
forcing them into a deal with the Catalan and Basque nationalists, which relied
particularly on the votes of the former. This arrangement placed the PSOE in a
particularly difficult position in other regions of Spain, and particularly in the South,
where much of the party’s core electorate is to be found. The Catalan nationalists used
their strong bargaining position to win increased control of income tax revenue raised in
Catalonia, and argued strongly for a reduction in the flows of resources from Catalonia to
the poorer regions of Spain through the Fund for Interterritorial Compensation (FCI) (see
van Houten 2003). This went down particularly badly in the South, although it does not
seem to have disproportionately damaged the Socialists’ electoral showing there.
The 1993 pact was probably more damaging to the Socialists in Catalonia itself,
where the PSC found itself in the awkward position of cooperating with the Catalan
nationalists in the Madrid parliament, whilst acting as the main force of opposition to
them in the Catalan parliament (Aguilera de Prat 2001: 12-3). Although this
uncomfortable situation did not last long, it contributed to the PSC’s continued failure to
win control of the Generalitat in the 1990s. The PSC’s schizophrenic relationship to CiU
weakened the Socialists’ opposition role in Catalonia, whilst CiU’s ability to extract
concessions from the PSOE government in Madrid strengthened their image as the most
effective representatives of Catalonia (the PSC could not credibly claim it could have
won similar concessions). In this case, therefore, the regional tier of the statewide party
was sacrificed in order to maintain power at the national level.
Convention