Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images Pedro Sánchez presents program for ruling Spain in coalition with far left The Spanish prime minister inches closer to forming a coalition government.

Spain’s acting prime minister Pedro Sánchez pledged to increase taxes on the rich and raise the national minimum wage if parliamentarians confirm him as premier.

Sánchez has been struggling to form a government since November’s general election left Spain’s political landscape deeply fragmented. His Socialist Party agreed a preliminary coalition pact with Podemos, but since the pair do not have enough seats to form a majority, he had been hoping to persuade the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), a pro-independence party, to abstain in the parliamentary vote on his coalition.

Speaking next to Podemos’ leader Pablo Iglesias after both signed their program for a four-year coalition government, Sánchez acknowledged that the parliamentary arithmetic might make it difficult for them to rule the country, but said they are determined to ensure this period is not wasted.

“Where some see an excuse for the blockage, in contrast I see a stimulus, a big opportunity to make the reforms that our country needs,” Sánchez said. “We ask the other parliamentarian forces to join the dialogue rather than the blockage.”

Their program for government includes abolishing the most controversial aspects of the labor reform carried out in 2012 by the center-right government of Mariano Rajoy, starting with companies’ ability to fire workers if they miss work during sick leave. Over the last few months, the European Commission repeatedly warned that it would be a mistake for the Spanish government to depart from the reforms passed after Spain’s 2012 bailout.

The document opens the door to a big increase in the national minimum wage, from €1,050 per month to about €1,200 during the life of the parliament, and puts forward a fiscal reform to increase taxes on people earning more than €130,000 and large corporations. It also includes a goal of spending 7 percent of GDP on the national health service by 2023 — it amounted to 6.24 percent in 2018.

The coalition government would also present a new law to replace the civil security act — dubbed the "gag law" by detractors, who argue it curbs the right to peacefully protest with the introduction of fines for anyone who organizes or takes part in an “unauthorized protest,” or if the protest takes part near institutions such as the Spanish parliament.

Sánchez and Iglesias agreed to “confront the Catalan political conflict” by boosting “dialogue, negotiations and agreement between parties,” according to the document.

Both leaders inched closer to forming a government on Monday, after gaining the support of the Basque nationalist party PNV. However, everything still depends on the ERC’s abstention, which is not guaranteed.

The prime minister hoped that the ERC — the party of jailed former Catalan leader Oriol Junqueras — would have made a decision by Monday on whether to abstain, but it has indicated it will not do so before December 31.

The timing is nerve-wracking for Sánchez, who would like the investiture vote to take place in the first week of January. If Sánchez wins, he will lead the first coalition government since Spain became a democracy in the late 1970s.

Meanwhile, Spain’s state attorney on Monday called for the release of Junqueras from prison, in what was perceived as a gesture of political goodwill towards the ERC. The state attorney’s office asked the Spanish Supreme Court to let Junqueras go to Brussels to take his seat as an MEP. He was sentenced in October to 13 years in prison over his role in a failed 2017 bid for Catalan independence, and was elected an MEP in May while in jail awaiting sentencing.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on his case in the coming weeks. Earlier this month, Europe’s top court said Junqueras should have been allowed to leave jail to take up his seat in the European Parliament.

In response to the state attorney’s call, Diana Riba i Giner, an ERC MEP, said it releasing Junqueras was merely “common sense” and “abiding by the sentence” of the Court of Justice of the European Union.