Spain's prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's combative approach

New Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Photo / AP

Pedro Sánchez became the first Spanish Prime Minister to be sworn in without a Bible or a crucifix on the table before him.

The 46-year-old socialist formally took up his post the day after he ousted Mariano Rajoy, who lost a no-confidence vote in Parliament over a corruption scandal within his party. According to royal observers, King Felipe has relaxed the protocol on such ceremonies, meaning Christian symbols are now an optional element.

And since becoming leader of Spain's socialist party (PSOE), Sánchez has taken a combative approach to the country's Catholic Church.

In his manifesto when running for the party leadership in 2017, Sánchez promised to renounce treaties signed by the Vatican and Spain in 1979, under which the Catholic Church was guaranteed funding through a share of taxpayers' money, exemption from paying certain levies itself and state funding for religious instruction in state schools, among other privileges. To make any legislative changes, Sánchez will need to convince at least two other parties to support his plans as PSOE only has 84 members of the 350-strong Congress.

Sanchez now also faces the difficult issue of how to respond to the independence crisis in Catalonia.

Meanwhile, Italy put on a show of unity ahead of a showdown between the newly sworn-in coalition government and the EU. Italian jets streaked over the rooftops of Rome in an annual display celebrating the founding of the republic in 1946.

A distinctly chilly reception awaited the coalition and its demands for wide-ranging EU reforms. "As long as you're a member of a club you abide by its rules. Of course you can try to change them: bring it to the table and negotiate," one diplomat in Brussels said. "But hitting it with your fist will only make you hurt; the new Italian Government will come to realise that."

The Government's manifesto sets it on a collision course with the EU, which will have to decide whether it can afford to make major concessions to Rome - or risk destabilising the entire European project. There have been doom-laden warnings over the coalition's €100 billion-plus spending programme, which would smash the EU's 3 per cent budget deficit ceiling if implemented. But if their goals are crushed, the prospect of a euro exit might be resurrected.