From early in the morning, all eyes at the PP summit were on Isabel Díaz Ayuso after Génova quickly distanced herself on Thursday from the call by the president of the Community of Madrid to reject Pedro Sánchez’s institutional invitation to La Moncloa. The president of the Community of Madrid has lowered the tone this Friday, after the regional leaders of the PP have avoided joining the fight marked by the Madrid baroness. In her appearance at the regional forum organized by the PP leadership, Díaz Ayuso has avoided making a direct appeal to her colleagues again and has not confirmed whether she will meet with the president of the Government. “I welcome this commitment not to talk about it in any bilateral meeting to be deceived,” Díaz Ayuso explained after the agreement signed between the barons not to negotiate bilateral regional financing systems separately. But it did not stop there: “Of course, all presidents and all autonomous communities have unique problems and of course I would like this to be addressed in La Moncloa, but I am glad that everything that has to do with the common fund is only discussed in a fair forum, with light and stenographers and with everyone together.”
Privately, sources from Ayuso’s cabinet were reluctant early in the morning to have the PP presidents go to La Moncloa, even considering the institutional nature of the meeting, due to the exceptional nature of the “context” caused by Sánchez’s latest pacts. “With what has been set up,” said these sources, who recall that Ayuso did agree to meet Sánchez in other circumstances while ignoring the fact that meeting the president after the pact with PSC and ERC would mean legitimizing her action. After Ayuso’s words, which has left her attendance at La Mocloa up in the air, sources from her team explain that, for now, nothing has been decided and that one of the conditions for meeting Sánchez could be to agree on an agenda in which dealing with regional financing is ruled out. In the afternoon, in an interview on La Sexta on account of another event, Díaz Ayuso was specifically asked whether or not she would respond to Sánchez’s call: “We’ll have to see, anyway, it’s not about saying ‘no’ to the president of a government, it’s about saying ‘this is not possible’.”
Díaz Ayuso’s change of pace came today after she made a blunt statement on Thursday: “As long as there is no conference of presidents, we cannot sit down in front of this petty policy to negotiate anything,” stressed the president of the Community of Madrid. “I ask the regional presidents that, if there is a meeting, it is to go all together because this Government is going to try to bribe us one by one in Moncloa,” she added.
The regional presidents have not supported Díaz Ayuso and the format of the event has prevented journalists from speaking on this subject because the media have been denied the opportunity to speak. After the intervention of the popular leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the barons have paraded around two lecterns in simultaneous appearances in which they have reinforced the leader’s message. They have all stuck to the script designed by Génova to show strength and force the message of unity against the singular financing of Catalonia.
But there are those who have specifically referred to Sánchez’s invitation. “We are going to act responsibly and with institutional respect, and institutional respect means that we are going to talk,” said the President of the Junta, Juan Manuel Moreno. “And Andalusia is willing to talk with everyone, and of course to talk with the President of the Government. But we are going to talk about what is important to Andalusians and Spaniards, which is equality between Spaniards and solidarity between Spaniards. We are not going to enter into any auction, nor are we going to whitewash the concessions to the independence movement to stay in power,” he added.
There is one request that both the PP and Génova agree on: the convening of a Conference of Presidents. Sánchez has assured that it will be held in Cantabria, but his intention is to first hold a bilateral meeting with everyone and, in addition, focus that meeting on housing policies.
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“Decoration and Valencianness”
One of the autonomous communities with the most problems with regional financing with this model is the Valencian Community. Its president, Carlos Mazón, has asked for the regional financing system to be reformed to one where “there are no winners or losers”. Mazón, like other colleagues in his party, has pointed out that inequality in financing means inequality “in social services, health and education”. He concluded his speech by asking the PSOE for “decorum and Valencianness” and demanding a transitional levelling fund that is equitable and transparent. “The refusal to do this has no justification or defence”, he said.
The same argument has been used by her colleague, María Guardiola, the president of Extremadura, who accused Sánchez of wanting to “turn Spain into the hunger games” in which the presidents “throw themselves into the arena looking for a bit of funding”. Guardiola has reproached the fact that the singular financing agreement “responds to particular interests”. “You cannot trade with the lives and resources of the people of Extremadura”, Guardiola has pointed out bluntly. With a message to his people: “It is time for unity and equality”.
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