Page sees the legislature as unviable if Sánchez does not approve the budgets

“I stopped going to the bulls,” he acknowledged this Wednesday at 56 years old, in the ABC Forumsponsored by Enoc with the collaboration of Ecoembes and the University of Castilla-La Mancha. The anecdote sparked laughter in a packed auditorium, at the Vocento headquarters, where the president of the Castilian-La Mancha Cortes, the vice presidents and advisors of its Executive, businessmen and the rector of the university, among other personalities, were listening. No trace of the national PSOE. Before him spoke Antonio Muñoz, president of Enoc, who has claimed the social need of nursing homes, and the director of ABC, Julián Quirós, who has defined the speaker as “a singular voice” and “an awareness of what what the PSOE should be.

Of course, Page has once again demonstrated that he earns the role of loose verse in a PSOE, generally handed over to its general secretary, Pedro Sánchez. He does not hesitate to disagree with his positions and publicly defend his opinions, although some political spectrums ask him to go further. The foundations remain of that “little boy” – as he has labeled himself – who was ‘forbidden’ to participate in bullfightings. “Politics has changed my way of being very little,” he said, within a profession that, according to him, “makes a lot of people stupid” and creates “an overdose of vanity».

Getting into the matter, and already during the questions posed to him by the director of ABC, Page has shown that he has little or no mince on his tongue. The Government has been saying for months that, whether there are budgets or not, it will exhaust the legislature. Sánchez, on Wednesday of last week, foreshadowed before Alberto Núñez Feijóo that he has “a thousand days” left in his mandate. For the socialist baron, the only one from the PSOE who retains an absolute majority, without state accounts it is unfeasible to continue.

“A why and a wherefore”

«Governing has to be with a why and a purpose. The key, and the only important one, is the budget. The rest are decorative elements,” said the politician, who has governed his region since 2015, after referring to the “uncertainty” that surrounds the national panorama. “I don’t think anyone, not even the President of the Government, is clear about what is going to happen,” he noted. It all depends on [Carles] Puigdemont, but then there are many others.

From those around the regional president, they point out to this newspaper that he has been warning since 23-J of the difficulty of “reconciling” the “contradictory” actors who keep Sánchez in power. “We are in the Government, but we do not govern,” they lament, and highlight the irreconcilable differences, ideologically, between Junts and Can or between Bildu and PNV, all of them indispensable allies of the Executive.

Page has ventured that the agreement on regional financing, which he sees necessary, will not work out “in any way” because the fiscal pact with ERC is unrealizable: “I want to continue believing in this Spain, they cannot force me to think about another one.” Of course, he has pointed out that now whoever has “a ballot” is the fugitive par excellence, who wants to preside again Togetherbecause he has “a dilemma” ahead of him: “If he does not approve the budget, the Government may say: ‘Oh, yes? Well, nothing of what has been said, he looks at Waterloo [Bélgica]’. And if you approve it, you are left with nothing.

Beyond the budget message, Page has come and gone with a message on his mind. Upon his arrival at the event, the press accredited to cover the ABC Forum was waiting for him with two questions. One, about the sit-in of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayusoto Sánchez. “Respect” and silence. Another, about the exchange of votes between PP and Sumar to help each other, respectively, in a law on national defense and another on abusive clauses in mortgages. There, having just finished the first coffee, he has clearly said that he does not believe in a Spain of “walls.”

A declaration of intent against Sánchez’s speech at his inauguration, in which, precisely, he called for erecting a “wall” against “the reactionary right.” The allusions to this concept have been constant during his conference: «In my region there are no known walls nor do we want them. “Social hatred or political vendetta are not practiced.” «I do not share the policy of walls, whoever builds them. If walls are built, we should consider which side we are on. “The best way to avoid being on the wrong side of the wall is to build bridges and not build them.” “The most extremist on the right are the main allies of the left front, the more Vox, the more the wall.”

A “serene reflection”

The president of Castilla-La Mancha, hints aside, has gone to the ABC Forum with five major country proposals under his arm: rebuilding moderate Spain, making a competitiveness pact, undertaking a “serene” constitutional reform led by PP and PSOE, improve regional financing and propose territorial harmonization, for example, in the field of taxation.

Firstly, he has called for recovering moderation as a political virtue in the face of a period of rising populism since the financial crisis of 2008. He has identified three different types, that of Podemos with “socioeconomic roots”, that of “anti-democratic approaches” and that of the independentists who found in the economic situation the excuse to wash their hands of their management. He has also referred to an “organic populism” within the parties that leads to a kind of “presidentialism” where the leader assumes total control of his formation. “We should not have complexes when seeking consensus among the majority parties,” he defended, with an eye on the socialists, yes, but also on the popular ones.

«I am firmly convinced that Spain is the strongest country in the world. “It has wanted to destroy itself for centuries and it has not yet succeeded,” said Page, quoting the famous phrase of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the architect of German unification. After that, he went on to defend a State pact to improve Spain’s competitiveness and pointed out that strategic sectors such as energy should be promoted, where it is committed to taking advantage of the potential in renewables, and tourism, where it is leading, but can be diversified. .

Regarding “serene reflection in the constitutional field”, although he has defended the resounding success of the 1978 Constitution against those who “openly want to end” it, he has asked to update it in aspects such as the pre-eminence of men over women in the succession of the Crown. He has linked this point with that of the reform of regional financing, where he has asserted that a clear distinction must be made between that of basic competencies, which must be addressed with “equal treatment” throughout the country, and that of different competencies. that some autonomous communities have.

At the core, the “ninety percent” that should be allocated to maintaining the welfare state, there cannot be privileges. “It doesn’t occur to me that a singularity would be created for the treatment of cancer,” he stated, and pointed out that the powers that are only the State and those that are only the autonomies should be shielded, to avoid “marketing.” “That is a basis for a constitutional reform,” he added, and has defended that this debate should be held first by the majority parties and then try to convince the smaller ones. “The model is not that the minority imposes something.”

In this regard, in response to Quirós, he criticized the economic agreement agreed between the PSC and ERC and recalled that the Catalan socialists reacted in a “furious” manner when the Catalan PP included “singular financing” in its program in 2012. Together To this discussion, Page said, a “harmonizing reflection” must be proposed in different areas. He is betting on the prosecutor, where he has taken the opportunity to slam the popular people and especially Ayuso for her tax bonuses: «I think the PP should take note. There is populism even in the most moderate formations. Page concluded his presentation, before giving way to applause and breakfast, with a firm defense of the form of the State: “A monarchy with a republican metabolism has been built.”

The president of Castilla-La Mancha, the socialist Emiliano García-Page, spoke this Wednesday about the law that will benefit ETA prisoners, published on saturday in the Official State Gazette (BOE), and has acknowledged that not as a socialist, but as a democrat, it “repulses” him. “The fact that it is the subject of a transaction disgusts me and disgusts me,” he said.

At the ABC Forum, sponsored by Enoc with the collaboration of Ecoembes and the University of Castilla-La Mancha, the newspaper’s director, Julián Quirós, asked him what he thought that thanks to a government bill, dozens of terrorists were going to be killed. prison sentences served in France for previous convictions be deducted. It has been forceful and has distanced itself from the socialist argument.

From the Government, its spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, assured that a European directive required this to be done, despite the fact that the amendment that Sumar introduced in Congress and that will cause this benefit to ETA prisoners did not appear in the bill. Page recalled that the European Court of Human Rights did not object to Spain’s decision not to commute the sentences of three ETA members and concluded: “I do not understand why it is not upheld.”

«Bildu influences a lot. Because of my Christian convictions I am easy to forgive, but the condition for forgiveness is the purpose of amendment and the assumption of guilt,” remarked the socialist baron, who regrets “the marketing” with the partners of the Executive.