PP barons see it impossible to agree on the distribution of migrant minors despite Feijóo guaranteeing the “solidarity” of their autonomous regions

The PP faces a hot potato with the distribution of migrant minors that the central and Canary governments want to make mandatory by law. The legislative change, which must be voted on in Congress, puts the PP in tension with its partner, Vox, and divides its autonomous governments, without the party having managed to reach a common position so far. Although Alberto Núñez Feijóo opened the door last Friday for the Popular Party to agree, with conditions, with the Government on the reform of the Immigration Law to impose the distribution of minors throughout the territory, several of his barons remain very reluctant to modify the law. In private, PP regional presidents maintain that “there will be no agreement” between the communities to accept the distribution of minors, while downplaying the importance of the words of the PP leader and recognizing that the Popular Party autonomies have not yet reached a shared criterion.

Last Friday, Feijóo ignored Vox’s threat regarding the possibility that the Popular Party would accept an agreement with which a distribution would be activated every time Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands see their juvenile centres occupied by 150%. Although the ultras are putting pressure on the five communities where they govern with the PP to reject it, Feijóo assured that “the solidarity” of those regions, governed alone or with the far-right party, “is guaranteed.” The Canary Islands, where the Popular Party shares the Government with Coalición Canaria, “is in an exceptional situation,” admitted the president of the PP, while opening the door to an agreement with the Executive on this matter. “We are fulfilling our obligations and we will continue to make available all the installed capacity in juvenile centres to accommodate any need and any contingent,” he said.

In private, however, several of the PP’s leaders are very reluctant to reach an agreement, and even say that they see it as impossible. These PP leaders maintain that the agreement will not be reached due to the reluctance of several autonomous regions, including others not governed by the PP, such as Catalonia and the Basque Country, and they venture that the Government will be forced to continue diverting minors from the Canary Islands as it has done until now, with small quotas of about 400 minors per year and with the acceptance of the autonomous regions. Feijóo’s words on Friday opening the door to an agreement, they say, were not agreed in advance with the leaders and were due to the fact that the PP leader “did not expect the question” and improvised the answer.

Both the PSOE and Coalición Canaria, which bilaterally agreed on the bases of the reform, are seeking the PP’s yes in Congress, not only because it is not clear that it will achieve the necessary simple majority (Junts has shown itself reluctant to support it), but because they consider that the support of the PP is fundamental because they govern in the majority of the autonomous communities. But although the distribution would benefit three territories in which the PP governs, there are also several PP autonomous regions that are very reluctant to take in more immigrant minors with the argument that their systems are collapsing.

“I have no room for manoeuvre, we have already exceeded the limit of our resources,” privately defends another regional president of the PP from one of the autonomous regions with the greatest migratory pressure. This popular baron warns that this issue is “even more important than that of regional financing”, because it runs the risk of “getting out of hand” the humanitarian situation, while at the same time complaining about the possible “call effect for the mafias” in the case of a great pact to reform the Immigration Law and impose by law the distribution of minors.

Other PP barons are more open to the agreement, but always subject to “transparency, equity of reception and sufficient funding”, something that they do not see being fulfilled in the text that has been made public in which criteria have been established that have already been agreed upon by all the autonomous communities for voluntary distributions. Some Popular regional presidents understand that the PP autonomous communities will have to reach a common position to face the sectoral conference for the distribution of minors that the Sánchez Executive has called for next July 18 in Tenerife, but they recognize that they are still far from having it.

The Popular Party is wary of Vox’s threat and does not believe that Santiago Abascal’s party will carry it out. Nor is there much concern among the Popular Party barons about the possibility that the ultras will break with their governments. “They are doing us a favour,” says a president who governs with Vox.

Despite the reluctance of its regional leaders to accept the migration pact, Feijóo insisted on Monday on sending a message about the importance of solidarity between communities, in what seemed to be a message between the lines internally. In a generic way, without referring to this specific matter and in an event in Salamanca with several of the main regional presidents of the PP to present a common EVAU, the leader of the PP insisted that the autonomous State requires solidarity between territories, which could be applied to the case of the Canary Islands. “The problems of a territory are problems of all Spaniards,” he stressed, before claiming the PP as the “only State party left in Spain.” “And we will always be,” he concluded.

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