Success and failure in politics are two relative concepts and not only linked to results but also to expectations and precedents. At the Conference of Presidents this Friday in Santander, no one expected anything resembling a consensus because no one expects it in almost any area of Spanish politics. The relentless battle between the Government and the opposition and the PP’s call to the ranks of its regional presidents to act as a bloc against Pedro Sánchez’s Executive left no room for understanding, no matter how much the general feeling after several hours of dialogue was that in some specific aspects of administration management, agreement would not be impossible if the strategies were not imposed.
But the fact is that there was no agreement nor was it close on any of the issues addressed, some of such importance as the regional financing system, care for migrant minors or access to housing. But there was a very unusual image of institutional normality that represents the territorial calm that Spain is experiencing and that has been unprecedented in recent decades: all the regional presidents without exception, including the Generalitat and the Lehendakari, in one photo of family together with the President of the Government and the Head of State.
“The image that has been reflected here on these steps of each and every one of the regional presidents is the image of unity of our country, and that gives certainty and security to the citizens,” celebrated the president, Pedro Sánchez, at the beginning of the summit at the Palacio de la Magdalena in Santander. And it was practically the only thing the Government could celebrate all day. Asked at the end of the day about the balance of the event in the absence of resolutions or any hint of rapprochement, the Minister of Territorial Policy once again put the focus on the inaugural photo. “I leave happier than I entered, it has been a plenary session of the highest institutional respect.” The phrase serves as a thermometer to know where Spanish politics is in this impasse without elections and with almost three years left until the next general elections.
The reading in which almost all of the sources consulted agree is the same: that in the closed-door meeting, courtesy and the calm confrontation of ideas prevailed. With some exceptions. From the Government, several witnesses to the interventions regret that the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, once again stood out and was the protagonist of the most tense moments of the conclave. “We don’t want anything, leave Madrid alone,” he even said in a multilateral forum by definition, such as the Conference of Presidents, and to the general astonishment of the attendees.
The Government tried to make a move with the housing policy. Pedro Sánchez invited the group of regional presidents to “make use of the Housing Law, whose tools are giving good results where they are applied and are contributing to reducing rental prices,” in reference to Catalonia.
He also invited consensus to reform the Land Law with the aim of accelerating the construction of affordable housing, as well as “adapting current regulations to the challenge of climate change.” And he proposed shielding “the public and social nature of housing financed with public resources permanently and irreversibly, to ensure that the public stock of affordable housing continues to grow and reaches the 20% that the most advanced European countries have in this area.”
In immigration matters, Sánchez made an urgent call to find a solution to the management crisis that the Canary Islands are facing with unaccompanied minors. And he asked to “agree once and for all on a shared solution to the problem of the distribution of unaccompanied minors through objective criteria, appealing to inter-territorial solidarity,” after the failure of the three-way negotiations between the PSOE, the PP and the government. of the Canary Islands due to the popular people’s refusal to reform the immigration law in the terms proposed by the Executive. The Canarian president, Fernando Clavijo, who admitted his disappointment at the lack of any type of rapprochement, proposed that the Government implement by decree a distribution between autonomies.
And the melon of regional financing was also opened. Introduced on the agenda by the presidents of the PP, called by Feijóo to make a common front against Sánchez in this matter, the debate on the reform of the system was intertwined with that of the forgiveness of the regional debt committed by the Executive. In fact, a date was set for a Fiscal and Financial Policy Council to address this point, and all the autonomies were called to a meeting in January.
The presidents of the PP, a not very homogeneous bloc
The regional presidents of the PP arrived in Santander with the lesson learned. Each and every one of them has denounced in recent weeks the supposed lack of work prior to the Conference and the absence of “documentation” and “concrete proposals” that could be debated and, where appropriate, agreed upon at the meeting.
A complaint that everyone repeated at the exit in their respective appearances before the media at the end of the Conference. “It has not had much content,” said the Andalusian president, Juan Manuel Moreno, who regretted not “knowing the fine print” of the proposals launched by Sánchez.
The leader of the party himself, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, echoed the lament in a message on social networks: “More time and effort is dedicated to preparing the meetings in Waterloo than this one.” He said this after the meeting of Junts and PSOE in Switzerland had emerged.
The PP barons expressed their refusal to negotiate a debt relief if this measure agreed upon by the PSOE with its Catalan partners is not accompanied by a comprehensive reform of the financing system. “He wants us all to pay for the excess that the separatists have made,” said Castilian and Leonese Alfonso Fernández Mañueco. The Galician Alfonso Rueda also regretted that it was “the only concrete commitment” that Sánchez launched, with a date to address it as well.
Everyone also requested that the meeting of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council announced for January go beyond debt and address a new regional financing system. This is where the PP loses its unanimity, since each community has different needs and, therefore, proposes different solutions. Moreno and Fernando López Miras from Murcia indicated in their interventions that their situation is “limiting.” The Andalusian demanded to offset the “historical debt” which, according to his calculations, amounts to 1.5 billion euros annually since 2009.
But this Friday a new element appeared in Santander. The president of the Valencian Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, demanded a specific debt relief for his community. An old demand that is now gaining weight, since the man from Alicante raised it as a measure to alleviate the catastrophic situation in Valencia due to DANA on October 29.
The rest of the barons supported his request. Some, such as Jorge Azcón from Aragon, criticized that Sánchez had not launched a specific proposal on the Valencian debt that could be voted on, despite the fact that Mazón presented it on the fly at the meeting.
Illa-Ayuso confrontation
One of the most tense moments in the meeting of presidents has occurred between the Catalan president, Salvador Illa, and the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. “I do not accept lessons of those who practice fiscal lack of solidarity“, said the first about the second, without mentioning her.
It wasn’t necessary. Ayuso later acknowledged having “taken for granted” and attacked the socialist president. “They tell us about the privileges of being the rich, that we do engineering, fiscal dumping, when that is not true,” he said in statements to the media. Ayuso claimed his “autonomy,” which he said “they do not respect.” “We have our fiscal policy. And I have reached a point in which I think it is better for Madrid to start not asking for anything, just to be left alone.”
The Madrid president vindicated her electoral victories in Santander: “They have given us a large majority to manage our own Treasury in this way.”
Asked if he had to respond to the reproaches of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, regarding the new Catalan financing, Illa was faithful to his style and avoided open reproaches, although he wanted to make his position clear in defense of the new model.
According to Illa, at the meeting of presidents “there have been a few demonstrations” openly critical of the Catalan singular financing, to which the president replied that they were “comments made out of ignorance and that were untrue.”
SMI, Madrid companies and “Extremaduran farmers”
In his turn, Ayuso made a total challenge to the Government’s policies in his speech before the presidents, and went so far as to criticize that the interprofessional minimum wage is the same throughout the territory. Or that it is so high, in your opinion.
“The minimum wage should not be the same for a farmer from Extremadura as it is for a businessman from Madrid,” the president said behind closed doors. “Life in Madrid is different from that of the rest of the autonomies,” he added.
Later, before the press, Ayuso qualified his own words. “I have read it in some digital newspaper and I have not said it that way,” he began. But then he added: “Everyone’s reality is very different. A large company, a multinational, with its difficulties can increase a minimum wage by taxation. But this, to a farmer or a rancher, to a self-employed person, and especially in some autonomous communities, turns them into mush.” “What I am saying is that we take into account that there are peculiarities by sectors, by regions,” he acknowledged, and then insisted: “I have not said at any time that there is a minimum wage by communities.”
At the end of the sentence, the Extremaduran president, María Guardiola, came out, who maintained that what Ayuso said “makes complete sense”, although she added that “she could have given the example of a Madrid farmer.” Guardiola said that “the effort of a farmer or a self-employed person is not the same as that of the owner of a large corporation.” But neither she nor Ayuso offered an alternative and asked that the decision on the SMI always have the endorsement of the employers.
The meeting ended without a single agreement. Not even in immigration matters. The Canary Islands president, Fernando Clavijo, appeared in Santander with a last-minute proposal to unblock the transfer of migrant minors to the Peninsula also signed by the Lehendakari. But Clavijo also encountered rejection from all regions.
The only positive point highlighted by both parties was that normality has been restored for all parties to attend these types of meetings. And they all showed their willingness to meet again in 2025 in the same forum, this time in Barcelona. A minimum understanding to put in your mouth among so many seemingly insurmountable disagreements.
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