The calm presentation by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, of his priorities for the beginning of the school year, contrasted with the obligatory tension and state of alert in which the First Vice President, María Jesús Montero, was involved. The first, at the Cervantes Institute, with an invited audience, not in agreement, or not at all, except for the members of the Government and her party; the Minister of Finance, in the Senate, where the PP was waiting for her with a dog’s face and the independentists with the mistrust, in the best of cases, expressed from the greeting. The regional financing, both general and specific for Catalonia, was the central issue for Montero, summoned by the PP without the possibility of refusal due to its regulatory majority, and a very prominent topic in Sánchez’s intervention; although she brought five other issues, or headings, to develop. Montero was asked for explanations and details that she did not offer, except to proclaim with enthusiasm that the equality of the Spanish is not in danger. The Constitution will be complied with and the agreement with ERC will be respected, which consists of Catalonia having a unique financing system. There is enough for everyone, the president and the first vice president assured, because uniqueness is possible for each autonomous community. Therefore, 17 “singularities” plus the already specific ones, and 100% dependent on the central Administration, Ceuta and Melilla. The real uniqueness is a fact, given the abysmal differences in needs and characteristics between all of them.
The legal blanket covers all the autonomous communities, with the exception of the Basque Country and Navarre, which already have their own space and only warn that they are not in the fight and do not want it to affect them. Theirs is constitutional, regional and historical.
One by one, he will summon the regional presidents to Moncloa, all of them, eleven of them from the PP. Some of them have been requesting to be received by the head of the Government for months. These interviews will be the beginning of the classic process of raising the framework of regional financing – the last one expired a decade ago – which necessarily begins bilaterally. No regional president has refused in the democratic history of Spain to participate in it, to conclude, after the bilateral discussion, in the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy. This initiative has only added more layers of distance with the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who had already scheduled a meeting with his presidents for this Friday. It is about maintaining unity of action in the face of the offers of the Government that, in addition, will be very tempting. This individual call to Moncloa is a political setback. The PP presidents, according to the criteria of their national leader, must resist the siren calls, translated into millions of euros for each community. Or, at least, if they accept the money, they must not forget to denounce Sánchez.
What matters most is what happens closer to home. To make sure you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
KEEP READING
#uniqueness
