The President of the Government, Pedro Sanchezwill soon call the president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano Garcia-Pagealways Bilateral working meeting at the Moncloa Palace, six years after their first and only meeting official detained on October 15, 2018.
On this occasion, Sánchez received Page in La Moncloa and Since then, the two leaders have not held any other institutional meeting. and they only met occasionally at official events or organic meetings of the PSOE, such as the Federal Committee of October 28.
This institutional meeting, not yet dated, will be part of the series of bilateral meetings that Sánchez announced this Wednesday with all regional presidents and this will take place on the sidelines of the Conference of Presidents that La Moncloa wants to organize in Cantabria. This bilateral cycle will take place amid the political earthquake in Spain caused by the Catalonia tax deal.
Political expectation
Sanchez’s next meeting with Page generates particular expectations due to the known lack of personal and political chemistry between the two and the strong criticism of the Castilian-La Mancha leader towards many decisions of La Moncloa, now focused precisely on regional financing and the Catalan quota that is shaking up Spanish politics.
The President of Castilla-La Mancha and other regional leaders of the PSOE have launched a Intense critical offensive against this tax concert in Cataloniafundamentally because they consider that it breaks the principle of equality between Spaniards, favors one community over all others and attacks territorial solidarity.
Last July, Page came to evaluate the Catalan quota very severely, describing it as “obscene, crude and embarrassing”. These internal dissensions will, as one might expect, become evident in the Federal Committee that the PSOE will hold this Saturday, September 7 in Madridresponding to Ferraz’s request for “courage” to the capricious barons to express their disagreements in this instance.
Pedro Sánchez received Emiliano García-Page at La Moncloa in 2018.
The page has already asked for it then
It is particularly striking that, during this first and only meeting between Sánchez and Page in La Moncloa in October 2018, The President of Castilla-La Mancha has already spoken of the need for an “egalitarian” regional financing model for all communities, a battle that has intensified especially in recent weeks following the Catalan concert.
In the absence of knowing the content of the future meeting between Sánchez and Page in La Moncloa, it seems clear that Self-financing will be at the heart of the meetingsince the president of Castilla-La Mancha made a a strong political commitment to fight against privileges of some territories compared to others.
At this meeting in 2018, Page presented Sánchez with a panel of more than 150 demands for Castilla-La ManchaAmong them are regional financing, the pending infrastructure map, water policy and the transfer of the Tagus and the fight “against commercialization with the independence movement”, as reflected at the time by the regional government in a statement to the media.
Coexistence of torpedoes
In addition to maintaining a clear critical position over the years, Last April, García-Page sent a letter to Pedro Sánchez in which he criticized the government’s policy of “I invite and you pay.” by political decisions that were not supported by corresponding funding.
In this letter, Page expressed to the President of the Government the need to reform the current regional financing modelexpired since 2014, avoiding giving privileged treatment to any community and to compensate for currently underfunded regions, such as Castilla-La Mancha, the Valencian Community, Murcia and Andalusia.
In announcing his series of bilateral meetings with regional presidents, Pedro Sánchez opted this Wednesday for what he called “territorial coexistence”thus defending the Catalan concert. “Some,” said Sánchez, “will try to torpedo this objective because they have been doing it or trying to do it for six years.”
