Pedro Sanchez I had a challenge this Saturday. Explain to the Spanish, but especially to the socialist activists, why inequality is good for them.
The fact that the president made no explicit mention of the Catalan concert during his speech is the clearest evidence that this issue has sufficient potential to, at the very least, destabilize the PSOE.
But above all, to shake the government coalition, which is now more fragile than ever.
Sánchez only alluded to the pact with the ERC with a few tangential references. He mentioned, for example, the “singularities” of some communities and promised that all the autonomies that wish it would benefit from “unique financing”. It follows that the exit from the common regime will be voluntary for whoever wishes it.
He also recalled that his government has transferred more funds to the autonomies than Mariano Rajoy. A half-truth that forgets, among other elements, the inflation of recent years.
Then, Sánchez attacked the PP communities, but especially the Community of Madrid and the Valencian Community, for distributing the money that the government transfers to them “among the rich.” A crude lie that forgets, for example, that Madrid contributes more than 70% to the Fundamental Fund for the Guarantee of Public Services or that the Valencian Community is one of the least well-funded in Spain.
But above all he defended a federal model which, as he said Francine Armengolaspires to defeat “autonomous Spain.” That is, the constitutional question. “The real debate is not between territories, but between models,” Sánchez said.
The PSOE general secretary thus played with words to ignore the obvious. Like the fact that the Catalan concert is not “a model” applicable in general, but rather a particular privilege that contradicts the essence of federal models, based on the sharing of national sovereignty, but also on equality.
He also ignored that his model is not such, but rather a multiplicity of bilateral negotiations that deny the essential unity of the public treasury and transform the common regime into a dead letter, boosting the redistribution of resources.
Sánchez did not even justify the Catalan concert with an argument similar to the one he used at the time to defend the amnesty of the party leaders. processthat of “making necessity a virtue”.
The President of the Government even boasted of his willingness to resist when he insinuated that the legislative power would be exhausted “with or without the help of the legislative power”, assuming the loss of the support of his parliamentary partners and, most likely, the rejection of their general state budgets.
The only responses to Sánchez’s triumphalist and narcotic speech were those of the barons who had previously publicly expressed their disagreements. And their heads, Emiliano Garcia-Page And Javier Lamban.
Page said at the entrance to the federal commission that he had come “with enormous concern for the country and for the founding values of the left and social democracy.” “This document which sets out ERC “It’s much more selfish than socialist.”said Page. “The PSOE It was founded to avoid privileges. Here we all know what it is about. I don’t think there are many fools who would believe that. “It is a serious document from a constitutional point of view and from the point of view of socialist values.”
But the hardest part of this occasion was Javier Lambán.
“The pact with the ERC is the opposite of what we have always defended,” Lambán said. “It grants full fiscal sovereignty and bilaterality with the State. It is unconstitutional. I hope it is not justified, because the lion’s share would go to Catalonia. Either we cut services or we increase taxes for the rest of the citizens.”
Lambán recalled that with the Catalan fiscal agreement the State will lose 19% of the GDP and that a unilateral modification of the bases of the Public Treasury cannot be approved without the “yes” of the PP. “This goes against federalization, it is a confederalization. Without an agreement with the PP, major reforms cannot be addressed. This is what the Rubalcaba reform the Constitution with the help of the PP. But the ordinary that was reflected in it was different. “He asked that Catalonia not lose in income per capita, nor in income and expenditure.”
EL ESPAÑOL agrees with Lambán on the essentials. The Catalan tax agreement represents a unilateral modification of the very conception of what Spain is and effectively repeals the Constitution of 78. “If Madrid asks for the same thing as Catalonia, we Spaniards must emigrate to Mauritania,” Lambán said.
Sánchez arrived and saw, but he did not win. The renewal of territorial, local and regional leaders after the Federal Congress at the end of November will allow the president to corner critics and surround himself with believers. But hiding the concert won’t help him escape its consequences.Neither to him nor to the PSOE.
