It has been 11 days since the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, called for rebellion among the regional leaders of the Popular Party, asking them to refuse to meet with the president of the government to discuss regional financing. But now, Ayuso says she does not believe that she “is the one who says what we have to do.”
From one date to another, the president of the Valencian Community, Carlos Mazón, has shown himself willing to discuss financing and debt with Pedro Sánchez, and the regional president of Galicia, Alfonso Rueda, has already announced that he will meet Sánchez next Friday. The president of the government said this Monday that the doors of the Moncloa Palace “are open” and that it is time to reach agreements.
“As long as there is no Conference of Presidents, we regional presidents cannot sit down in front of this petty politics to negotiate anything,” Ayuso said on September 5. “It is not a question of money, it is a question of Spain,” the president told regional presidents at the opening ceremony of the PP’s political course, which took place in Arganda del Rey, Madrid.
Ayuso then justified that Sánchez’s intention was to “divide” the regional presidents, as well as to “whitewash the territorial rupture that is being created.” “I ask the regional presidents that, if there is a meeting, everyone goes together. Because this government is going to try to bribe us one by one in Moncloa,” added the president of Madrid.
This Monday, Ayuso participated in an event organized by the newspaper ABCAsked about these comments, the response was a 180 degree turn: “I have never said and I don’t think I am the one who says what we should do,” she said.
A few days before his call for a boycott of the meetings with Sánchez in Moncloa, Ayuso had also warned his colleagues of the need to approach the negotiations in unity with all the PP communities. “If we start with retail, Madrid has the upper hand,” he said in a speech on September 2.
Last Wednesday, the government of the Community of Madrid insisted that the regional leaders of the PP had agreed not to discuss financing in their bilateral meetings with Sánchez. The head of the presidency, Miguel Ángel García Martín, insisted on September 11 that the regional leaders should not “fall into the trap” in which the president of the government intends to lead them “of bilaterality” that simply serves to “justify that bilateral relationship that he must maintain, not with Catalonia, but with the pro-independence parties, because they are the ones who keep him in La Moncloa.”
The national leadership of the PP said earlier this month – shortly after Ayuso’s call – that it would respect the decision of each regional leader if they finally went to Moncloa to address the relevant issues of each territory.
