The Senate approved this Thursday the urgent appearance of the First Vice President and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, to explain the agreement reached by the PSOE and the ERC to reform the financing of Catalonia that allowed the investiture of the socialist Salvador Illa as “president” of the Generalitat. The PP imposed, with its absolute majority, the holding of an extraordinary plenary session on Tuesday, September 4, although PSOE sources do not confirm the presence of Montero since a control session is scheduled for the 10th and attack the PP: “It is an absolute decision. lack of institutional respect.
The PP registered the request yesterday and resolved it in just 24 hours with its absolute majority. The purpose of the appearance according to the PP’s request is to account for “the fiscal secessionism that was agreed with its partners bilaterally and outside the financing system of the Autonomous Communities of the common regime in exchange for the presidency of the Generalitat of Catalonia and the continuation of presiding over the Spanish government.
The first opposition party defends that “the request, which is requested a week in advance and is in accordance with the rules of the House”, in particular article 182. Sources from the popular parliamentary group in the Senate assure that “the appearance of Minister Montero is urgent” in the face of the absolute disinformation of the government and the silence between the executive and the ERC, after their shameful agreement.
The PSOE assumes that Montero must appear before the Senate and that the petition approved this Thursday is legally correct, but it questions the viability and opportunity of the decision of the Upper House. “The PP imposes its agenda with only three working days, we will see if Montero can change his planned agenda or not,” socialist sources point out, who recall that the vice president “reserved” September 10 to go precisely to the Senate for the first session of control of the political course.
“This is an absolute lack of institutional respect between the Legislative and the Executive,” they add from the PSOE due to the urgency with which, they say, his appearance was requested. “The absolute majority has made it an absolute unilateralism,” the same sources deplore.
The PP has already tried, without success, to force the appearance in Congress of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and some members of his Council of Ministers, such as Montero herself, but the majority of the Lower House rejected the 10 requests, which had the support of Vox and, in some of them, Junts.
From the Popular Group of the Senate, they assure that “Montero stands out for his vagaries and concessions to the independence movement.” “In July, he defended that there had been no agreement or bilateral negotiation. Later, during Illa’s inauguration, there was a concert in exchange for the chair. And now Montero says it is not a concert,” add the same sources. The PP “demands transparency in the face of this farce, which even Sánchez himself refused to explain to any media during his African tour.”
The government has chosen to hide the debate on the reform of the financing of Catalonia during the month of August. Sánchez has preferred not to address it either outside or within the PSOE, where the agreement with the ERC has provoked multiple signs of rejection, from the regional presidents Emiliano García-Page or Adrián Barbón, to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy , Josep Borrell.
The government knows that the Catalan single tax model will be the next political battle at the highest level that it will have to face when it returns from vacation. And the PP is not going to give up at the first moment.
