The government does not have, at the moment, the necessary figures to draw up the general state budgets for 2025. It is not even certain to approve the budgetary trajectory, which will be voted on next week in Congress. The PSOE is trying to convince Junts to support it by organizing a new meeting in Switzerland, but this is not only of interest to Pedro Sánchez’s executive. The regional presidents also want public accounts for next year. And this is what two of the main barons of the PP, Juan Manuel Moreno and Alfonso Rueda, expressed this Friday after meeting with Sánchez in Moncloa, despite the fact that their party is not pro-work.
This Friday, the presidents of Euskadi, Galicia and Andalusia opened the series of contacts initiated by Sánchez before the Conference of Presidents that the government plans to convene. The difference between the subsequent appearances was notable. While the Basque Imanol Pradales stressed the PNV’s willingness to collaborate in the “stability” of the Executive and reported on the files to be transferred to the Basque Country agreed with Sánchez, the first PP barons to go to Moncloa left “empty” and “recovered”, as Moreno explained at a press conference.
Rueda and Moreno responded to Sánchez’s call and acknowledged the cordiality of the meeting. But both also regretted the lack of concrete proposals regarding financing reform and debt relief. Although they denied bilateral scenarios, both believed that Sánchez would at least present the general line of his financing reform plan. Something that, according to both of them, did not happen.
Both presidents told journalists the list of demands they had forwarded to the Prime Minister who, as Rueda and Moreno agreed, limited himself to taking note of them and ensuring that he would take them into account. On the important issue of regional financing, Sánchez did not give any indication beyond the need to address a single financing for Catalonia as a formula to definitively reintegrate the community after a long decade of secessionist process, always according to the version proposed by the barons of the PP.
In their respective statements, Rueda and Moreno stressed the urgent need to improve the financing of the autonomous communities. Both stressed that their accounts depend on the contribution of the State and that they are at the limit of their capacities.
For this reason, both the Andalusian president and the Galician president defended the need for the government to draw up the 2025 budgets. Of course, both preferred not to put pressure on the leader of their party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, so that the PP would agree to support them. “It is better that there are budgets,” acknowledged Rueda, who had previously argued that “Galicia needs more financing.”
Precisely, next week the budgetary trajectory will be voted on, which implies, among other things, an increase in the financing capacity of the autonomous communities since the Government increases the deficit quota that the regions can assume without exceeding the limits imposed by the EU. But the PP will vote against it, as announced on Friday morning by the regional deputy secretary, Elías Bendodo, who came to settle the debate even before the appearance of the barons.
Moreno was clearer than Rueda. The Andalusian president also regretted the lack of resources for social policies, such as Dependency, Health or Education. “I ask the President of the Government to seek the majority he needs, applying the proposal, moderation and dialogue, to be able to reach agreements that make this budget possible,” he said.
However, both acknowledged that Pedro Sánchez could perfectly continue negotiating even if he had to extend the public accounts again. “They destroyed my Vox budget in the last legislature and I did not cut public services,” Moreno said. “It is true that I could not extend some things, but I have always looked for a way out so that there is no alteration of essential public services,” he added.
Rueda also defended that the government has “mechanisms” to govern without a budget and even to implement new investments. Of course, both prefer that there be 2025 accounts.
Minister Ángel Víctor Torres, who was spokesman this Friday, demanded from the PP, especially its barons, “consistency” in voting in accordance with what they are asking.
PP, objective Conference of Presidents
With Pradales absent from the debate on the financing reform, given that Euskadi has its own system, Rueda and Moreno assured that they had asked Sánchez not to approve “the Catalan quota” and not to negotiate bilaterally, which did not happen this Friday. The two PP barons also announced that they wanted the subject to be discussed at the next Conference of Presidents, which for the moment has neither date nor agenda.
The government’s intention is to deal with housing policy, but the PP wants to impose the inclusion of financing. And it has mechanisms to do so. It was the Andalusian president who warned that if the Government did not include this issue among the topics to be debated, the PP would use the regulations and force its inclusion on the agenda.
The rules of the Conference establish that the agenda is set with the prior agreement of the President of the Government and the ten regional presidents, which requires an agreement between the Executive and the PP. The Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, stated at the end of the day that “no initiative will be vetoed.”
From the beginning of the political journey, the President of the Government designated housing policy as one of the axes of action of his Executive for this legislature and announced that it would be the main theme of the Conference of Presidents scheduled for October in Cantabria. “We want our young people to emancipate themselves at a younger age. That is why we will do more in the coming months. “We will promote new measures to expand the social housing stock, to continue speculation, to establish a better balance between tourist activity and the well-being of residents and to ensure that housing is a right for all and not the business of a few”, said Pedro Sánchez.
Regarding the requests of the PP barons to dedicate this conclave of regional presidents to the reform of the financing system, the Executive indicates that the appropriate forum for this is the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy and no other.
“The government says yes to the reform of the regional financing system and the cancellation of the debt, but within the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy,” said the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, after the meeting of the President of the Government with the autonomous leaders of Euskadi, Galicia and Andalusia this Friday in Moncloa.
Torres also reduced expectations regarding the depth of the reform undertaken in Catalonia, which, he assured, will be discussed, like the others, in a multilateral manner. “Catalonia is part of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council and decisions are taken in a multilateral manner. This symbiosis is what has always existed: multilateralism through a shared financing system and the singularity of each of the Autonomous Communities,” he stressed.
With the first day of meetings closed, Moncloa will not receive any more presidents until next Friday 27th, when those of Asturias, La Rioja and Cantabria will be summoned. On October 4th, it will be the turn of Castilla-La Mancha, Comunitat Valenciana and Murcia. The others still do not have a date.
