Isabel Díaz Ayuso is right when she asks the barons of her party not to become humble spectators of this show of financial magic tricks with which Pedro Sanchez It aims to divert the attention of the autonomous communities while Catalonia receives, behind the scenes and out of sight of the Spanish, a tax agreement.
But Ayuso is wrong when he proposes an autonomous revolt and the refusal of the barons to meet with the president of the government of Moncloa. In other words, when he asks to do the same thing as him Albert Rivera July 2, 2019: Rejection of a meeting with Pedro Sánchez as part of the series of contacts for his inauguration.
Sánchez intends, and Ayuso is also right, to transform the debate on granting Catalonia a tax agreement similar to that of the Basque Country into a debate on the particular financing of each of the autonomies. That is to say, in a seventeen-ring circus where each community negotiates at its own risk.
The president hopes to sow discord among the PP barons and that at least some of them, with Carlos Mazon in the lead given that the Valencian Community is one of the most poorly financed Spanish autonomies, agrees to “keep quiet” in the face of Catalan privilege in exchange for a small improvement in its income.
To do this, the president has a second ace up his sleeve. Focus on Madrid and its so-called “neoliberal policies”. And not only to divert this attention from Catalonia, but to justify a general increase in taxes that would affect with particular intensity the companies, workers and self-employed of Madrid, and that would be presented as something inevitable in the face of the alleged dumping Madrid Prosecutor.
But the way to send this message to Pedro Sánchez, that he will not be able to “buy” the popular communities with the crumbs of the funding that remains after granting a concert in Catalonia, cannot ignore the most basic parliamentary courtesy. If the president calls a meeting at Moncloa, and even more so when many of these meetings have been requested for months by the PP barons, the obligation of the regional presidents is to go to Moncloa.
Another question is what should be the position of these barons once they are present at the meeting. And here again, Ayuso is right when she asks to reject the fiscal trompe-l’oeil with which Sánchez intends to cajole those who are called to become the retaining wall against this new Spain of the unequal.
The opportunity to agree on this common position of all the popular barons is precisely the summit which will take place tomorrow, FridayThis is where Ayuso and the rest of the PP’s regional presidents must demonstrate that Sánchez’s siren songs have not managed to weaken, as is already happening in the PSOE, their commitment to equality for all Spaniards.
