“If we sit down to negotiate, we wake up with an agreement within hours”The barons of the Popular Party are determined to deny María Jesús Montero, who repeatedly accuses Alberto Nuñez Feijoo of being unable to arbitrate the territorial commanders of his party in matters of regional financing.
The truth is that the various communities in which the PP governs have divergent interests when it comes to presenting the demands for the design of the new system, pending since 2015. And reaching an agreement, as they admit in Genoa, is not a minor issue. But that does not mean, they add, that it is not possible. “Of course it is possible,” they say under the dome.
Hence Feijóo’s determination to establish a common position with his barons at the meeting he will hold with them on September 6. This is a priority issue, because for the course that is opening, the PP will focus a good part of its strategy on the fight against terrorism. Catalan quota agreed between the CPS and the ERC for the investiture of Salvador Illawhich has aroused so much opposition even within the ranks of the PSOE.
As EL ESPAÑOL has learned, the PP leadership keeps in a drawer a document in slow preparation in which Feijóo’s guidelines seem to carry out a reform of the financing system. Now, the intention is that the barons of the twelve communities governed by the PP say Yeah.
This is a proposal that has similarities with the Santiago Declaration that eight regional presidents signed in 2021, in that forum that Feijóo himself convened when he was president of the Xunta de Galicia. Thus, one of the priority axes to reform the system was the “cost per service”.
This is what Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Galicia, Extremadura, Aragon, Cantabria, Asturias and La Rioja have concluded, communities that favour criteria such as dispersion or depopulation. In this regard, Feijóo’s PP also favours taking into account effects such as “area, dispersion, low density, orography, low birth rate or ageing” when quantifying what each territory should receive.
As a preamble, the PP, in its financing plan, establishes several postulates to carry out the reform of the system: “Always negotiate within the framework of multilateralism” and that “no one should lose, everyone must obtain the necessary resources.”
A fund of 1,700M
To avoid decisions being subject to political criteria, the popular leadership defends the “creation of a committee of experts elected by the autonomous communities” in which “independent” professionals appear. They would be responsible for drawing up “a timetable for the negotiation process and its subsequent approval.”
In the meantime, for the PP, it is essential that the government gives the green light to the “creation of a transition fund”, a measure that the most poorly financed communities have been demanding for some time: Andalusia, the Valencian Community, the Region of Murcia and Castilla-La Mancha. In total, they are demanding that this fund be endowed with 1.7 billion to temporarily remedy the lack of resources.
Regarding the debate on the cancellation of the debt that the LACC has with the State, which arises as a result of the agreement that the PSOE reached with ERC and Junts for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez to cancel 15 billion of debts to Catalonia, the PP closes the door. “It is a minor issue that seeks other effects, linked to political issues.”
However, they specify in Genoa, this does not prevent, “as the experts request”, from analyzing a “restructuring of the debt” of the communities, so that part of it is commuted by the State. Or to modify the conditions, for example, extend the expiry period. Of course, as long as a bilateral negotiation is not carried out, this ends up favoring some to the detriment of others.
Another strong point that appears in Feijóo’s project to reform the system is to carry out a kind of audit of public spending in all communities and, “taking into account the reports of Airef”, to carry out a “elimination of duplication between administrations.” In this way, according to Génova, the savings capacity can be increased.
Regarding the payments from the Ministry of Finance to the communities, the PP supports that they be made annually. Currently, the liquidation of tax resources is carried out every two years.
In terms of investments, the PP wants greater co-governance between the State and the autonomies. Although, in the same way, this requires greater “respect for the regulatory capacity” of the autonomous governments. An issue that popular leaders consider necessary to include in the next model to prevent the central government from reducing the margin that the autonomies have to reduce taxes.
From this base, Feijóo seeks to bring together the positions of his barons to come out of the meeting of September 6 with a proposal attractive enough to be supported by the socialist barons who have raised their voices against the Catalan quota: Emiliano Garcia-Page And Adrian Barbon.
The PP, with this strategy, wants to force Sánchez to call a Conference of Presidents to address the financing reform. And, later, a Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy. The ultimate goal is for the Executive to renounce what was signed between the PSC and the ERC, which contemplates a bilateral negotiation with Catalonia to establish the controversial economic agreement.
