The general secretary of the PSOE in Aragon and former regional president, Javier Lambán, was very harsh this Saturday with regard to the tax agreement between the PSC and Esquerra, which he described as a “mistake” and which he considers “unconstitutional”. In turn, he demanded at the Federal Committee that the party become a “social-democratic formation, believing in the Constitution and in the unity of Spain”.
In statements to the media after the meeting, he recalled that at the Santiago de Compostela summit – held in November 2021 – eight autonomous communities governed by the PSOE and the PP had rejected “any unilateral reform of financing” and adopted “common positions” on tax matters.
However, the agreement for Catalonia is, according to him, “the opposite of what was defended at the time.” “It is a weakening of solidarity and cohesion, the rest of the autonomous communities would be forced to downgrade their services or increase their taxes,” said Lambán, who affirmed that “there is not a single government in the world that loses control of taxation.” of 28% of GDP,” referring to the whole of Catalonia, the Basque Country and Navarre.
The socialist leader summed it up in one idea: “If Madrid decided to do the same, the rest of the autonomous communities would have to go to Mauritania by boat.”
Lambán developed these arguments: “This is an absolutely decisive structural change for the future of the country, which threatens the Constitution and a cohesive and united Spain. This means nothing more and nothing less than confederalising the country, it is the opposite of federalisation. As an Aragonese and as a socialist, I am radically opposed,” he insisted.
The secretary general of the Aragonese socialists indicated that he had “congratulated” Salvador Illa for the results in Catalonia, while specifying that he would like “the same thing to happen in the rest of Spain”. “Because while in Catalonia it is going up like crazy, in the rest it is going down. And, for me, what is also important for Illa to be president is that we recover the presidency in Castile and Leon, Andalusia or Aragon”, he declared.
Faced with the proposed pact for Catalonia, Lambán called for a return to the Granada Declaration, led by Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba in 2013 and in which there was a commitment to reach an agreement with the PP. Without popular reforms, the Aragonese leader recalled, “it is impossible to undertake great reforms.”
In the aforementioned statement, “a fiscal model similar to the German one was opted for, in which the Länder provide the service but return the entire amount collected to the federal government, which is the one that carries out the corresponding redistribution,” Lambán summarized.
