In a “very respectful and friendly environment” despite their patent differences. It was the meeting between Pedro Sánchez and Emiliano García-Page that took place at the Moncloa Palace. The meeting lasted a little over two hours..
The face to face, framed in the series of meetings that the President of the Spanish Government holds with his regional counterpartstook place six years after the first and only one carried out to date by the two socialist leaders, which took place on October 15, 2018. But this Friday as special as expected.
The nomination came loaded with political morbidity after the head of the Castilian-La Mancha executive became The main scourge of Sánchez within the PSOE itselfshowing in a strong and almost daily manner its rejection of the main lifelines of the government itself: the amnesty law and the single financing for Catalonia.
And Page, he assured during the press conference that followed, complied with what he had already warned during the previous one: that he would tell his leader the same thing that he defends in front of the microphones. That is to say that The Catalan quota is neither left-wing, nor admissible, nor constitutional. In addition to assuming, according to him, a privilege that directly harms Castilla-La Mancha and the rest of the communities of the common regime.
“Unfinished business”
But, beyond the important question of regional financing, the Castilian-La Mancha president presented himself at Moncloa with a file entitled “Pending cases of the Spanish government concerning Castilla-La Mancha”which he carried under his arm and which he handed to Sánchez after taking the official photo on the recognizable access stairs to the presidential palace, where They posed smiling despite their distance.
“The PP would expect him to come here with a sticky bomb to leave him placed in Moncloa, but we are already very used to hearing nonsense”, Page quipped to journalists, to whom he clarified that during the meeting there was no question of “organic questions”, at a time when he, like Sánchez, is faced with the revalidation of his national and regional leadership within the PSOE.
Page argued: “Here we come to talk about the interests of Castilla-La Mancha and myself. I want to represent all Castilians-La Mancha, not just those who are active in my party“. A way of being which, as he declared, sometimes provokes animosity within his own formation.
194 “specific questions”
The president of the Council of Communities clarified that the file he gave to Pedro Sánchez contains 194 “specific questions” that, jointly, the State and the Autonomous Community have “at different stages of development”. related to water, infrastructure, energy or housing, among other topics.
Regarding the Tajo-Segura transfer, Page urged Sánchez that the government now publishes the new operating rules to limit shipments to the Levantbecause we are already “in added time” and not to do so would be “not to respect the new Tagus plan, five judgments of the Supreme Court and the European directives”.
Furthermore, he called for exhausting all water resources provided by desalination before sending more water from the sources of the Tagus, although to do this the price of desalinated water must be subsidized so that the cost is not the problem. “The rest is speculating on a scarce good that the yielding basin needs,” said Page, who went so far as to assert that, If this continues, “there will come a time when in La Manche we will need a transfer from the sea”.
Infrastructure
Page called on Sánchez to “considerably accelerate the AVE train Madrid-Talavera-Extremadura-Lisbon”, which he described as “the most obvious example that, in terms of infrastructure, the territories have not been treated with equally”, for which he called for “balancing” East and West.
And, regarding the roads, he asked the liberalization of toll roads which were built during the time of Minister Álvarez Cascos, who lamented that “they are empty while the highways around Madrid continue to collapse”.
“It hurts a lot have paralyzed the requests of many companies to settle in Castile-La Mancha because they do not have an electrical connection“, said Page, who asked the President of the Government for “urgent acceleration” so that the lack of energy capacity “does not become a bottleneck” that limits industrial and economic growth.
“Spain must considerably expand its electricity network. We must make the leap that was made with motorways and the AVE in the 80s and 90s. Reflection and legislative change are necessary,” he added about this.
Manual and itinerary
After his conversation of more than two hours with Pedro Sánchez, the Castilian-La Mancha leader He welcomed the fact that the president had shown himself to be “open to addressing any issue” and that he “did not set limits.”assuring that the two governments that they both represent will follow the file of 194 proposals as “a manual and an itinerary” on which to work over the “coming months” in coordination with the different ministries.
Page during his appearance after the meeting with Sánchez.
Although the PP disgraced Page for leaving Moncloa “empty-handed,” the head of the regional Executive clarified: “A quote like this is approximate, generic. That many details can be substantiated is perhaps too much to ask.“However, he was optimistic: “I don’t want to think that they will be forced to respect the file.”
