The new financing model of regional financing advances with only the support of Catalonia and the Canary Islands

The Ministry of Finance has managed to get the new regional financing model up and running, at least for the moment. The reform proposal has been advanced in the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) held this Friday, although it has only had the support of Catalonia and the Canary Islands. All the other communities have voted against, both those of the PP, the party that governs the majority of the territories, and the socialist ones, Asturias and Castilla-La Mancha. Beyond the general rejection, all the representatives of the Popular Party have attended the meeting despite the petition launched surprisingly a day before by the Minister of Finance of the Community of Madrid, Rocío Albert, who announced that she would not go to the meeting and proposed to her counterparts that they join the boycott in the hope of a massive protest that would force the Treasury to cancel the meeting. However, no one has supported the initiative, leaving the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso alone in its rudeness.

The new model has gone ahead because the Government, which has 50% of the votes, only needed the support of one community. The head of the Treasury, Arcadi España, celebrated the result after recalling at a press conference that a reform of the system had not been on the table for 17 years. He has also insisted that two communities such as Catalonia and the Canary Islands, with different political colors, have been able to reach an agreement. This desire for dialogue is what the Executive wants to exploit in the parliamentary process that will begin in the coming weeks, once the Treasury takes the text to the Council of Ministers.

In Congress, the minister recalled, political groups will be able to debate the text, as well as expand and improve it through amendments. "The Government of Spain neither should nor can impose a model; it is Congress that should have the last word," he explained. “What we have done is present a proposal, which is what the autonomies asked us for.” Spain has also reproached some territories for their maximum positions, which "make any negotiation impossible." And he has assured that the PP does not have a system proposal, something that in his opinion has been demonstrated after the “ordago” that Madrid has launched to the rest of the communities.

Although the call for a boycott has not been successful, no PP councilor has openly criticized Madrid's decision upon arrival at the CPFF meeting this morning, which has generally been framed within the scope of decisional autonomy. The Valencian José Antonio Rovira has been the only one to publicly express some discomfort. “It has no use whatsoever,” he stated first thing in the morning, before entering the ministry to attend the meeting.

“We respect the position of the communities,” said Carolina España, her Andalusian counterpart, also from the PP. “It is a loud and clear no to an unfair financing system.” The Galician councilor, Miguel Corgos, has also avoided polemicizing. “Their position is very similar to ours,” he stated in reference to the rejection of the Díaz Ayuso Executive to the new regional financing designed by the Government. “What happens is that he manifests it in a different way.”

The feeling of the PP communities was conveyed at the end of the meeting by the Andalusian councilor herself, who spoke as a spokesperson: “The Government has received a resounding no, because 90% of the communities have voted against.” For this reason, “we hope that in Congress they will not find the necessary votes to approve the reform,” said the Andalusian politician.

The leadership of the PP at the national level has joined the argument launched by the majority of its communities to justify the absence of the Díaz Ayuso Executive. The spokesperson for the Popular Group in Congress, Ester Muñoz, explained this Friday in an interview on RNE that she was unaware of Madrid's position of not attending the meeting, but has asked to "respect" a decision that falls exclusively within the scope of her responsibilities and powers. Génova insists that what is important is not the attempted boycott by Madrid and the withdrawal of the rest of the PP territories, but rather the general rejection of the communities to a new model that, according to Muñoz, has been designed "on the margins of all of Spain."

Although this has been the general trend, there are those who privately recognize that Madrid's gesture has generated discomfort and has been seen as a “disloyal” movement. Some regional sources have speculated that the move may even be counterproductive for the capital region, at a time when the media focus is on the migration crisis in Ceuta. In fact, the Ceuta councilor, Kissy Chandiramani, appeared after the meeting, supported by the representatives of the PP, to request urgent measures that allow the autonomous city to “return to normal” and protect the “southern border of Spain and Europe.”

This is not the first time that the Madrid Government's unilateral decisions have bothered the rest of the regional barons. The community led by Díaz Ayuso has not officially communicated its absence to the Ministry of Finance either, which is why an empty chair with its flag appeared at the meeting. Instead, she has sent a video to the press in which counselor Rocío Albert reiterates the reasons for her rudeness: that the reform of the system has been agreed bilaterally between the PSOE and ERC “behind the other communities' backs.”

“No region has been able to touch one bit of the Junqueras model,” laments Albert, “which threatens the equality of all Spaniards.” The counselor also criticizes the ministry's opacity about the scheme and regrets that both the proposed distribution of resources and “the long-awaited harmonization” that it promotes “through the back door” harm Madrid. "The Community of Madrid demands a reform of the financing system that is debated multilaterally, with transparency, with light and stenographers. A reform that benefits all Spaniards and not just Sánchez and the independence movement," he states in the video.

Madrid invited the other communities to join in the rudeness to prevent the quorum necessary for the meeting to be valid. The regulations establish that, in order to constitute the council, the attendance of at least half of the members is necessary. A massive veto by the main opposition party, which governs the vast majority of the autonomies, would have suspended the meeting.