The Government is trying to open fissures between Feijóo and his regional leaders: “Forgive the debt of the communities or condemn the citizens?”

In Moncloa they take it for granted that tomorrow at the meeting of the Political and Financial Council (CPFF) that will approve a debt write-off of up to more than 83,000 million euros, the communities governed by the Popular Party will vote against this initiative, as Alberto Núñez Feijóo has announced. But they also take it for granted that, afterwards, all the regional presidents of the PP will demand this debt write-off for their territories, as it would represent an enormous financial relief that they assure they will not be willing to give up. And they point out that tomorrow the PP communities will vote against it, but being very aware that the measure will only go ahead with the favourable votes of the Government and the Generalitat of Catalonia. The question, they warn, is what the PP will do when the measure, in the form of an organic law, has to be voted on in Congress if it does not already have a guaranteed absolute majority. “I want to see them there,” challenges a PSOE minister.

Government spokesperson, the socialist Pilar Alegría, tried to tighten the screws on Feijóo this Tuesday after the meeting of the Council of Ministers, by trying to open a deep fissure between the political interests of the leader of the PP and the pressing financial needs of his regional presidents. “Feijóo simply has to give an answer to the Spanish people: is he for forgiving or is he for condemning? Does he want to forgive the debt of his autonomous communities or does he want to condemn the citizens of all the autonomous communities?”, Alegría has demanded.

The minister spokeswoman has defended this reduction of the regional debt of more than 83 billion euros, proposed the day before by the first vice-president and head of the Treasury, María Jesús Montero, to “all” the communities of the general regime, “so that they can improve their financial and economic situation”. The resources that they must now allocate to pay the interest on this debt, she pointed out, can be used to “improve public services” for their citizens.

Alegría has criticised the “series of absolutely absurd excuses” put forward by Feijóo to reject this reduction of regional debt that “will benefit the citizens”. The Government spokesperson has even recalled that the Minister of Finance of Andalusia, Carolina España, showed in November 2023 her willingness to accept a debt reduction, as in Catalonia, “but it has to reach 17,000 million euros”. And yesterday, once the Ministry of Finance proposed a debt forgiveness of 18,791 million euros for Andalusia, the same minister rejected it as a “trap offer”, because it was a “tailor-made suit” for Catalonia. “End of quote”, Alegría concluded.

Óscar López rebuts Ayuso: “I would love for them to harm me by taking away my mortgage; if that is harming, let God come and see it”

In response to the strong rejection of debt forgiveness already expressed by the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who sees it as a “disservice” to this autonomous region, the Minister for Digital Transformation, Óscar López – who is also the leader of the PSOE in Madrid – has replied: “I would love for them to harm me by taking away my mortgage.” “If harming Madrid means forgiving 8.644 billion euros, and therefore the savings in interest payments that this entails, please let them harm me every day,” he warned. López has accused Ayuso of maintaining “an absurd and eternal campaign of victimhood.” “If that is harming, let God come and see it,” he concluded.

In the same vein, Pilar Alegría has warned that, in view of tomorrow's meeting of the CPFF, "a vote against the part of the PP's autonomous communities would be inexplicable to me." Because, in her opinion, it would be "voting against their autonomous communities and the interests of their citizens." And she has regretted that the PP always tries to "give wings to the constant discourse of comparative grievance between the different territories."