The Government will face a very complicated path to reach an agreement on the reform of regional financing. Yesterday, Monday, the Ministry of Finance, led by Arcadi España, announced that it had sent letters to the regional ministries of the autonomous communities in order to arrange bilateral meetings to agree on a new financing system. However, today most of the communities with Popular Party governments have already decided that they will not attend these meetings with the Secretary of State for Finance, Jesús Gascón.
Read more Experts foresee «a difficult summer» with the tiger mosquito and cockroaches
Specifically, according to sources consulted by La Vanguardia, Galicia, Extremadura, Castilla y León, Cantabria, Andalusia, Aragón, and the Balearic Islands have already refused to attend, while the Valencian Community and La Rioja have yet to make a decision.
In this regard, the common argument among all the autonomous communities governed by the PP is the Government’s approach, as they consider that the new financing model must be agreed “among all” Spaniards and, for this, the body should be the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council. The Popular Party, as a bloc, signed a declaration in January in Zaragoza in favor of multilateralism and against bilateralism, which the Government has reflected in its financing agreement with Esquerra.
From there, each community adds its particular stance. For the Junta of Extremadura, to date “the Government has not presented a serious, complete, and rigorous proposal for regional financing.” The Junta of Castilla y León rejects accepting a proposal “that assigns our Community 1.29% of the funds, when we represent almost 20% of the territory and 5% of Spain’s population.” The Junta of Andalusia believes that the model proposed by the Government “perpetuates the financing grievance” of the community.
Meanwhile, the Vice President and Minister of Economy and Finance of the Balearic Islands, Antoni Costa, has stated that “from the Balearic Government we already rejected at the time the proposal for reform negotiated bilaterally with Esquerra Republicana, and to this day we still do not have the data or simulations of that model.” He added that “all negotiations must take place in multilateral forums, in the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council; only then can we start a negotiation.”
Read more Trump puts ultra MAGA Bill Pulte in charge of U.S. espionage despite his inexperience
Regional governments ask for a proposal that “is debated among all”
This Tuesday, at the press conference following the Council of Ministers where the advance payments for the autonomous communities were presented, Arcadi España called for the collaboration of political parties, especially the PP, in Congress to obtain their support and recalled that they had already rejected this proposal twice, when it was included along with other matters in the decree called the ‘social shield’. He pointed out that Feijóo must take into account “the citizens of the autonomous communities where they govern.”
Ministerial sources have also assured that the department led by Arcadi España “maintains the commitment to convene soon a meeting of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council, which would be the prior step to the approval by the Council of Ministers of the reform of the regional financing system and the start of the parliamentary process with the aim of approving it before the end of the year.” In this way, the goal is for the new financing model to come into effect on January 1, 2027.
At the last Fiscal and Financial Policy Council, the Ministry of Finance, then led by María Jesús Montero, presented its system reform, whose approval would allow increasing the resources of the autonomous communities by 20.975 billion euros. The total homogeneous resources that the model would distribute in 2027 are estimated at 224.507 billion.
Read more Paris will have to wait for Jódar: Zverev blocks his way to the semifinal
