Ayuso, unleashed, goes on the attack against Catalonia

BarcelonaThe latest agreements of the Spanish government with the pro-independence parties have served as ammunition for the president of the Community of Madrid to attack Catalonia. With the same sharp language as always, but more forcefully than ever, Isabel Díaz Ayuso has fired left and right, also against the government of Salvador Illa, to denounce the supposed concessions of Pedro Sánchez to the Catalans. An offensive that is part of a political strategy to try to champion the opposition against any improvement of Catalan self-government by stoking the conflict between communities, denouncing the supposed grievance for Madrid.

The Madrid president did not mince her words, a week ago, in response to the Spanish government's proposal to forgive the debt of the autonomous communities. In her diatribe against the measure, Catalonia was once again the donkey of the blows: "It is time to turn off the tap to the corrupt business of nationalism, which has been whining for decades with the money of all Spaniards." "Give me something, give me something," they say. But you're wasting it all on embassies and black holes," he said, attacking the cancellation of 17 billion euros of debt in Catalonia, although the rest of the communities, many governed by the PP, will also benefit. "From the same creators of "Amnesty is for coexistence" now comes "You will swallow the debts of the nationalists out of solidarity." Can you be more shameless?" he said at a PP event in Madrid.

On Thursday, during the control session of the plenary session of the Madrid Assembly, Ayuso referred to it again, accusing Sánchez of wanting to "buy wills" in Catalonia with "everyone's money" and assured that the debt forgiveness is a "condemnation." These have not been isolated statements. This whole week she has dedicated herself to attacking this measure, assuring that the inhabitants of her community will be the ones who will be most harmed. "The government of the nation will make our accounts economically unsustainable because they want to turn Madrid and the rest of Spain into the ATM of the independence movement," she said.

The agreement between Junts and the PSOE for the delegation of powers in immigration has also been vehemently rejected by Ayuso. Just after the agreement, she criticized Sánchez for agreeing "outside the law" and with what she calls "the xenophobic Catalan right" to have Catalonia manage immigration control. "That nationalist right that, with a racist vision, always looked down on and treated as foreigners the people of Extremadura, Murcia, Andalusia, and La Mancha, who went to Catalonia to work," she added. A right, Ayuso said, that has now been "rewarded by multiplying the number of Mossos, some of whom helped Puigdemont flee, to control the borders to the detriment of the National Police and the Civil Guard," despite the fact that the objective is for the three bodies to cooperate.

Ayuso has also attacked the PSOE's pact with ERC to achieve a new financing model for Catalonia in exchange for investing Salvador Illa as president of the Generalitat. "There will be unlimited money from the Spanish for colpismo," she has stated on several occasions after criticising the pact with a person convicted of sedition and embezzlement in reference to Oriol Junqueras. In her crusade against the singular financing that Catalonia demands, Ayuso has also hooked up with Isla, who has refused to come face to face with her as the president demands. "Why do you think that taxes should be raised for Madrid residents and not lowered for the Catalan middle class, which is suffocating?" Ayuso asked him on Isla.

"The pro-independence Catalonia will break up before the left breaks up Spain and Madrid," she warned in the debate on the state of the region, and thus positioned herself as the toughest voice within the PP against Sánchez's government and rejected, unlike others men of the party, to meet with Sánchez in bilateral meetings. Ayuso continues to mark her profile in the State with the excuse of defending the interests of Madrid, with a leadership of Alberto Núñez Feijóo that not a few voices within the PP are already questioning.