Ayuso calls for revolt against the new financing: if the PP does not go, it is not approved

BarcelonaThe Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) is expected to validate this Friday the proposal for a new financing model put forward by the Spanish government, in coordination with the Generalitat and ERC. The Ministry of Finance, which holds half of the votes, has a guaranteed majority because it only needs one regional minister to vote in favor, and it will have at least two: Catalonia and the Canary Islands. But there is a loophole to torpedo the calendar, at least temporarily: if half of the members of the CPFF do not show up, the meeting will not be valid, as established by article 10 of the organization's regulations.

This is what the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, is clinging to. Her government will snub the Minister of Finance and is calling for the rest of the PP ministers to do the same. The strategy, however, has few options to succeed because, for the moment, sources consulted by ARA explain that the Balearic Islands and Aragon will attend, and Murcia and Cantabria have also announced that they will do so. "We are the Balearic Islands, not Madrid. Decisions about the Balearic Islands are made in the Balearic Islands," explain sources from Marga Prohens' government to ARA Balears.

"It is a financing model that breaks with the equality of all Spaniards and seeks to whitewash the debt generated by the corrupt management of the pro-independence governments, which has been continued and intensified by the socialist Salvador Illa," says the statement released by the Madrid PP this Thursday to justify the snub. It is not an unforeseen position, because it has already been expressed internally in meetings with the PP leadership and the rest of the popular Economy and Finance ministers. "The only way this agreement [for financing] cannot materialize tomorrow at the CPFF is if there is no quorum at the meeting. The absence of all the autonomous communities governed by the PP would mean the paralysis" of this Friday's vote.

There are 18 seats in the CPFF. Its members include the Minister of Finance, Arcadi España, and the Ministers of Economy or Finance of all the autonomous communities under the common regime (15, excluding the Basque Country and Navarre) as well as the two autonomous cities, Ceuta and Melilla. Therefore, there should be nine regional ministers joining the walkout demanded by Madrid. The PP governs in 12 autonomous communities – in some, hand in hand with Vox – but there are already at least four that will not join the boycott. Ayuso's plan, then, seems likely to fail, but, once again, it will have served to mark her toughest profile against the Spanish government.