Ayuso on one-off funding: "They're making another 155 impossible in Catalonia."

MadridCoinciding with Catalonia Day, the Community of Madrid kicked off the debate on the state of the region governed by Isabel Díaz Ayuso this Thursday. It was no surprise that the PP leader, whom the opposition criticizes for being so caught up in debates about state policy, repeatedly referred to Catalonia in her speech in the Madrid Assembly. According to Ayuso, "nothing threatens to be more damaging to the Community of Madrid and to all of Spain" than the one-off funding for Catalonia and the forgiveness of part of the debt of the regional liquidity fund (FLA). "An artificial nation is being created in Catalonia," she warned. The Madrid president accused Pedro Sánchez of allowing this situation in order to remain in power "at the expense of all Spaniards" and to escape the corruption that surrounds him. "They are making another Article 155 impossible when necessary; therefore, this is another constitutional amendment through the back door," Ayuso added.

The Madrid president has revived the ghost of the application of article 155 of the Constitution and the annulment of Catalan self-government that it implied at the end of 2017, in the middle of the Process, precisely on September 11th, when the situation of the independence movement is quite different. than existed when Mariano Rajoy's government promoted the controversial measure. However, Ayuso maintains that the PSOE, which voted in favor of implementing it, now agrees "with the farce of the Catalan paralegal nation" and is providing the Generalitat with instruments, such as "allowing the Catalan Treasury through the back door," that endanger "the unity of Spain" and "its solvency." In the opinion of the Madrid president, the agreements with ERC and Junts are part of the "illegal independence process" and, if this influence of the "pro-independence and coup-mongering parties" on governance is not halted, it will lead to a situation of state impotence in the face of the aspirations of this political movement.

Ayuso called on all Madrid political parties to close ranks against the Spanish Prime Minister's "double tax trap" and warned that new funding for Catalonia and debt forgiveness would "compromise" resources from Madrid's budget. As expected given her crusade against this proposal, the Madrid Prime Minister confirmed that she will not request debt forgiveness for her community and defended her management, as well as her tax cuts (she has announced additional ones), contrasting her policies and Madrid's "drive" to those of the Spanish government, with "precedents." "The list of differences is endless," she added.

The Shadow of Corruption

Upon entering the plenary session of the Madrid Assembly, the PSOE demanded Ayuso's resignation over the tax fraud case for which her boyfriend, Alberto González Amador, is being prosecuted. Más Madrid also attacked from that flank in a media outreach prior to the Madrid president's speech.

The Madrid left has criticized Ayuso for benefiting from irregular financial gains and has cited audio recordings published by The Country and Eldiario.es from the court statement of the tax investigators who detected the alleged tax fraud. In the recordings, one of them argues that she committed "two crimes against the public treasury" and explains that, given that González Amador had "many benefits," she used "false invoices" to pay less tax. "Someone who has deployed all the resources of the Community of Madrid to defend the alleged criminal cannot govern," argued the Minister of Digital Transformation and leader of the Madrid Socialists, Óscar López, in a message released to X.

Ayuso sidestepped the issue in her intervention and instead pointed to Sánchez's "judicial ordeal" in the cases of Begoña Gómez, Cerdán, and that of the Attorney General. She also predicted that the Spanish president will end up pardoning "his friends at Peugeot," as well as the leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont. According to the Madrid People's Party (PP), the case of Sánchez's wife, who "profited" from public resources for personal gain, is not comparable to that of Ayuso's boyfriend because he has no ties to the media in the Community of Madrid. This is the argument of the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, who attended the debate, as did the PP's deputy, Miguel Tellado, and former Madrid president, Esperanza Aguirre.