Ayuso conflates financing with prostitution: "Today, the separatists are the president's pimps. He makes the bed, and the Spanish people pay."

MadridJust as they did against the amnesty law, some of the autonomous communities governed by the People's Party (PP) have already announced that they will also launch a legal battle against the new Catalan funding. One of them is Madrid. "Pedro Sánchez is giving the keys to the coffers of all Spaniards to the separatists," denounced the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who warned that she will "fight every battle" against this agreement. The Madrid president called the pact between the State and the Generalitat a "death sentence in Spain" and announced that, once a final text is finalized, the Community of Madrid will take it to the National Court and will also appeal it before the Constitutional Court. It is not the only autonomous community governed by the PP that will take this step, as Extremadura and Castilla y León have also announced an appeal, and Aragón and Andalusia have said they are considering it.

"We do not rule out any of the avenues allowed by our legal system and our political capacity," warned PP spokesperson Borja Sémper this Monday at a press conference in Génova, where he rejected the idea of the reform being agreed upon bilaterally between the State and the Generalitat. The PP and its regional executives have been demanding for months that this issue should be addressed jointly in the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF), which, in fact, the Spanish government has said it intends to convene after the summer. The PP is not happy with the idea of later extending the same formula to the rest of the territories, and its regions want to negotiate multilaterally a general reform of the financing system. "The resources of all cannot be distributed by a minority. The money of the Spanish people is not there to finance any president's term in government," stressed the PP leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, at an event on Monday night.

In light of the State-Generalitat agreement, Ayuso, who has always been the most belligerent against singular financing, has called a dedicated press conference on the issue. The Madrid president stated that the president of the Spanish government "is giving away almost €25 billion to the Catalan independence movement to continue financing the corruption of this autonomous community" and warned that he will not stop there, as he "aspires to €57 billion." "They are not partners or accomplices. They have risen in status. Today the independence supporters are the president's pimps. He makes the bed and the Spanish people pay," she said, using language related to prostitution because, according to Ayuso, "in the Moncloa they understand him like nowhere else," due to the alleged business dealings of Sán's father-in-law.

Ayuso has demanded "fiscal autonomy" for Madrid and criticized the separatists for trying to prevent her from lowering taxes when, with this agreement, Catalonia "has full autonomy." "We do not want for Madrid the plundering to which the left and the separatists subject Catalonia, which has led to the decline of what was the most prosperous region in Spain. It is spreading the ills of Catalan politics throughout Spain," she stated. Ayuso predicted that the next step will be a self-determination referendum. Hours earlier, the leader of Vox made the same prediction. According to Santiago Abascal, as long as Sánchez's "mafia" continues to govern with the "blackmailing" separatists, "anything can happen, even a referendum on the secession of Catalonia."

More PP communities

For her part, the president of Extremadura, María Guardiola, called the pact "plunder" and denounced the Sánchez government as "breaking equality, solidarity, and the balance between regions." According to Guardiola, her region would lose around 200 million euros each year due to the reform and has demanded a "rigorous proposal for the financing system" from all regions. "Sánchez's political emergencies cannot be what mortgages the future of our country," she said. Ayuso's estimate is that the new Catalan financing will cost "more than 2,000 euros extra for each Madrilenian," and the president of Madrid explained that the popular communities will coordinate among themselves to stop this "atrocity," despite the fact that, if the ordinality is respected, the Community of Madrid, like Catalonia, would also benefit.

The president of Castile and León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, has also warned that he will go to court, and Andalusia and Aragon have also announced that they are considering taking legal action against the new Catalan financing. In the case of Aragon, Jorge Azcón's government announced that it is preparing judicial and parliamentary measures. Beyond a possible appeal to the courts, the Aragonese president called for "a civic rebellion." "We will do everything in our power to ensure that equality and solidarity in Spain are not violated," he said. The Andalusian government has warned that it will wage "a political, social, and legal battle." This includes a possible appeal to the constitutionality of the agreement. "We are witnessing a before and after in the conception of Spain as a country," denounced the president of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno, who explained that he will contact the presidents of the socialist communities to rally against the agreement.

Criticism of the PSOE

Both PSOE-governed regions under the common regime haven't gone as far as the PP, but they have also criticized the agreement. "Don't take us for fools," reacted the president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, who questioned whether the financing agreement would violate the equality between autonomous regions. Guillermo Peláez, Asturian Minister of Finance, called for financing negotiations "between all of them." Furthermore, the secretary general of the PSOE in Extremadura announced that he will request an urgent convening of the party's Federal Policy Council after expressing his "radical opposition" to the agreement.