Lambán harshly attacks the agreement between the PSC and Esquerra, which he describes as "unconstitutional": “It is a nonsense”

The general secretary of the PSOE in Aragon and former regional president Javier Lambán has been very harsh this Saturday regarding the tax agreement between the PSC and Esquerra, which he has described as “nonsense” and which he considers “unconstitutional”. At the same time, he has demanded in the Federal Committee that the party return to being a “social democratic formation, a believer in the Constitution and in the unity of Spain”.

Speaking to the media at the end of the meeting, he recalled that at the Santiago de Compostela summit – held in November 2021 – eight autonomous communities governed by the PSOE and the PP rejected “any unilateral reform of financing” and adopted “common positions” on tax matters.

However, the agreement for Catalonia is, in his opinion, “the antithesis of what was defended” at that time. “It is a weakening of solidarity and cohesion, the rest of the autonomous communities would be forced to worsen their services or raise their taxes,” said Lambán, who argued that “there is not a single government in the world that loses control over the taxation of 28% of GDP,” referring to the whole of Catalonia, the Basque Country and Navarre.

The socialist leader summed it up in one idea: “If Madrid decided to do the same, the rest of the autonomous communities would have to go to Mauritania in a small boat.”

Lambán elaborated on these arguments: “It is a structural change that is absolutely decisive for the future of the country, which goes against the Constitution and against a cohesive and united Spain. It means nothing more and nothing less than confederalising the country, it is the antithesis of federalisation. As an Aragonese and as a socialist, I am radically opposed to it,” he insisted.

The secretary general of the Aragonese socialists said that he had “congratulated” Salvador Illa for the results in Catalonia, although he then pointed out that he would like “the same to happen in the rest of Spain”. “Because while in Catalonia it is rising like foam, in the rest it is falling. And, for me, as important as Illa being president is that we recover the Presidency in Castilla y León, Andalusia or Aragon”, he said.

In the face of the proposed pact for Catalonia, Lambán urged to return to the Granada declaration, led by Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba in 2013 and in which the pact with the PP was advocated. Without the PP, the Aragonese leader recalled, “it is impossible to undertake significant reforms.”

In the aforementioned declaration, “a fiscal model similar to the German one was advocated, in which the Länder provide the service but hand over all the money collected to the federal government, which is the one that makes the corresponding redistribution,” Lambán summarized.

The statements by the general secretary of the Aragonese PSOE have been answered by the Alto Aragonese socialists, in yet another chapter of the internal battle within the party.

The leader of the PSOE in Alto Aragon, Fernando Sabés, has attacked Lambán for his “tone and constant affront” to Ferraz and has demanded that “a time of dialogue and agreement” be opened to renew the party in the Community. “Our way of working is different, always from dialogue and in the internal organs of the party,” Sabés added, in statements collected by Europa Press.

It should be remembered that next Thursday, in the plenary session of the Cortes, one of the items on the agenda is a non-legislative proposal presented by the socialist group on the promotion of a new model of regional financing “based on full respect for the Constitution, and specifically, the principle of equality between all Spaniards”.

This point, in any case, maintains the line agreed by the regional Executive in the meeting held a few days ago, and which made the Aragonese federation the first to formally approve its rejection of the agreement in Catalonia. In the aforementioned Executive, the representatives of Alto Aragon chose to be absent from the vote.