The average Popular Party voter must have had quite a scare if he saw the front page of La Razón on Sunday: “The PP considers the amnesty to be exhausted and will use other issues.” It is the end of equality for Spaniards and the beginning of a new process, according to the party’s argument, but there comes a time when even they are aware that there is no more wine left in the wineskin no matter how much they squeeze it.
The monothematic approach is clearly showing signs of exhaustion, and then there are things that are difficult for people to swallow. Presenting Salvador Illa as the new architect of the independence process requires such a leap of faith that the most normal thing is that you end up making a hole in the ceiling.
It’s time for a brainstorming session at the PP. According to the newspaper, the issues that are most likely to be the focus of the new speech are housing and conciliation. The reader has the right to raise his eyebrows to the point of fracture. The autonomous and local institutions governed by the party do not even apply the housing law approved in the previous legislature.
Until this summer, they maintained that the problem was not so serious and that the abundance of tourist apartments, most of them illegal, only demonstrated the strength of tourism. The response given by José Luis Martínez Almeida in 2021 is symbolic of this. -“Exact”- to the accusation by Más Madrid that it did nothing “to regulate rent prices in Madrid”. They are not going to go there, so the question remains about the most effective methods they can think of.
The truth is that the PP has offered contradictory messages in its ideas on housing. It now recognises the existence of a structural problem that particularly affects young people, but proposes solutions that have been used before with greater or lesser intensity and that have not led to significant changes in prices. For example, “a guarantee of up to 15% of the total price of housing to complete the financing of the mortgage of the young people’s homes” (this sounds similar to the type of measures that the PSOE favours). The market is fast and cruel. It tends to raise prices to compensate for this type of aid even if it is reserved for a group.
Marking distance on Catalonia would theoretically allow an attempt to establish relations with Junts specifically to defeat government initiatives in Congress. The less noise there is about amnesty, the easier it will be for both parties to vote in the same direction. In any case, this alliance against is based above all on the willingness of Carles Puigdemont’s party to punish the PSOE after having remained in opposition in Parliament. The debate on the financing of Catalonia and the other autonomous communities will continue to make a PP-Junts pact a pipe dream today.
Then there is the reality that you cannot prevent journalists from asking questions or other groups or institutions from taking measures that affect you. First, you say that you are already full with the Catalan menu and two days later you ask for more. On Monday, Alberto Núñez Feijóo was asked what he thought about the Constitutional Court (TC) having asked its lawyers for a report on whether it is obliged to accept the appeals against the amnesty law brought by 14 PP regional governments and almost all of their parliaments.
As expected, Feijóo finds it intolerable that the right of the autonomous communities to appeal could be questioned. To begin with, he states that the presidents of their governments are “ordinary representatives of the State” in their regions and have the duty to “safeguard the interests of the State” in them. With this argument, the autonomous communities would have the right to present appeals to the Constitutional Court against any law approved by Congress. Perhaps the Constitutional Court does not want to set this precedent –when the amnesty does not affect the autonomous communities’ powers– unless a legal report tells it that it has no other choice.
The fact is that it’s back to the same old story. Feijóo is forced to speak in public about the same old nonsense, this time because of questions from journalists.
The regional leaders will not stop talking about financing and the Catalans. The president of the Andalusian Junta is deeply involved in this. He cannot allow Ayuso to monopolise the regional offensive. “I will not accept that a Catalan “I have more than an Andalusian,” said Juanma Moreno, setting the controversy in the terms that most favour him. He will be the one to defend all Andalusians so that the Catalans do not keep the money while the socialists of the region will be behind without daring to go as far as he did.
In this endeavour, facts are dispensable. “The Catalan separatists have spent tens of billions of euros on embassies and on the process. And now, are we all going to have to pay for that, among all Spaniards?” Moreno asked himself in relation to the debate on debt cancellation. Tens of billions? If he has proof of that, he might as well have passed it on to the Supreme Court.
It is clear that Moreno is confused with the figures. Thanks to a report by CCOO that collects the data published on the transparency portal of the community, it has just been revealed that his government enjoys 700 more freely appointed officials than those that existed in 2019 when he came to power. Compared to those appointed by the Government of Susana Díaz, the number has increased by 30%. Not only are the heads of services chosen as trusted positions, but the method is also used in lower positions.
His 2018 election programme stated: “Free appointment must cease to be the most common way of filling positions of higher rank and responsibility in Andalusia.” Moreno has certainly not been able to fulfil his programme because of the Catalans.
Add Comment