Moreno and Rueda ask in Moncloa that the Government seek majorities to approve the 2025 Budget

The Government does not yet have the numbers to produce the 2025 General State Budget. It is not even assured of approving the budgetary path, which will be voted on next week in Congress. The PSOE is trying to convince Junts to support them with a new meeting in Switzerland, but it is not only in Pedro Sánchez’s Executive’s interest. The regional presidents also want public accounts for next year. And this was expressed this Friday by two of the main barons of the PP, Juan Manuel Moreno and Alfonso Rueda, after meeting with Sánchez in Moncloa, despite the fact that his party is not in favour of the task.

The presidents of Euskadi, Galicia and Andalusia opened this Friday the round of contacts initiated by Sánchez before the Conference of Presidents that the Government plans to convene. The difference between the subsequent appearances was notable. While the Basque Imanol Pradales pointed out the PNV’s willingness to collaborate in the “stability” of the Executive and gave an account of the matters to be transferred to the Basque Country agreed with Sánchez, the first PP barons to go to Moncloa left “empty-handed”, as Moreno explained in a press conference.

Rueda and Moreno responded to Sánchez’s call and acknowledged the cordiality of the meeting. But both also regretted the lack of concrete proposals regarding financing reform and debt relief. Despite rejecting bilateral scenarios, both hoped that Sánchez would at least present the general line of his financing reform plan. Something that, according to both, has not happened.

The two presidents told reporters about the list of requests they have sent to the President of the Government, who, according to Rueda and Moreno, simply took note and assured that he would take them into account. On the core issue, the financing of the autonomous communities, Sánchez did not give any clues beyond defending the need to address a specific financing for Catalonia as a way of definitively reintegrating the community after a long decade of secessionist process, always according to the version offered by the PP barons.

In their respective statements, both Rueda and Moreno stressed the pressing need to improve the financing of the autonomous communities. Both pointed out that their accounts depend on the contribution of the State, and that they are at the limit of their capacity.

For this reason, both the Andalusian and Galician presidents defended the need for the Government to publish the 2025 Budget. However, both preferred not to pressure the leader of their party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, so that the PP would agree to support them. “It is better to have a Budget,” acknowledged Rueda, who had previously maintained that “Galicia needs more funding.”

Next week, the budgetary path will be voted on, which, among other things, means an increase in the financing capacity of the autonomous communities, since the Government increases the deficit quota that the regions can assume without breaching the limits imposed by the EU. But the PP is going to vote against it, as announced on Friday morning by the regional vice-secretary, Elías Bendodo, who came out to settle the debate even before the barons appeared.

Moreno was clearer than Rueda. The Andalusian president also regretted the lack of resources for social policies, such as Dependency, Health or Education. “I ask the President of the Government to seek the majority that he needs, applying the proposal, moderation and dialogue, in order to reach agreements that make this Budget possible,” he said.

However, both parties acknowledged that Pedro Sánchez could perfectly continue negotiating even if he has to extend the public accounts again. “Vox rejected my budget in the last legislature and I have not reduced public services,” said Moreno. “It is true that I could not extend certain things, but I have always looked for a way out so that there is no damage to essential public services,” he added.

Rueda also argued that the Government has “mechanisms” to govern without a Budget and even to implement new investments. However, both prefer to have a Budget in 2025.

Minister Ángel Víctor Torres, who acted as spokesperson on Friday, called on the PP, and especially its leaders, to be “consistent” when voting in accordance with what they are asking for.

PP, objective of the Conference of Presidents

With Pradales absent from the debate on the reform of the financing, since the Basque Country has its own system, Rueda and Moreno assured that they had asked Sánchez not to approve “the Catalan quota” and not to negotiate bilaterally, something that did not happen this Friday. The two PP barons also announced that they want the matter to be dealt with at the next Conference of Presidents, which does not yet have a date or agenda.

The Government’s intention is to deal with housing policy, but the PP wants to force the inclusion of financing. And it has mechanisms to do so. It was the Andalusian president who warned that if the Government does not include this issue among the issues to be discussed, the PP will use the regulations and force its inclusion on the agenda.

The Conference regulations establish that the agenda is set by prior agreement between the President of the Government and ten regional presidents, which requires an understanding between the Executive and the PP. The Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, said at the end of the day that “no initiative will be vetoed.”

At the start of the political year, the President of the Government pointed out housing policy as one of the main lines of action of his Executive for this legislature and announced that this would be the main topic of the Conference of Presidents scheduled for October in Cantabria. “We want our young people to become independent at an earlier age. That is why, in the coming months we are going to do more. We will promote new measures aimed at expanding the public housing stock, pursuing speculation, establishing a better balance between tourism activity and the well-being of residents, and ensuring that housing is a right for all and not the business of a few,” said Pedro Sánchez.

Regarding the demands of the PP barons to dedicate this meeting of regional presidents to addressing the reform of the financing system, the Executive points out that the appropriate forum for this is the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council and no other.

“The Government is saying yes to reforming the regional financing system and to addressing debt forgiveness, but within the fiscal and financial policy council,” said the Minister for Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, after the meeting of the President of the Government with the regional leaders of Euskadi, Galicia and Andalusia this Friday at Moncloa.

Torres also lowered expectations about the depth of the reform promised to Catalonia, which he assured will be discussed, like the others, in a multilateral manner. “Catalonia is part of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council and decisions are made there in a multilateral manner. This symbiosis is what has always existed: a multilateralism through a shared financing system and a singularity with each of the Autonomous Communities,” he stressed.

After the first day of meetings, Moncloa will not receive more presidents until next Friday 27th, when the presidents of Asturias, La Rioja and Cantabria are summoned. On October 4th it will be the turn of Castilla-La Mancha, Comunitat Valenciana and Murcia. The rest still do not have a date.