Isabel Díaz Ayuso exploits both her political successes – at the polls and in the media – and minimizes her playing field with false innocence. The Community of Madrid “is like a provincial council,” she said this week in Foros de Vanguardia. Madrid has been lowering taxes for twenty years and without raising any. If she is accused of fiscal dumping, the response is crystal clear: “Do it here.” And if she loses the court battle with the Government over the tax on large fortunes, she recovers the wealth tax via urgent means and in the middle of a bridge so that the collection remains in Madrid.
Ayuso does not want the regional police or the management of Cercanías. Liberal self-government, as she defines it, is like this, not claiming powers that you cannot agree with the private sector. The rest must be assumed by the State due to the capital’s needs. That is why she bitters the coffee for all served by the independentistas in their agreements for the investiture of Sánchez beyond the amnesty: transfer of Cercanías, forgiveness of the FLA debt and bilateral debate on financing.
Coffee for everyone also bitter among former Government partners. Junts is suspicious of the ERC agreements and, after discrediting the conditions of the transfer of Rodalies to Catalonia, now asks the Government for explanations as to why the door is opened to transfer the service to other communities that claim it – Andalusia has already done so – and presses with the negotiation.
Carles Puigdemont’s party has not only sat down to negotiate with the PSOE about the Catalan political conflict. It intends to wrap itself again with the patina of convergent influence to relegate ERC and, like the PNV, it cannot place itself in “the progressive majority” with which Sánchez defines his support in Congress. In fiscal matters, Junts is closer to Ayuso and Foment than to Yolanda Díaz.
With the amnesty law ready for parliamentary processing, the budget negotiation is seen as the new yenka with collateral effects in Catalonia. The calendar places the negotiation of the general State budgets in parallel with the Catalan accounts. With the vote for Sánchez, ERC considers the PSC’s support for the Generalitat’s budget committed, which would allow Pere Aragonès to gain time to exhaust the legislature, with permission from the drought, the PISA report and the generosity of the PSOE at the voting tables. negotiation… Pending the sky over the Palau, the management of severe restrictions in the Barcelona area would be an electoral slab that could be avoided by calling the polls.
The PSC makes its calculations. Salvador Illa is preparing for a 12-month electoral pre-campaign, with a congress in March. A marathon to compensate for the effects of the amnesty on the recovered Ciudadanos voter and other aggrieved voters, which are already noticeable in some party polls, and who trust that they will fade over time. The bill will go through its first process in Congress next week, but after the parliamentary journey the judicial process will arrive, so the PSC places the goal for those granted amnesty in the second quarter of 2025, exceeding the limit for Catalan elections.
Illa raises the tone with ERC: “Without water, in the dark and the children do not know how to read, write or add.” As long as the amnesty is not approved, neither ERC nor Junts can threaten to abandon the majority of the investiture and put Sánchez’s Government at risk, and the Catalan socialists cling to a common mantra of the Republicans with the PSOE. “Comply with what was agreed” in this year’s budgets, was the message at the first meeting of the PSC delegation with councilors Laura Vilagrà and Natàlia Mas and their teams. Hard Rock, B-40, airport expansion…
The potholes in management will be aligned in the coming days with those debates that unnerve Ayuso. Amnesty in Congress and Catalan in the EU General Affairs Council; meeting between Sánchez and Aragonès at the Palau de la Generalitat and dialogue table, foreseeably in Geneva with the presence of Marta Rovira. But first, more bitter coffee for all the autonomies in the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council. And more anger.
