The debate on a possible cancellation of the regional debt to pave the way for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez has generated a problem for the new Valencian government. This measure – which would come in handy for the Valencian Community, the second highest debt in all of Spain behind Catalonia – has caused the frontal rejection of the PP and its men, starting with the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
In the Valencian government they do not dare to talk about haircuts or forgiveness, and have opted for the term “compensation” to alleviate the “Valencian exceptionality” and avoid clashing head-on and in an obvious way with the official discourse of the party. Yesterday, the spokesperson and Minister of the Treasury, Ruth Merino, insisted on the idea that “injustice must be compensated” and called for a debate on the most appropriate formula in the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council, the government and community debate body autonomous.
However, the head of the Treasury did not want to specify which formula is best for the Valencian Community to achieve this compensation: “It is not up to this Department of Treasury to say which is the best way”; to the point that she indicated that her department “does not have a proposal as such.” In fact, she did not dare to figure out how much money she would be talking about when talking about the debt caused by underfinancing and assured that in the Treasury she “has not made that calculation.” “When we have a proposal and we go (to the CPFF), of course, you will be aware of it,” said the spokesperson for the Consell de Carlos Mazón, at the insistence of the journalists.
As this newspaper published last March, 75% of the 52,300 million accumulated Valencian debt, that is, more than 39,000 million euros, which represents 44% of GDP, has been generated due to the structural underfinancing suffered by autonomy.
The lack of specificity of Merino both in the data and in the Valencian position regarding an issue of such depth in regional politics, quickly generated the reaction of the opposition, which censured the lack of proposals from the Executive of PP and Vox.
The trustee of the PSPV in Les Corts, Rebeca Torró, described as “true outrage” that the Consell “recognizes that it does not have a financing model for the Valencian Community.” “How dare they accuse the previous Consell of not having developed a financing model? Yes, there was a project, worked on and drafted, which, in fact, was sent to the Ministry,” said the socialist leader.
Along the same lines, the spokesman for Compromís in the Valencian Parliament pointed out that it is “very serious” that the Minister of Finance “does not have any proposal on the historical Valencian debt”. An attitude that he attributes to the will of the PP and Vox government “not to bother Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid” who has repeatedly opposed any regularization of the debt derived from the underfinancing of different Communities Autonomous.
For Baldoví, “it is inexplicable that at a time when the problem of the historical debt is present on the state agenda, the PP Council and Vox look the other way, stalling and not explaining their proposal to pay us all what we are owed.”
