Pedro Sánchez activates the strategy of damage control. After signing with “aggression” the pact with ERC to ensure that the Presidency of Catalonia fell to Salvador Illa, the truth is that neither the summer break nor the significance of seeing – more than a decade later – a socialist at the head of the Generalitat have served to appease the rejection nor the heated spirits in the socialist federations which has generated the agreement. The socialist leadership has withdrawn, allowing this unrest to fester during the summer weeks, without educating the party about the new concessions to the independentists, beyond a few rounds of calls to ask for confidence in the party’s leaders. With the beginning of the political year and without the tension abating one iota, the leader of the PSOE has decided to adopt a proactive position to try to stop the erosion that its dependence on the sovereignists exerts on the party.
Until now, the attitude had been one of total passivity, without providing any further details about what was signed other than what was purely rhetorical – ensuring that it does not constitute an “economic agreement”. This, despite the fact that there are voices within the party that contradict this position, such as that of the High Representative of Foreign Affairs of the European Commission, Josep Borrell, or that from the official socialist loudspeakers this forcefulness against the quota was subsequently reduced to avoid upsetting the Republicans, who in response went so far as to question their support for the next General State Budgets. Balance is impossible. While Moncloa is juggling to avoid upsetting its parliamentary partners, the socialist federations are on fire. This Friday, in Aragon, the regional Executive, with Javier Lambán at the head, unanimously rejected the agreement signed with ERC, making it explicit that it has ““different positions” to the federal leadership regarding the financing of Catalonia.
Avoiding the “contagion effect”
The leadership is trying to ensure that this movement does not spread to other bastions and is seeking to keep the ranks tight. Therefore, it is no coincidence that it is precisely the First Vice President of the Government and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, who in her capacity as Deputy Secretary General of the PSOE reappeared yesterday to open the course at a party event in Seville. This Saturday’s meeting was a meeting of the interparliamentary of this federation, the once most powerful of the formation and which has been losing ground since Susana Díaz was ousted from power in 2018. Andalusia is also one of the territories that is suffering the most from the privileges of the independence movement, in practice, but also in terms of political narrative, blinding its possibilities of being a real alternative to the absolute majority of Juanma Moreno. Ferraz’s objective at yesterday’s meeting was to give ammunition to deputies and senators to repel the PP’s attacks on the singular financing of Catalonia and, in the process, to educate its members to overcome the multiple resistances that it also generates among its members and leaders.
Montero bursts into the interparliamentary meeting, showing that he is the main asset of the Andalusian PSOE in the face of the uncertainty of the continuity of Juan Espadas beyond the congress period that will open in February in the party to elucidate a new leadership. In this way, Montero limited the impact of the pact whereby Catalonia will leave the common financing regime and will begin to collect 100% of the taxes, pointing out that it is compatible for Catalonia to have a singular financing “as other territories that have the vocation to have it can have”, ensuring that these are aspects included in the statutes of autonomy that other regions also have and that the agreement is based on improving “self-government and solidarity”.
The vice president criticized the “erroneous mental frameworks that some voices are trying to convey” about the terms of the agreement reached between the PSOE and ERC, for the investiture of the socialist Salvador Illa as the new president of Catalonia. She also warned that “self-interested interpretations” of said pact are circulating “by the usual suspects, who only want to confront in order to overthrow” the central government of the PSOE and Sumar, in reference to the PP, whose leaders she has veiledly alluded to with a reference to those who “have given their opinion” on the text, but have not read it. A message also for those within her party who are assuming this story. Hours before the meeting, the former president of Andalusia and former general secretary of the Andalusian PSOE Susana Díaz had already spoken out against the agreement, claiming “equality between all Spaniards” and her commitment to a system of autonomous financing that “guarantees” that equality “without privileges.” “There is no room for a concert in Catalonia,” she said. This Saturday he also showed his rejection again.
Along these lines, Montero will have to appear before the Senate on Wednesday to give explanations. She is not doing so on her own initiative, but forced by the PP, which, showing off its absolute majority, has forced the Minister of Finance to offer more details on what was agreed on in terms of financing with ERC.