The PSOE is beginning to deploy its communicative arsenal again to try to educate its pacts with the Catalan independence forces. In the middle of conversations about an investiture of the socialist Salvador Illa still in the air, in the Moncloa and in Ferraz they defend the “singular financing” of Catalonia as a political nod to ERC, whose support is decisive for the maintenance of the legislature of Pedro Sánchez and also for the hypothetical presidency of Illa in the Generalitat.
“Whoever has more powers must also have more means,” the party spokesperson, Esther Peña, defended at a press conference this Monday, recalling that, in any case, these are one of the commitments made with the Republicans to Sánchez’s investiture.
“The reform of the regional financing system is an electoral promise and the unique financing of Catalonia appeared in the investiture agreement with ERC. The PSOE is a party that fulfills its promises and commitments,” Peña defended.
The spokesperson has guaranteed that this unique financing, which even many socialist colleagues among the territorial federations are suspicious of, will be financing “that respects the equality of all Spanish citizens.” This does not mean, she added, that we should allow ourselves to “talk about the unique transfers that all Autonomous Communities have.”
Peña recalled that Núñez Feijóo himself defended, as president of the Xunta de Galicia, a Catalan concert in the style of the Basque and Navarrese. “The PSOE is not in the concert that Mr. Feijóo proposes. The PSOE is in the development of the statute and in the improvement of public services,” he said.
The spokesperson for the Socialists has also expressed her surprise at the statements of the leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, who has described as a “scandal” that the PSOE negotiates with ERC a unique financing with Catalonia in the framework of the talks to make Illa president. And he has even threatened, again, to bring down Pedro Sánchez’s legislature.
“I recognize the strangeness of Puigdemont’s words, but I don’t know if they have the same validity as when he said that if he didn’t win the elections he would retire,” replied Esther Peña.
Regarding the governability of Catalonia, the socialists have settled any hypothesis of presidency that does not pass through their candidate. “Either Illa is president or there are elections. And if some want to repeat elections, let them say it clearly,” he concluded.
Source: www.eldiario.es
