The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has outright rejected the project of a new system of autonomous financing that the Executive is promoting after the agreement reached with ERC, considering that it only pursues the political "survival" of Pedro Sánchez. After labeling it as an "anti-model," he emphasized that a Government that, in his opinion, is "in a terminal phase" is not "enabled" to carry out a reform of this magnitude.
"First, it is not a model, it is a survival system; second, the Government is going to distribute money that it does not have, it does not have the State Budgets; and third, it is a model designed by an independentist party from Catalonia," Feijóo declared in an interview in Santiago de Compostela with Europa Press.
At the end of July, the Ministry of Finance decided to postpone the meeting of the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF), in which the reform of the autonomous financing system must be addressed, until September 4, responding to the request for postponement made by the autonomous communities governed by the Popular Party.
Questioned about the position with which the PP autonomies will attend that CPFF, Feijóo reiterated his opposition to the financing proposal put forward by the Minister of Finance, Arcadi España, which so far only has the support of Catalonia and the Canary Islands. "The Government does not have a financing model, the Government has a subsistence model," he added.
Criticism of the Executive's management and the pact with ERC
According to Feijóo, the Executive "does not have as its objective the functioning of public services," since, he emphasized, "it is incapable of managing those that correspond to it," such as "interior policies, security policies, foreign policy, immigration policy" or "child policy."
"But what is the Government's model? Let's not forget, what is behind this is buying with the money of the public services of the Spaniards the survival of a few more months in the Government of Spain," he recounted.
In this context, he placed the pact reached between the Government and ERC, an "independentist" formation that, in his opinion, "marks the survival" of the Executive. Therefore, he highlighted that it was the republican leader, Oriol Junqueras, who took charge of "designing" and publicly presenting the proposal.
"Who is the one who has announced the new funding model? The general secretary of ERC leaving the Palace of Moncloa. A gentleman who is not part, of course, of the central Government nor is he part of the Government of Catalonia," he asserted.
"It is not a model, it is the anti-model," insists the leader of the PP
Feijóo has emphasized that the Popular Party cannot support this system because, in his view, it cannot become "an auction." He defended that any citizen from Almería, Ceuta, or Santiago de Compostela should have "the same possibilities to undergo a hip prosthesis, to take their child to a primary school, or for an elderly person to have home care service."
"This Government is in a terminal phase, it cannot design the future funding model for healthcare, education, and social services for Spaniards. It is not qualified to do so," he emphasized.
Asked whether the Executive should heed the Fedea report warning that the autonomous funding system proposed by the Government jeopardizes the solvency of the State and favors Catalonia, Feijóo responded that "indeed" because the current proposal "is not a model." "It is the anti-model, which is radically different," he concluded.