The newly appointed Secretary General of the PP in Catalonia, Juan Fernández, has insisted that the community needs a fairer financing system, arguing that Catalonia "must receive as much money as it contributes and has the right to receive more money than the rest if it contributes much more".
"This is common sense. But the model must be agreed upon through multilateralism, not with ERC," he stressed in an interview with El Periódico, reported by Europa Press, in which he held the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, responsible for fueling division and confrontation around this debate.
He described it as an anomaly that the PP has not yet reached the presidency of the Generalitat and maintained that independence has not disappeared, but has changed its form, even though the popular leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has called to "turn the page". In his opinion, Sánchez and Illa have redirected the process to guarantee the continuity of the former in La Moncloa.
Fernández has reiterated that the PP maintains its willingness to promote a motion of no confidence, provided that there are sufficient supports for it to prosper, and has emphasized that they will not participate in opaque negotiations: they will not lock themselves away "in the dark in a room to talk without light and without stenographers about pacts and concessions".
He stressed that "we do not offer pacts or concessions; the only thing we offer is to return the word to the citizens through the ballot box. The alternative is clear: motion of no confidence and elections or be Sánchez's life raft. Junts is becoming the most useful life raft for Sánchez".
In relation to the former President of the Generalitat and leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, he pointed out that he is a person with pending cases before the Spanish justice system and guaranteed that the PP will not condition its decisions on "the interests of Puigdemont or any electoral program of Junts".
Debate on sick leave
Regarding the controversy opened after Feijóo's words, who described sick leave as a "cancer", Fernández interpreted that the PP leader's objective was to draw attention to a real problem and defended that the solution involves "talking and sitting down with unions and employers to reach an agreement and solve it".
According to Fernández, the issue should not be addressed by cutting workers' rights or by disqualifying the work of healthcare professionals: "We must protect those who take justified leave, fight fraud with more tools, and improve healthcare management to speed up diagnoses so that doctors can work better."