Spain funding row: Feijóo vows fair deal for all
Spain’s funding row is back at the centre of politics as Alberto Núñez Feijóo promises a “fair” new deal if the People’s Party, or PP, takes power. Speaking in Alhaurín el Grande, Málaga, on 4 September, the opposition leader said he would not create “first- and second-class Spaniards”.
Feijóo used the event, held alongside Andalusian president Juanma Moreno, to attack Pedro Sánchez’s government agreement with the Catalan party ERC. He said Spain funding should pay for public services such as healthcare, education and social policies, wherever people live, rather than finance territories or political parties.
His intervention came as the Council for Fiscal and Financial Policy, known as the CPFF, gave the new funding model the green light with only Catalonia and the Canary Islands. Castilla-La Mancha and Asturias, Spain’s two Socialist-led regions under the common funding system, again rejected the plan, saying Catalonia stood to gain most because the deal had already been negotiated with ERC.
PP-run autonomous communities did not join a boycott of the Finance Ministry promoted by Madrid at the CPFF meeting. Some instead stressed their “maximum institutional loyalty”.
Feijóo said Andalusia, like the rest of Spain, would receive a fair funding model under a PP government. He also promised not to abandon any Spaniard when they needed help most, arguing that the country needs deep change rather than simply a change of government.
Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com