Although it is reasonable for many people to have doubts about who holds the greatest political responsibility in our country - whether the President of the Government, the independentists who have facilitated his investiture or the leaders of Podemos who accompany him in the Executive -, understand the following reflections addressed who is legally in charge, who is the head of the central government. None of my positions will be novel, but I think it convenient to reiterate them promptly and clearly at this time, in my opinion one of the most critical in our democratic history.
In general, what I think about the situation in our country I transferred last December 17 to the then candidate Pedro Sánchez in a telephone conversation. As I said later the tone was cordial, although the brevity of the fifteen minutes of talk prevented deepening the issues addressed. In any case, in addition to asking who is already president today the pending problems of Galicia - such as the newly breached calendar of the AVE and of all pending highways, or the serious industrial crisis caused by improvised energy decisions that jeopardize the future of 5,000 families-, I took the opportunity to express two fears. The first is that the territorial crisis can hardly be resolved if the Government's debt to the autonomous communities is maintained (2,500 million, 370 in the Galician case). The second, the consequences that it can have for the Spain of the autonomies to associate or agree with those who want to undermine it and proclaim it.
Despite the distrust that the new Government will be useful for Spain, I want to recognize its legitimacy in the first place: it is my Government, as it is for all Spaniards, regardless of whether I like it more or less. However, I must also transfer that the agreements that have transcended only increase the concern. It worries both what has been embodied in the covenants and what is omitted, both what is implied and what lends itself to contradictory interpretations. That deliberate confusion at best would open the door to harmful policies for the State of autonomy, and at worst it would hide calculated and irreversible objectives.
Damageing the autonomous State or subjecting it to permanent questioning is equivalent to putting at risk the communities that form it and, what is much more important, the citizens who live in them, including the Galicians I represent. Hence, I have chosen to prolong that telephone conversation with these reflections that I do in my double capacity as president of the Xunta and ordinary representative of the State in the Galician community, and that I hope to be able to transfer the president and the main leaders of territorial policy soon in Spain. In my view, there are two harmful premises on which the current central government and its partners intend to establish what they call "territorial dialogue." The first is to consider that the autonomous communities are part of the investiture negotiations, either through certain formations, or as recipients of agreed measures. It is an unacceptable anomaly to allow a specific party to arrogate the representation of an entire community (or even another border) and it is also that the candidate to preside over the Government distinguish the services that it will provide to citizens or the investments that it will to do in one place or another depending on the supports.
Such behavior is already reprehensible when the parties with which it is negotiated have support of a certain numerical importance in the respective communities, but it is inadmissible when the priorities of entire territories are subject to formations that are totally minority in them. How can the Government conclude that one of Galicia's priorities is the recognition of its national sentiment, as it appears in one of the agreements signed to reach the investiture? In which electoral process of any kind has the Galician people expressed their majority interest in it?
Apart from these unjustifiable considerations, we must also refer to others of much greater scope that affect the core of autonomous Spain. Neither the bilaterality that overflows the sectoral tables, nor that promised "adaptation" of the State to the independence demands, much less the assortment of new nations that are being considered, do they fit into the political framework agreed by all. The most curious thing is that with these burdensome assignments the stability of the model, nor the constitutional loyalty, not even a legislature without frights, but only an investiture is not guaranteed.
The second pernicious premise is to disguise crimes against the State as a political conflict and, therefore, against all the citizens that comprise it. The practical translation of this decision so wrong is that it is intended to undertake autonomous reformulation behind the vast majority of Spanish citizens who are not independentists . And to justify it, confusing messages are released knowingly because the so-called political conflict does not have its origin in the autonomous system, but in those who want to repeal it as an obstacle to their claims.
There is a division of autonomy that would clearly be a comparative offense that should not be allowed and which is also contrary to the principles of equality recognized in the Constitution. On the one hand, a first division of communities to which a supposed political conflict is recognized or that threatens to unleash it, and on the other the others. According to this scheme and despite the proclaimed social vocation of the new Government, its exercise would depend on the degree of conflict in each territory and not on the objective and evaluable needs of the citizens, regardless of where they live.
Well, Spain cannot afford to have a government in which to exercise the most unsupportive nationalism is perceived as a good business. The blackmail of a few cannot be allowed to weigh more than the social and economic needs of most Spaniards. The parliamentary precariousness of the Executive cannot be allowed to be prioritized over the damage that can be done to our country. You can't afford to have the one who shouts the most. The agitation and breach of the laws cannot be allowed to be the shortest way to achieve commitments and investments. He cannot afford it because it is not fair to citizens but because it would not be intelligent either: a weak government before the independence will not only strengthen their positions but will give wings to those who begin to see in them a role model.
This combination of a mortgaged government and nationalisms that forgot institutional loyalty and have become independentism, can lead to a crisis of incalculable dimensions of the territorial model, which of course is always susceptible to improvement, but has worked reasonably well. Without a central government that claims it and autonomies that defend it, constitutional equality and solidarity would be subjected to the extreme double harassment of supporters of self-determination and independence, and of those who advocate a uniform and uncompromising centralism that has never been given in our democracy and that was not the one agreed during the Transition.
I am the democratic representative of Galicia and I speak for it on behalf of a people that is plural, but whose support and respect for the current regional model is largely majority. Galicia has said "no" to nationalisms repeatedly every time it has been asked at the polls. We are an example that it is compatible to be historical nationality and maintain an exquisite loyalty to the whole of the Nation of which we are part and to the Constitution that guarantees its unity. Being Galician is our way of being Spanish. That is the reason for these considerations that coincide essentially with those made by presidents of other communities and with diverse political militancy.
Solving the problem that has created independence in Catalonia by moving the fragmentation, radicalism and adventurous policies that proliferate in this sister country to Spain as a whole is not a good recipe. It is not the State, obliged to watch over all, that must "adapt" to those who do not want any adaptation, but vice versa. In other words, to those who want to persuade us that the only way out to the quagmire of Catalan politics would be a differential and exclusive status for Catalonia, which would ultimately imply privileges of some Spaniards over others, I must say that of course to me They will never convince me. If you intend to establish new rules of the game in regional politics in which asymmetry predominates and privilege and disqualification are a merit, the position of Galicia is very clear . I firmly affirm that the Xunta prefers a framework dominated by legality, institutional loyalty, courtesy in forms, multilateralism, attention to the real problems of citizens wherever they live and solidarity between communities. We have always shown that, even in the most difficult moments. This is what I told the President of the Government in our brief telephone conversation. And so I repeat it now.
If that is not possible, if another path is chosen, I assure with the same firmness that resigning, silence and accept comparative grievances, it will not be an option. Galicia has never wanted, nor wants, nor will it want to be more than anyone, but neither will it endure being less because all Spaniards are and must remain the same. Therefore, the Government of Spain, throughout Spain, should know that Galicia will ensure that this equality is preserved and, if threatened, will defend itself with all possible means provided by the Constitution in which we do believe.
- Alberto Núñez Feijóo is president of the Xunta de Galicia.
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