The announcement by Pedro Sánchez of 16,000 million "non-refundable" for the autonomous communities unleashed yesterday at the government briefing a barrage of demands on the criteria with which these funds must be distributed. Each autonomous government planted itself in the meeting with the Minister María José Montero with a different proposal to distribute the promised money.

The budget hole caused by the coronavirus does not distinguish between parties and the autonomous barons of the PSOE broke ranks when it came to assuming a common line with the Government . The presidents of some autonomous communities have been expressing concern for extraordinary expenses for days, especially health, but also other social or labor expenses that they will have to face in managing the pandemic.

Catalonia warned that an allocation of less than 4,000 million and that imposed conditions such as the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA) would be unwelcome . Aragonese justifies this figure, which amounts to a quarter of the total, in which 2,000 million would be used to cover health and healthcare expenses derived from the pandemic, and another 2,000 to meet needs in the economic sphere caused by the drop in collection and losses. in public sector companies.

Thus, given the possibility of applying a linear criterion based on demographic weight, the least populated communities pointed to different arguments such as the current framework of the Autonomous Financing Law (LFA) or, in the case of the least populated in terms Absolute but little convinced that the benefits of the LFA, by a criterion that directly measures the effects that the pandemic has had on its territory.

Before going to his meeting with Montero, the vice president of the Andalusian Government, Juan Marín, indicated that he expects an amount "proportional" to what the Andalusian population in Spain represents, 18% . The criterion would be consistent, he recalled, with which the Andalusian PSOE has used "always" to claim state allocations for the region, a direct allusion to the Treasury Minister herself, a former Board member.

Marín found in the socialist Ximo Puig a point of support for his demand. In the opinion of the President of the Valencian Community, "the key measure is people", a criterion based on the population, in his opinion, "fair". Puig affirmed that the Generalitat has spent at least 400 million euros to face the pandemic, with what that would be, in his opinion, a minimum amount. The funds would be used to purchase material or help for self-employed workers.

However, the formula proposed by Andalusia and Valencia did not convince other representatives of other governments, such as Castilla y León, who, integrators from sparsely populated but severely punished provinces such as Soria or Segovia, stressed that the logical thing would be to distribute funds based on the incidence of the coronavirus. in the territories. In this line in which the distribution of funds would be defined by health criteria, Castilla La Mancha or La Rioja were also found , which after starting as one of the most affected communities in relative terms managed to be one of the first to double the curve of infections Aragon also supported these reasons, arguing that the cost of maintaining health in a sparsely populated community is higher.

To the criteria of population or health incidence, those proposed by the territories most dependent on income by the tourism sector were added, which already last month saw the start of the tourist season lose and practically give up on the summer. For the Canary Islands or the Balearic Islands , whose GDP is supported by tourism, the distribution should be oriented so that part of the money is distributed according to the socioeconomic impact, with preferential treatment to those who will have a greater volume of economic repercussion due to its productive structure. . The rationale for this claim is that its return to normality will take more time and resources than in the case of other territories.

In a fourth category would be those who, like Cantabria, came proposing a distribution according to the Autonomous Financing Law LFA), an idea that, in its own way, was supported by the Xunta de Galicia , which hoped that the funds to be distributed would not serve to try a new model of regional financing different from the one agreed.

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  • PSOE
  • Segovia
  • Pedro Sánchez
  • The Rioja
  • Soria
  • Valencia
  • Ximo Puig
  • Cantabria
  • Andalusia
  • Aragon
  • Balearics
  • Canary Islands
  • Castilla y León
  • Catalonia
  • Valencian Community
  • Spain
  • Juan Marín

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