• Breaking news about the coronavirus pandemic and the "de-escalation"

The Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has tried to reduce the discomfort of some regional leaders by promising it is a consensual de-escalation as far as possible. "Our intention is to co-govern this transition," he told them at what is being the eighth monographic Conference of Presidents on the coronavirus pandemic.

In his initial intervention, Sánchez has gone to the point and has detailed the distribution of the extraordinary non-reimbursable liquidity fund of 16,000 million euros with which he will help sustain the regional coffers. "There will be 6,000 immediately, and two phases of 5,000 million in the second part of the year," has advanced them, according to the sources consulted. Of the total amount, as it already advanced yesterday, 10,000 million will go to health spending, 1,000 to social spending and 5,000 to compensate for the reduction in income.

This fund has been the most reiterated request of the autonomous presidents. So much so, that last week they raged after the Executive did not agree to approve it. Days later, and following an additional request from the ERC, Sánchez has launched this mechanism, similar to the one he demands in the EU.

In addition, the President has assured that, "as the Government is going to assume the cost of the pandemic", the next Fiscal and Financial Policy Council will set an individual deficit target of 0.2% for the autonomous communities (about 2,200 millions). This would mean that there will be no changes with respect to what was foreseen in February, since the Central Administration would bear the additional expense, with the aforementioned fund. Although the regional presidents have asked Sánchez - without success - to clarify it.

The communities of the PP asked on April 15 for a relaxation of the path of the deficit: "It is urgent to modify the rules of budgetary stability to exclude from the computation of deficit and debt all the expenses associated with the fight against Covid-19".

The President has also announced a third line of ICO avles for an amount of 24,500 million: 10,000 for SMEs and the self-employed; 10,000 for large companies, 4,000 for the alternative fixed-income market and 500 for the Spanish Company of Re-guarantee.

Already in the turn of the regional leaders, the Basque Country lehendakari, Íñigo Urkullu, has called for a "stable bilateral framework for dialogue", the "reformulation of the crisis management framework" and "to recover ordinary legality". Sánchez has replied that they are going to approve a framework of "bilaterality with the communities", referring to the "co-governance" model that he has proposed to them.

"I do not share the way to manage the state of alarm. Again yesterday there was an announcement without the autonomous communities being aware of it," Urkullu lamented, as every week. The lehendakari has made Sánchez ugly that "nothing is known" of the minimum vital income, which was to be presented in May.

The President of the Generalitat, Quim Torra, has also criticized the Chief Executive "for the lack of prior information." "On Saturday he reports and on Sunday he holds the meeting," he complained. The independence leader has been critical of the speed of the de-escalation: "We do not feel like prisoners of any calendar." Torra believes that "we are going too fast" and that "there is some relaxation", but supports the mandatory nature of the masks on public transport. Lastly, he has confirmed that he will vote "against the extension" of the state of alarm: "The best way to start the process would be to return to ordinary legality. "

The president of the Xunta de Galicia, Alberto Núñez Feijíoo, has made Sánchez ugly that "so far there has been no co-governance." "We will de-escalate in the coming days and we do not know the health indicators. What health criteria do we have to meet? If not, we enter an assumption of discretion in which we change the criteria every week," he continued. "No one here knows what to do to go from one phase to another," he has poked.

The popular baron has insisted that it is necessary to "de-escalate by sanitary areas", rather than by provinces. And he recalled that it is the CCAA that have had Health transfers for years. He has also thrown into the government "the disproportionate use of the state of alarm". "It is more of a state of exception," he insisted, before criticizing that "there is no strategy for the outbreak.

Juanma Moreno has underlined "the imprecision and the lack of consensus". For this reason, the president of the Andalusian Government has demanded "more participation from both the Autonomous Communities and the affected sectors." "We have to rethink several issues," he continued. First, the phase territorial unit (other than just the province). Secondly, the children's stripe must be corrected, due to the strong heat they already suffer from 12 to 19 hours.

It has also asked to move the videoconferences to Saturdays, so that the voice of regional presidents is heard before making decisions.

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  • Pedro Sánchez
  • Taxes
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  • Inigo Urkullu
  • Basque Country
  • Quim Torra
  • PP
  • ERC

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