• Direct. Last minute about the coronavirus crisis
  • The map: the advance of the coronavirus in Spain
  • Descaling. Salvador Illa admits to the mayors that there is not yet a plan to lose

The start of the collaboration between the main large cities in Spain to exchange opinions and strategies of lack of confidence has made the government uneasy, after succeeding last week in aborting a meeting in which, among others, José Luis Martínez-Almeida ( Madrid), Ada Colau (Barcelona), Juan Espadas (Seville) and Jorge Azcón (Zaragoza) are now trying to keep mayors under control through the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP). Its president and mayor of Vigo , the socialist Abel Caballero, has called urgently for Tuesday the representatives of the main municipalities to, suspect several mayors, stop any initiative outside the FEMP and the Government.

This call for Knight has raised suspicions in different mayors of the so-called municipal G-1O, formed by Madrid , Barcelona , Valencia , Seville , Zaragoza , especially because some thought that at this start of the week Malaga , Murcia , Palma de Mallorca and Las Palmas They were going to be summoned by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez , this Monday to analyze the economic plan of the municipalities against the coronavirus, after in the last two interviews with mayors neither he nor the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa , clarified more beyond the good words, what is the role that the Executive reserves to the municipalities in the de-escalation by phases.

The expected call from Moncloa did not come, but it did from the FEMP, in a Caballero movement so as not to lose control, according to various municipal sources, and to place in the group of large municipalities the mayor of Valladolid , Óscar Puente , spokesman for the federal executive of the PSOE and man of the full confidence of Sánchez.

The discomfort in the city councils with the Government is profound as they feel ignored in this process of lack of confinement, which, they recall, are the administration that works closest to the citizen. But the big issue on the table is that of financing and the absence of aid, compared to the 6.2 billion direct aid that the Government of Italy has allocated to local administrations.

In Spain, the fear of municipalities without debt, such as Madrid, Barcelona or Seville, is that the Sánchez Executive will go ahead with his plan to mutualise the 28 billion surpluses of local authorities and allocate them to contingency plans for the Covid-19. Instead, the majority position of the mayors is that the Ministry of Finance allows them to make use of the remnants that have been generated by local administrations. In 2019 it was 0.31% above GDP, about 3.84 billion.

The mayors propose for this that a reform of the Budget Stability Law and indicate, in this sense, that 16 billion aids will be delivered to the Autonomous Communities. Another request that they have transferred to the central government is the need to have some margin to apply the lack of confinement according to the needs and characteristics of each municipality and that, in addition, local governments join as interlocutors in negotiations with the autonomous communities in the face of the current crisis. economic and sanitary.

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  • Descaled
  • Coronavirus
  • Covid 19
  • State of alarm
  • Barcelona
  • Seville
  • Madrid
  • Spain
  • Saragossa
  • Valencia
  • Valladolid
  • Palma de Mallorca
  • Ada Colau
  • Juan Espadas
  • Las palmas
  • Murcia
  • Malaga
  • PSOE
  • Abel Caballero
  • Pedro Sánchez
  • Politics

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