The investiture of Pedro Sánchez, despite the delay in the negotiation with Junts per Catalunya and Carles Puigdemont, is beginning to take shape in the near future. And from the Community of Madrid, given the last four years of constant disagreement between the Puerta del Sol and the Moncloa Palace, they have already begun to prepare for a new political battle with their sights set on amnesty as the first stop.
Because the treatment of the Catalan separatists will already mark the start of the legislature. Even before the final text has been presented, which the PSOE and Junts are finalising with the legal services, last Friday Ayuso already charged against "the cessions" to the leaders of the procés, which he described as "a submission" and "an indignity". In the Community of Madrid, they are waiting precisely for this final text to undertake legal or political actions.
"When we have a text, it will be decided how to act to stop it," they point out in Isabel Díaz Ayuso's entourage, where an appearance by the regional president had already been prepared this past weekend if the agreement between socialists and independentists had been sealed, which finally did not take place pending a firm agreement. "Any action that seeks to harm Madrid, as has been done since Pedro Sánchez is president, will have us in front of us," they point out from the Puerta del Sol.
During the last legislature, the strategy followed by the regional government focused mainly on legal actions with appeals to the Constitutional Court and the National High Court. That was the line followed by the Community of Madrid on issues such as the Education Law, the tax on large fortunes, the Housing Law or the energy decree that forced the shutdown of shop windows. But, with the reconfiguration of Congress that emerged from the June 23 elections, that scenario may change.
The majority of the PP in the Senate and the entry into the equation of Junts further complicates the approval of the laws from the Moncloa Palace for the new legislature. In fact, in the Puerta del Sol, they are counting on the decree laws to be the legislative instrument to which the Government of Pedro Sánchez resorts. "As soon as our powers are invaded, we will resort to justice as has been done until now," says a member of the regional executive since against decree laws, as with laws, it can be appealed to the Constitutional Court, which is still evaluating the appeal that Madrid filed against the tax on large fortunes because it considers it "a wealth tax 2.0" and "created solely to go against Madrid".
In this way, the regional government seeks to position itself again as a "containment dike" against Pedro Sánchez's policies and predicts a "similar" legislature to the last one. "We will defend ourselves against every aggression against our policies," say sources in the Puerta del Sol. In fact, at the start of the new mandate, Ayuso has already set the line to follow, totally opposite to that proposed by Moncloa, especially in fiscal matters, with a new reduction of 260 million in taxes included in the Budget for 2024 and with tax deductions for foreigners already in the legislative process, and in political matters with the amnesty for Catalan separatists at the center of the debate.
In fact, yesterday, the president of Madrid was one of those who asked to speak at the meeting of the National Board of Directors of the PP, chaired by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to explain her position regarding the amnesty. Last Friday, during the visit of the president-elect of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, the regional leader already publicly showed her position on this amnesty. "It is not true that these agreements are going to resolve any type of coexistence, I believe that impunity and the destruction of judicial independence, of the work of the State Security Forces and Corps is not coexistence," Ayuso remarked, who stressed that "for there to be true coexistence" conditions of "freedom, freedom of expression, plurality, equality before the law, legal certainty, guarantees of the rule of law'. "None of this is possible if we have a totalitarian regime before us."
In the same speech, the regional president also opened the door for Madrid not to accept the debt relief that the Ministry of Finance proposes for the rest of the communities through the Regional Liquidity Fund or through debt with third parties, which would include the capital. "This isn't about money... That's doling out misery. The real and imminent danger is that Spain ceases to exist as a centenarian nation," Ayuso concluded, although his team clarifies that this does not imply rejecting compensation.