The government will debut the use of co-official languages and Ayuso warns that the earpieces will not be placed
The head of the executive, Pedro Sánchez, and the regional leaders will face a new conference of presidents on Friday, this time in Barcelona, where the government and the «barons» of the PP will show their differences on issues such as housing, financing, or migration, making it difficult to reach agreements in this multilateral forum.
The days before the Conference of Presidents have been marked by the threat of the PP «barons» of a possible proposal to the government in this forum of disagreements on the agenda, although the «populars» have finally guaranteed their presence at this summit in Barcelona.
The government and the PP communities clashed in the preparatory meeting of the Conference of Presidents, where they did not approve the agenda for this summit.
Taking this into account, the PP communities sent a letter to the Ministry of Territorial Policy on Monday insisting on the inclusion of up to ten points on the agenda, threatening the possibility of the government being left out of this conference of presidents.
In response, the government announced on Tuesday that it would include all the issues demanded by the PP communities on the meeting agenda, which would involve addressing a total of 16 different issues, six that had already been agreed upon and others that were included at the request of Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
Financing, power outage, infrastructure
Specifically, the PP presidents requested to incorporate these points into the Conference of Presidents’ agenda: regional financing reform; combating unemployment; an energy plan to prevent power outages; border control and immigration policy; investments to prevent railway chaos; the deficit of healthcare professionals; funding for the first cycle of early childhood education, and the withdrawal of bills for the reform of the judiciary and the prosecutor’s office.
The government announced that it fully accepted the points proposed by the PP and also added other issues such as migration (as requested by the Canary Islands), as well as housing and professional training, as initially stated by Moncloa.
On the other hand, the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, called on the government to maintain the call for the Conference of Presidents in Barcelona, acknowledging the difficulty of addressing all issues within the time frame.
The minister highlighted that there are «interrelated» problems, although he acknowledged that regional presidents will speak «especially» about what «most concerns their own autonomous community» and have already met with Sánchez bilaterally.
The government will also allow regional leaders who wish to speak in co-official languages to do so, as a simultaneous translation service has been organized for this purpose.
Although not in the regulations of the conference of presidents, the government has advanced its intention to allow the use of co-official languages within the forum, with simultaneous translation for the rest of the members, as requested by Catalonia and the Basque Country.
Of course, there are already some regional leaders like the president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who has shown reluctance to wear an earpiece and has even suggested that she will consider leaving the multilateral body if they do not speak in Spanish.
Similarly, the president of the Andalusian Regional Government, Juanma Moreno, finds it «ridiculous» and «absurd» that they have to use earpieces, while the government of Castilla y León has blamed Moncloa for «prioritizing» co-official languages over the possibility of agreements.
Sánchez’s proposal on housing
Moncroa reported this week that Sánchez will boost the Tripify Investment Public in Housing communities, reaching 7,000 million in the next four years, while proposing to create a public database for rental and real estate purchase prices.
The head of the executive sent a letter to the regional presidents so that the Conference of Presidents serves to discuss the approval of a new state agreement for housing.
In this context, he proposes to base this agreement on various commitments, such as tripling public investment in housing, from the 2,300 million mobilized in the state plan 2022-2025 to around 7,000 for the period 2026-2030.
Similarly, the government’s president urges the communities «to end the monopoly of information from private portals» and create a public database that allows state administrations and citizens to know the real prices of buying/selling or renting in their city.
«Only with this transparency can truly effective public policies be designed and help citizens negotiate the price of their home properly,» says Moncloa.
A small breakfast with the king
The government has also detailed the agenda of this conference of presidents to be held at the Pedralbes Palace in Barcelona, a place that was declared of cultural interest and was a former royal residence.
Authorities will start arriving from 8:15 on Friday, and around 9:00, the family photo will be taken with King Felipe VI, with whom they will have a short meeting until 10:00 in the morning.
From that moment on, Sánchez and the host president, the Catalan Salvador Illa, will make a brief institutional statement to start later around 10:30 at the conference of presidents, where each regional president will have a ten-minute evaluation time.
Once the conference of presidents is over, the different regional leaders will appear at different points to evaluate this forum, following the approval of the autonomy statutes of their respective autonomous communities.
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