The general secretary of the PSPV, Ximo Puig, has demanded that the next regional financing model put an end to the “enormous inequality between autonomous communities in the provision of basic services”. “It must be dealt with completely harshly. I don’t know if Euskadi or Navarra are too financed, what I do know is that we -the Valencians- want to be equally financed as the Basques, the Catalans, the Navarrese… I think that everyone has the right”, he said in an interview with Europa Press.
Puig has stressed that he does not question the tax management model of the Basque Country and Navarra and has made it clear that he respects “deeply the identity of each one” but is against there being “privileges”.
“I do not question the management, what I question is the result and the result has to be absolutely comparable,” Puig specified. “Therefore, we are not talking about jurisdiction, that each one can have the jurisdiction that they consider, but we are talking about the egg, and in the egg there should be no privileges,” she has riveted.
“What cannot be is that this fracture that exists between autonomous communities is growing, the Valencian Community has lost 12 points of per capita income since 1995. As a political person I say that we are not going to allow this situation of absolute lack of equity to continue “, he points out.
For the socialist leader, “what is important is the people, not the territories”, so the financing model should not “be considered from a confrontation between the autonomous communities”, but rather speak globally “of the financing of public administrations” .
Talk about “the whole pie”
“Instead of talking about the piece of the pie that falls to the autonomous communities, we are going to talk about the whole pie. Let’s see what State we want, what political priorities we want and depending on who manages them, we distribute the resources,” he explained.
Thus, when asked if the Basque Country and Navarra should necessarily see their funding reduced, the Valencian leader has proposed to present the model in another way: “Maybe it turns out that to adequately finance the autonomous communities, the resources that Euskadi and Navarra have are needed” .
In his view, what must be done is “put some priorities on the table” and based on that see “what taxes each one has to assume” and not raise the financing in terms of what it gives or does not give the central government.
In Puig’s opinion, the priority is to guarantee that all Spaniards have equal access to universal and free public health and education, as well as social services, justice, and security, “and from there distribute the resources”.
In his opinion, it is necessary to end the debate between communities and the “paternalistic” attitude of the Finance Minister, Cristóbal Montoro, demanding that they “behave well”, and move on to a model of co-responsibility. “We are all the State, the autonomous communities, the central government and the municipalities”, he has maintained.
The central administration has to lose weight
For this reason, he has warned that he also wants to be aware of the central government’s expenses, and that the General State Administration cannot “grow exponentially” when the reality is that it has lost powers. In his opinion, if it is not reasonable for the communities to create new political structures, it is not reasonable for the central government “not to take forceful measures to stop public companies and other types of frankly expendable additions.”
Puig has called for a “transparent, clear and simple” financing model, in which people know exactly what they are giving and what they are receiving. The socialist leader agrees that the federal State must have solidarity policies in the regions with the lowest per capita income, but that “this does not have to form part of the financing system either, but rather of the State model.”
The deputy for Castellón has firmly defended the proposal to reform the territorial model agreed upon by the ‘barons’ of the PSOE last July in Granada, which includes reforms to regional financing and the Constitution itself.
Welfare State, in the Constitution
Facing this constitutional reform, the PSPV has proposed including a “social clause” that guarantees the equality of Spaniards in the provision of public services and that creates a “guarantee fund, reserve for the social State”, similar to the Social Security reserve fund.
In his opinion, in the Granada document the PSOE begins to speak clearly about these problems of inequality, and also makes “an offer to solve” the problem of the relationship between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. “There is a very important part in Catalonia that is in favor of independence and that cannot be ignored,” he warned.
For this reason, he has praised the position of the Catalan socialists, because he believes that they are playing “a very difficult and very ungrateful role” in Catalonia, because trying to build bridges does not give as many political returns as “confrontation”.
Thus, he has also supported the attitude that the PSOE general secretary, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, has maintained to try to iron out differences with the Catalan socialists for their defense of the right to decide. “I think that when someone raises the break between the PSC and the PSOE, they do not take into account how important this link is for the whole of Spain,” he summarized.
In this way, he has trusted that Rubalcaba will continue to support the Catalan socialists and has highlighted that both parties have found a “space for consensus”, although there is some “nuanced element”, in which the PSC “has very clearly demonstrated its will to participate in the Spanish project”.
For the leader of the Valencian socialists, his Catalan colleague “is making an enormous effort” and maintaining a “brave and courageous position” in a climate that “is sometimes impossible because the returns from the confrontation of recentralization and independence are very tall”. “What you have to try is to make a bridging effort, the PSOE has to be the glue of Spain,” he summarized.
But I couldn’t approve the budgets
Puig has highlighted that neither the PP nor the CiU have made a move to resolve the problem of the relationship between Catalonia and the rest of Spain, because the confrontation suits them well.
In his opinion, what the president of the Generalitat, Artur Mas, has done, renouncing to approve a budget for 2013, is a “flight forward” on the path of confrontation, and the central government does not show any signs of wanting to “engage a dialog”.
But he also believes that Mas has extended the 2012 budget out of necessity, because he needs ERC’s parliamentary support and the Republicans would not have been willing to “assume the cost” of approving a restrictive budget.
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