When next week Alfonso Rueda accesses his brand new office as president of the Xunta, in San Caetano, among the many issues to be dealt with in his debut in office, it is already known -because he himself announced it last Tuesday, in Parliament — that the sending of a letter to the President of the Government to address the “commitments with our land that still need to be fulfilled” will occupy a prominent place. In that letter, as he explained in the speech that opened the investiture session in O Hórreo, he will also request an audience with Pedro Sánchez to “jointly address how to remedy them.” Letters destined for La Moncloa, with Sánchez as the sender, were already customary with Alberto Núñez Feijóo at the head of the Galician government.
The most recent, still as president, in November of last year, when he expressed his concern about a price hike that ended up exploding in the hands of the central government. The one that bears the most parallels with the one that Rueda now transfers is the one that left San Caetano in January 2020, with a copy to all the ministers, and that contained more than a dozen demands. Many —new financing system, transfer of AP-9— are still pending.
“I am disturbed to feel that disloyalty is rewarded with concessions and good manners, while the sense of State is paid with rudeness and with such repeated breaches that, sometimes, it is hard to believe that they are the result of chance,” Rueda warned in the Galician camera. It is not a new idea. “The Government does not like Spain, and less likes Galicia, which does not vote for it,” Feijóo reproached last January at a party act. There will be “loyalty” to the government during Rueda’s term, but never “submission,” he stressed in his speech. Galicia “will never tighten the seams of a State that, now more than ever, needs to stand firm”, he stressed, also in the line advocated from San Caetano during the ‘Feijóo era’.
The letter that he will send to Sánchez this coming week contains a dozen demands. In a socio-health block, unblock the positions of a family doctor and the specialty of emergency and emergency medicine, in addition to correcting the multimillion-dollar debt in terms of dependency. He will not fail to disapprove of the coast regulations that lead to the closure of more than 100 companies on the coast. With respect to the Xacobeo, he plans to inquire why there is not a “sincere and sufficient involvement”, as well as why 100% of the Autonomous Police staff is not covered, precisely in Holy Year. In terms of infrastructure, he will put on the table the connections that Lugo is still waiting for, the transfer of the AP-9, support for the Atlantic Corridor and the State Pact for Ferrolterra. He wheel will also put the accent on the emptiness of the Galician automotive sector before the Perte of the sector; and the Government’s decision to penalize living inheritances.
Along with this decalogue, Rueda assured that he will acknowledge to Sánchez that, at this time, there were “advances”, such as the arrival of the AVE, but he will also dye it with a vindictive aspect, since he will remember that the Avril trains have not yet arrived —Transportes promised They will be for the summer. As the new president said, “to be silent in the face of what we consider to be mistakes would precisely be a serious sign of disloyalty,” and he will not make that mistake. In essence, he is about continuing to rule ‘by the book’. And with Feijóo at the controls, the same precepts were already acted upon. Do not aspire to receive more than others, but not less either. Solve disagreements with dialogue, if possible, and if not, go to the relevant instances. Rueda also recalled it on Tuesday: this is how it was possible to recover 225 million euros from VAT collection, through the Supreme Court. Galicia will continue to demand from the Government what it considers corresponds to it, and will apply it in the claim for “new powers”; also to the defense against the “fury” to challenge regulations approved in O Hórreo, another constant.
Rueda has before him the challenge of achieving what Feijóo did not achieve: that Sánchez attend to the demands of Galicia. It will not be easy. “The central government seems to be hostage to all interests,” he lamented on Tuesday, “less than general interests.” The new head of the Xunta, in words that were an echo of those used by his predecessor, rejected the “form of doing politics” that prevails in La Moncloa, putting “the future of Spain in the hands” of those who pursue their ” dissolution”, and using “in a partisan way the institutions of the State”. But he is the interlocutor with whom he has to deal and before whom he will defend the “principles” supported by the Galicians at the polls.
For now, the mere announcement that Galicia will not remain silent before Moncloa has already irritated Galician socialism. “The control sessions for President Pedro Sánchez are already done in Congress, and very soon Mr. Feijóo will also do the same in the Senate,” protested the parliamentary spokesman, Luis Álvarez. But Rueda is clear about it: “Galicia must maintain and expand the weight and prestige that it gained these years in the national concert.”
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