Moreno will ask Sánchez tomorrow to reform the regional financing system

Until now, they have only held one meeting, but this Thursday they meet again in Moncloa to discuss the issues that are urgent for the new Government of the community.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
27 July 2022 Wednesday 10:50
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Moreno will ask Sánchez tomorrow to reform the regional financing system

Until now, they have only held one meeting, but this Thursday they meet again in Moncloa to discuss the issues that are urgent for the new Government of the community. The President of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, and the leader of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno, have set an office for tomorrow, Thursday, at 5:00 p.m. at the headquarters of the central government.

The popular Andalusian has three agenda items: regional financing reform, hydraulic works and better rail connection, proposals that he hopes the national chief will take "very seriously" as they are "just, legitimate and sensible claims".

It will be the second time that both leaders meet to address the situation in Andalusia. The last, and only, meeting they have held dates back to June 2021, when Moreno governed in coalition with Cs. A year later, the Andalusian political landscape has changed radically. Now, the president of the Board has the support of the majority of the electorate that made him last 19-J the first popular president to obtain an absolute majority (58 seats) in the South. With that force, the Andalusian goes to Madrid to demand improvements and investment for the community.

There are three proposals that the Andalusian is going to transfer to Sánchez, as he himself has reported. The first of these is the reform of the regional financing system, a regime that makes Andalusia "underfinanced" and that, according to estimates by the Board, has lost 17,000 million euros from 2009 to 2022.

Moreno has been requesting the change of the system since the last legislature and defending that the distribution of funds be carried out based on a population criterion. The man from Malaga even held meetings with the presidents of other regions in the same situation, such as Murcia (led by the PP of Fernando López Miras), Valencia (with the socialist Ximo Puig at the head) and Galicia (when Núñez Feijóo, now president of the national PP, directed this community). An idea emerged from these meetings: the creation of a compensatory fund that would alleviate, in a certain way, the financing deficit that these points in Spain are suffering while the reform of the system is being carried out.

Moreno, as he has stated, will go to Moncloa with high expectations, among them, that the leader of the nation understands the "importance of Andalusia within the common and shared project that is Spain" and for the future and present of the Spanish economy, and also understand the "singularities and desires of the Andalusians". The community has to be "permanently and constantly on the Spanish political agenda and it has to be a priority in the investments of the Government of Spain, always".

And among those priorities is the “dramatic” drought situation that the region has been suffering and that is complicating the work of farmers and ranchers. At the moment, the Hydrographic Confederation of the Guadalquivir, the most important Andalusian basin, indicates that human consumption is assured, although important cuts have been imposed in the agricultural world. The scarcity of water also affects Huelva and the surroundings of Doñana. In this sense, some hydraulic works are pending, considered to be of public interest, which could alleviate this critical situation and which Moreno plans to claim. The popular has advocated allocating a large part of the money from the Next Generation funds to these water policies.

On the other hand, and in order to correct the complicated rail network and connection in Andalusia, a "brutal" deficit in this area that brings with it "competitiveness problems" between the regions, the President of the Board plans to propose some measures to improve this type of transport, which you have said not only affects passengers but also goods.

"I hope that the president takes the just, legitimate and sensible demands very seriously, not from the president of the Board, but from Andalusians as a whole," added Moreno.