The PP's regional governments snub Montero and walk out of the Fiscal Policy Council table

The twelve regional councillors of the Popular Party got up from the table of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council (CPFF) just at the moment when they were supposed to debate the debt relief mechanism that the first vice-president, María Jesús Montero, had on Monday. "We have come only out of institutional loyalty and responsibility," said the head of the Treasury of the Community of Madrid, Rocío Albert, who insisted that the popular autonomous communities "are against" the debt relief mechanism. The popular party demands to participate in the design of a new debt relief system, and understands that the proposal has been negotiated unilaterally with ERC. "We are not going to be complicit in permanent concessions to the independence movement," said the Andalusian, Carolina España.

The Popular Party thus buries the debate on debt forgiveness, and calls for discussion to begin on reforming the financing system. "The autonomous regions of the PP do not have a debt problem, but rather a problem of regional financing," insisted the Madrid councillor, despite the fact that the accumulated debt of the twelve Popular regions with the State through the FLA amounts to 115,726 million euros.

Despite the PP regions' snub, Montero continues to meet with the handful of PSOE councillors. The Minister of Finance needs the vote of just one autonomous region to obtain the CPFF's approval of the tax forgiveness system.