The socialists challenge the president of the Board by letter to stop looking at the negotiations with Catalonia and delve into further development of the Statute that the community approved in 2007 to gain weight in the territorial debate
The PP of Andalusia has been singing for weeks that it will become “containment block” of any attempt to undermine the self-government of the community or to privilege other territories. President Juan Manuel Moreno raises the tone against Pedro Sánchez’s negotiations with Junts and ERC for his investiture, warning that it breaks equality between Spaniards and coexistence within the Constitution. “More Pedro Sánchez is less Andalusia”, he repeats in each act, in the midst of the PP’s offensive by sky, sea and air against a possible pact for amnesty for those accused in the ‘procés’. In the middle of this political speech, The Andalusian PSOE changes pace and goes on the offensive. Instead of fighting or measuring with Moreno over who is more capable of defending an Andalusia on an equal footing with the rest of Spain, the leader of the PSOE, Juan Espadashas sent a letter to Moreno where he proposes develop the Statute of Autonomy so that the community can deepen your self-government.
The PSOE is trying to get some air in Andalusia with this proposal, while the PP accuses it of remaining silent in the face of concessions to the nationalists. The proposal launched by the Lehendakari Urkullu of a new negotiation of the territorial model in Spain caught the socialists on the wrong foot. Moreno’s PP quickly launched its artillery against any reform that left the Andalusian community behind.
A reform to the Catalan rhythm
look at Statute of Autonomy It is not a completely new strategy. The PSOE already used it in Andalusia in 2001 and made it concrete in 2004. When the entire national political debate revolved around the new Statute of Cataloniathe then president Manuel Chaves He reinvented the discourse of the socialists and proposed reforming the statutory text of Andalusia. Three years later, Andalusians were called to the polls, with little success, only 36.28% voted, the lowest participation in history, but with a resounding yes (87.45%) to the text, which copied the literality of the Statute in many of its passages more controversial, with the slogan of not falling behind what Catalonia asked for, or acted as a reverse mirror to the letter of Catalan, in the case of regional financing. The ‘trainer theory’ It marked the passage of the new Andalusian Statute, that is, everything was reformulated without losing sight of what the Catalans did in their Statute. Furthermore, in the case of Andalusia it only went through the Constitutional Court for one matter, the management of the Guadalquivir, which ceased to be an exclusive competence of the community and remained shared with the State as it was an intra-community basin. Andalusia was defined in its Preamble as “a national reality” and the PP approved the textnot without cost also for the popular Andalusians and with the opposition of the leadership of Genoa.
The fury of Andalusian politicians over the new Statute of Andalusia passed as soon as the territorial debate fizzled out, Catalonia took other courses, there would be years left for the independence conflict to break out with its maximum expression in the unilateral declaration of independence in October 2017, and Andalusia practically left its Statute in a drawer. The PSOE would govern for another ten years with the ‘second generation’ Statute, as it was called, bordering on the political debate. The PP would come to power in 2018 covered in the Andalusian flag but without having statutory development as a priority in its political program.
Without meeting since 2011
The proposal that the Andalusian PSOE has now sent to President Moreno involves creating a working group in Parliament that will serve to develop the Statute, a presentation within the Statutory Development Commission. This commission, which was reactivated in 2004 for the statutory reform, has subsequently been composed each legislature but has not had any activity recorded in the Chamber’s Journal of Sessions since March 2011the then Minister of the Presidency, the socialist Mar Moreno, appeared to explain the ruling of the Constitutional Court overturning the exclusive jurisdiction of the community over the Guadalquivir contained in its article 51. Since then, the activity of that commission has been null.
“Andalusia must lead this debate, as in 1981 and 2007. It is a constructive proposal“, which fits quite well with what Moreno is saying,” defended Espadas. “The new legislature in Spain begins with the third debate on the territorial model and Andalusia must play the same role to achieve equality agreements based on diversity,” insisted the opposition leader.
The socialist initiative proposes “evaluating the quality of self-government” under the different governments since the 2007 reform, the last five years with the PP at the head of the Board and the previous ten years, with the PSOE. Espadas requested an “analysis and evaluation of 16 years of recognition and guarantee of rights” included in the Statute of Autonomy.
With the PP Government, the reform of the Statute has only been proposed cosmetically in the Government together with Cs. It was essential to fulfill the promise of shorten the presidency of the Board to a maximum of two terms. A reform committed by Moreno that is in the drawer and has disappeared from the political debate.