Madrid Takes Central Government To Court
The Madrid regional government has launched legal proceedings against the central government, in order to reverse an alleged exclusion of the capital over the disbursement of funds from the European Union´s pandemic Recovery Plan.
The appeal was filed in the Supreme Constitutional Court on the 12th January.
The regional government of Castilla y León, also led by the centre-right Popular Party, has also filed a legal pre-judicial request, for a reversal of the decision by the central government and to be included as a beneficiary of the EU funds.
This week, the Madrid regional premier, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, announced that the regional executive would lodge an appeal before the Spanish High Court against the distribution of EU COVID-19 funds to the regions for, in her view, excluding if from funds.
Madrid’s regional Economy and Finance Minister, Javier Fernández-Lasquetty stressed that the legal move aims at revoking a decision by the Spanish labour ministry to greenlight the distribution of €9 million of EU funding to the Basque Country, Navarre, Extremadura and the Valencian Community mainly for employment subsidies.
According to Fernández-Lasquetty, the government’s decision was “arbitrary”. In Madrid’s view it has violated ” the legally established distribution of powers in the area of employment (between the Spanish central government and the regions, which have some competencies transferred)”, he added.
Economy Minister Nadia Calviño, of the socialist PSOE, rejected the move by Madrid’s regional government, pointing out that only two regions will receive more EU funding.
Calviño defended the distribution agreed with all 17 Spanish regions and highlighted that €11 billion of EU Next Generation funds have already been transferred. Andalusia, Catalonia and Madrid, which “has received more than €1.2 billion”, are the ones, in this order, to have received the most, she added.
“This kind of claim (by Madrid) is not at all relevant considering the care we are taking in the management of these funds, the minister stresssed before concluding that she found the move “ironic and contradictory.”
