15 regional presidents pronounce on the state of alarm

The regional presidents consulted by EL PAÍS on the eve of the declaration of a new state of alarm after the one decreed seven months ago agree that greater involvement of the central government is necessary.

The territorial leaders of the PSOE share that the state of alarm is an adequate tool and ask to apply it throughout the country, while the popular ones are reluctant to the measure and ask to reform the health law to give legal instruments to the autonomies.

They all demand more coordination from the Sánchez Executive.

The presidents of the Basque Country and Murcia declined to participate.

Juan Manuel Moreno (Andalusia)

"Coordination corresponds to the Government of Spain"

“Andalusia has been asking the Government for months for a legal instrument that allows it to adopt effective measures against the pandemic without having to resort to a state of alarm.

In the conferences of presidents since March I have repeatedly proposed, like other regional presidents, this need, but eight months later we do not have a legal framework that allows a homogeneous response to the pandemic in the different autonomies with full legal certainty ", regrets Moreno Bonilla.

“My Government has decreed perimeter closures of cities and towns, with the fortune that until now the Justice has endorsed those decisions.

But I am aware that, as has happened in other areas of Spain, the courts may not ratify those decisions that restrict mobility.

Andalusia has just published a regulation that limits mobility from 11:00 pm to 6:00 am and we have already requested judicial authorization to apply it in Granada capital and its metropolitan area ”, refers the baron of the PP.

For Moreno Bonilla, in a pandemic, "the coordination, planning and promotion of health policy corresponds to the Government of Spain and it should not renounce it."

Javier Lambán (Aragon)

"The more homogeneous the measurements, the better"

The Aragonese president assures that his government "will unconditionally accept" any decision on the declaration of the state of alarm or curfew.

"The more homogeneous the measures that are applied throughout the national territory, the better," he says.

"Collaboration and coordination of measures is essential," insists the baron of the PSOE.

The state of the autonomous regions "favors management, without a doubt," agrees Lambán.

Regarding the measures of the last inter-territorial health council, the president of Aragon points out that the ministry led by Salvador Illa, together with the communities, “has already established common indicators and criteria and, even without being legally binding, we have always applied them ”.

On a personal level, Lambán points out how the covid “has affected us closely” to the whole of society.

In her case, her 97-year-old father suffered from the disease and overcame it.

"The perspective is the same," he says about whether he changed his way of facing the crisis and whether he altered his way of managing the fight against the epidemic.

Adrián Barbón (Asturias)

"The state of alarm is a very useful instrument for everyone"

The President of the Principality believes that the state of alarm can be "a very useful instrument for all communities."

In fact, June 20 was one of the exceptions that advocated delaying entry into the new normal for a few weeks.

Among the measures that he would adopt for his community with a state of alarm in force would be, for the time being, the curfew.

"And many others that we have been adopting since June 21 with the aim of controlling the pandemic would fit in, so that they have that legal backing."

The socialist thinks that it is good that the indicators are common and there is "true co-governance".

"That would greatly facilitate knowledge and commitment by citizens."

Regarding the autonomous state, he believes that it is useful "because it brings health management closer to the citizens."

“But it is true”, he warns, “that in a crisis like the one we are experiencing has seen the need to go to federalization of the State.

For example, the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System must have the capacity to agree by majority on mandatory measures in public health matters.

I also think it necessary to create a State Public Health Agency ”, he concludes.

Francina Armengol (Balearic Islands)

"You have to act according to the particularity of each territory"

The socialist leader believes that, given the exceptional nature of the moment, the state of general alarm can give the necessary legal coverage to the autonomies.

Armengol defends "that one has to act according to the particularity of each territory, not only of each autonomous community, but for example, in the case of the Balearic Islands, according to the particularities of each island."

In his opinion, more controls are needed in ports and airports.

“The island communities need to rethink the conditions of mobility.

Both the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands insist on the need to intensify and improve health controls in ports and airports ”.

To Armengol, it would seem "very wrong" to get out of the crisis by questioning the autonomous state and defending recentralization processes.

“This would be a mistake.

Perhaps the problem occurs when the management of the crisis remains in the hands of the autonomous communities, but the State reserves certain instruments for itself.

If the appropriate framework had been generated, for example with the modification of the Public Health Law, perhaps we would have avoided certain situations ”, he reflects.

Ángel Víctor Torres (Canary Islands)

"There must be the maximum possible agreement"

At the head of the community with the most favorable indexes, he discards measures such as the archipelago curfew if the situation remains stable.

The Canarian president stresses that "there should be the maximum possible agreement thinking of the general interest and taking into account the specificities of each territory", in line with the Balearic president.

Torres is confident that the fourfold crisis Spain is facing - health, political, economic and social - will serve to strengthen the state of autonomies: "The capacity of each territory to take measures, thinking about the common good and not about political strategies."

Regarding the common and binding scales, he adds: "What has been done, having a common framework, is necessary, but I also have to say that it is enough that we all comply with the current criteria."

Miguel Ángel Revilla (Cantabria)

"There is a need for coordination between autonomies"

The leader of the Regionalist Party of Cantabria celebrates the declaration of the state of alarm at the national level.

"We need that approval, that support and that legal certainty because now there are courts that are breaking down restrictions in one community and not in another," he says.

"It takes a lot of coordination, especially between neighboring autonomies."

Revilla believes that once the state of alarm has been declared, it is the experts from each community who should take the lead in making decisions about the measures to be adopted: "No one knows the situation in a territory better than they do," he says.

If the situation worsens, they consider a curfew, in addition to the closure of restaurants at 11:00 pm and the limitation of meetings to six people.

"And it would not be bad," he adds, "for the central government to set more indicators" to assess the severity of the epidemic in each territory.

Emiliano García-Page (Castilla-La Mancha)

"The State must give us all legal protection"

Defender of a state of general alarm for a long time as the "most effective" solution, also for the "only message to all citizens" that it would transmit, is in favor of providing "legal protection to all" with general measures.

The communities would apply them according to their characteristics and particularities.

"The more coordination the better", emphasizes the president of Castilla-La Mancha.

For the leader of the PSOE the State of the autonomies favors the management of the pandemic and its multiple derivatives: “In the background, it improves it.

We are 17 Administrations hiring professionals and worrying about what happens to us in each of our territories ”.

Like so many thousands of citizens, the covid has touched him closely.

“Yes, unfortunately, like so many Spaniards, I have close people who have suffered from the disease and some have lost loved ones.

The perspective has not changed.

The health emergency is of such a dimension that from the first moment we have put all our energy to overcome it ”, explains García-Page.

Alfonso Fernández Mañueco (Castile and León)

"We have been demanding legal instruments for months"

"For months we have been demanding legal instruments that allow us to apply effective measures against the pandemic without having to resort to a state of alarm, as other communities and Pablo Casado have also defended, who proposed to the Government of Spain to agree to the reform of the Health Law", he says Manueco.

"On May 17 I already asked that steps be taken in the field of legal de-escalation to guarantee aspects such as control of mobility between provinces," recalls the popular president of Castilla y León.

Mañueco asks the Government for more "common criteria" and to provide the autonomous communities, as well as "effective legal instruments" and "sufficient funding to re-plan human resources policies and address the problem of lack of health professionals."

"All this I transmitted to Minister Illa on Friday," he says.

Mañueco defends, for the moment, the curfew decreed in the region.

"It is urgent to stop the number of infections in Castilla y León".

Pere Aragonès (Catalonia)

"With the state of alarm we will be able to execute measures with speed and agility"

The

Catalan

declares himself in favor of “a state of alarm in Catalonia managed by the Generalitat in order to be able to execute measures quickly and agilely”.

"We ask that it be decreed for Catalonia to be able to manage it better and from the knowledge of the health system and the social and economic reality of the country," he emphasizes whether he believes that it should be decreed by communities or all of Spain.

The ERC leader is categorical in his defense that the measures to be applied should be decided exclusively by the communities.

At least in his case: "In Catalonia, the Generalitat of Catalonia".

“We would like to have all the responsibilities that are proper to an independent state.

We want all the tools to be able to manage it ”, recalls his independence ideology.

The curfew is within the measures you intend to adopt.

"We will study more measures to restrict mobility if necessary, taking into account epidemiological data," explains Aragonès.

Regarding whether it is favorable for the Government to establish more binding indicators and criteria for all communities, Aragonès defends that the Government's criteria are already established: "We have taken stricter measures and we have always anticipated the measures of the central Government."

Ximo Puig (Valencian Community)

"The solution must be common but modular"

Like his colleagues in the PSOE, he defends that the state of alarm "is the most useful legal instrument" to face the current situation "from the unity of action and with a spirit of co-governance."

The Valencian Government is in favor of a solution "common to all of Spain and at the same time modular" according to the situation of each territory.

Puig urges the “shared responsibility” of co-governance: “Let us not centrifuge responsibility, neither governments nor oppositions.

We are not here to confront, but to help and to protect citizens ”.

The common framework that has been addressed in recent days seems "necessary".

"But I also have to say that it is enough that we all meet the current criteria," he stresses.

Guillermo Fernández Vara (Extremadura)

"The covid has not learned the statutes of autonomy"

Like other regional presidents, Fernández Vara has suffered a case of close serious coronavirus.

And it has not changed its way of managing the crisis.

“It hasn't changed me.

I am a politician, but first I am a doctor, and I know that only from scientific rigor can this situation be tackled ", he says.

The Extremaduran president is also in favor of a state of alarm for the entire country: "The covid has not yet learned the autonomy statutes of each community."

“I am a supporter, now that I see that we cannot make the decisions we need without constitutional coverage, of the state of alarm.

The judges have been doing an extraordinary job in Extremadura, but everything has a limit ”, abounds on the decision that this Sunday will be taken in the extraordinary Council of Ministers convened to study the terms of a new royal decree of state of alarm.

Fernández Vara underlines the difficulty of fighting the coronavirus, which forces us to make the decisions "that are necessary at all times."

"Today I think that of restricting night mobility", he adds, in line with other territorial leaders such as María Chivite (Navarra).

“I defended, defend and will defend that in situations of the magnitude of which we are living, there is only room for harmony, scientific rigor, political consensus and the defense of people's lives and our model of economic coexistence, of the companies and the workers ”, ditch the baron of the PSOE.

To the question of whether the State of the autonomies favors the management of this crisis or is making it difficult, he answers that "it is not a question that can be answered with a yes or a no".

“It favors it if we assume that we are part of the solution.

And that there are no winners or losers ”, he says.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo (Galicia)

"We must reform health legislation"

The president of the Xunta raises as "a clamor in the legal field" the need for a reform in health legislation to be able to adopt restrictions with guarantees.

Feijóo even sent the Government his own proposal to reform the organic health law.

"We have lost six months in which we could be ready to act before this second wave."

The Galician president, the only one of the PP with an absolute majority, supports "the possibility of establishing restrictions, mobility or different activities, always with homogeneous criteria."

And he adds: "It should be possible to act forcefully and with guarantees without having to resort to an extraordinary and exceptional mechanism such as the state of alarm, which also has a huge reputational cost for Spain."

Concha Andreu (La Rioja)

"The state of alarm means giving us certainties and guarantees"

"The state of alarm means giving us certainties and guarantees at the time when they are most needed", highlights the Riojan president, who recalls how communities have not always had the endorsement of the courts, with the legal insecurity that it generated: " Spain is a democratic rule of law and we must be scrupulous in complying with the laws ”.

Andreu emphasizes the "excellent" relationship with neighboring communities, which "greatly facilitates" the fight against the virus.

"The reality of each region is different and requires very unique actions, but it does have common criteria," he says.

In his opinion, the autonomous state allows a comparison between different administrations.

"The virus does not understand political colors, State models or borders," observes the socialist leader.

In his opinion, the pandemic has endowed the autonomous state with a greater role.

“The powers of today's Spain are shared as well as responsibilities.

During this health crisis, we have shown that inter-territorial collaboration mechanisms can and must work.

We must continue working in that sense ”.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso (Madrid)

"The measure must include basic health areas"

The Madrilenian president, who passed the coronavirus and has had "relatives deceased and affected by the coronavirus," says she wants to "collaborate with the central Administration, but to say why she needs us."

“Whether or not there is a state of alarm is the responsibility of the Government.

Madrid has dictated its rules according to its powers ”.

The leader of the PP accuses Sánchez of having been "disappeared" and asks that, if the state of alarm is decreed, the Executive "include the basic health areas and the schedules decreed by Madrid, as well as that it begin to control the Baraja's airport".

Ayuso also insists on the PP proposal last May to modify the 1986 law before resorting to a state of alarm.

María Chivite (Navarra)

"Coordination and co-governance are key"

The president of the provincial community is clear that, in view of the problems that most autonomous communities have had to avoid judicial suspensions of the decisions they made to try to control the pandemic, the declaration of the state of alarm "is a tool that can help in the management of the pandemic ”.

"However, it is nothing more than that, a tool", asserts Chivite, for which "inter-institutional coordination and co-governance are key."

In the specific case of Navarra, which has the most pronounced incidence, remember that its measures are among the most restrictive and have passed "all legal filters, however."

Inter-institutional cooperation and coordination between the central and regional governments "is essential," maintains the Navarrese president, who as the head of La Rioja highlights the coordination with the closest autonomous communities.

“Due to the principle of subsidiarity, I consider it more useful for the communities themselves to manage the measures of the state of alarm, although of course in collaboration with the State.

In our case, as it has been until now ”, he shares.

Nighttime confinement, which other communities value, is the measure that Public Health experts from the provincial community consider will probably be the most useful in reducing the incidence of the virus.

"And it is a measure that can only be taken with the legal protection of the state of alarm," warns Chivite, for which the State of Autonomies "is a political architecture that has sought the highest levels of freedom and development in Spain in all its history".

“Naturally, a pandemic puts stress on all systems, including politicians.

But I have never considered the need for agreement, for a pact, for co-governance, to be a weakness.

Recentralizing temptations, and even totalitarian ones, are nothing but expressions of inability to manage ”, he says.

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