The Treasury tries to calm the mayors with the offer to pay the interest on their savings

The Government wants to appease the revolt that the royal decree law has caused that allows it to use the 14,000 million euros that the municipalities have saved. The idea of ​​the Treasury was to take that money as a loan that it would return to the municipalities. And to convince the mayors, he has found a piece of candy to offer them: to bear the financial cost of having that money idle in the bank, about 70 million annually. The Treasury includes this relief in the conditions of the loans, advanced on Monday to EL PAÍS and published this Tuesday in the BOE. And there is a second candy: if the mayors agree to extend the repayment period from 10 to 15 years, they will have an interest rate of 0.05%.

The Treasury maneuver comes when the spirits are worst for the government's plans. The mayors of the PP were joined on Friday by leaders of eight other parties in their front against the royal decree law and threatened to overturn the validation of the text, which should reach Congress in September.

The Treasury now wants to improve its offer, beyond the 5,000 million it offered in exchange for borrowing the 14,000 from the municipalities. Administration sources indicate that the proposal aims to provide more financial facilities to local entities. And it offers them that the Treasury assumes the payment of interest while the remnants remain in the hands of the State. Either of the two conditions to which the municipalities take refuge - the return to 10 or 15 years - would suppose a saving, according to calculates the Treasury.

It is unlikely that the proposal will convince the PP, whose mayors announced this Monday that they will not participate in the mechanism adopted by the Treasury. The entities that are going to deliver that money have until September 15 to commit to the Executive. If they stick to this instrument, the Government will begin to put money into an additional fund of 5,000 million between 2020 and 2021.

The Territorial Vice Secretary of the Popular Party, Antonio González Terol. In video, González Terol encourages the mayors of Spain to demonstrate against the finance agreement. PHOTO AND VIDEO: EFE

The PP is going to mobilize all its mayors against the plan. The popular ones, who consider the government's formula a hoax, announced this Monday that none of the 2,860 municipalities they run (35% of the national total) will deliver the amounts to the Executive. And their public officials will mobilize to reject it.

The PP's claim is for the Treasury to reverse and renegotiate the entire agreement signed with the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP). The popular decision not to hand over the remnants does not contravene the royal decree, which makes it clear that the municipalities can enter them voluntarily. However, it is a maneuver that fully affects the Executive's plans. In the text, the Government undertakes to reimburse 100% of the municipalities' savings over a decade —extendable to 15 years— in exchange for them being paid first as a loan.

The popular ones will present motions in all the local entities and councils to reprove the president of the FEMP, the socialist Abel Caballero, mayor of Vigo. The first demonstrations were held this Monday in front of the Vigo Town Hall, where about 300 Galician councilors of the formation gathered.

More and more obstacles

The way for the royal decree law to be validated in Congress seems more than complex. Especially after council members of nine parties (including government partners such as PNV, ERC and BNG) rejected the Treasury plan on Friday. The mayor of Zaragoza, Jorge Azcón, of the PP, sent a letter to Minister María Jesús Montero on Monday in which he requests an urgent telematic meeting with the councilors who have signed the manifesto. Treasury sources indicate that there is still no answer.