The autonomous barons give themselves a truce for Ukraine

The president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, in the center, together with the ministers Félix Bolaños, Isabel Rodríguez and Fernando Grande-Marlaska, this Saturday in Santa Cruz de La Palma. Elvira Urquijo A. (EFE)

The invasion of Ukraine has caused a truce, albeit a very fragile and momentary one, in Spanish politics.

The refugee crisis and the severe impact that is already being seen in the Spanish economy due to the rise in energy prices has caused an institutional closing of ranks that was unthinkable just two weeks ago.

The response to the impact of the war has relieved as a priority issue the execution of European funds that came to fester the relationship between the PSOE and the PP in the early stages of the year.

The XXVI conference of regional presidents that is being held on the island of La Palma will be attended by those responsible for all the communities for the first time in a decade.

The previous appointment in which there was a plenary session of presidents —without being telematic, like most of those developed during the pandemic— was in 2012.

The Catalan

, Pere Aragonès, will finally attend the summit due to the "exceptional nature" of a war that will force all administrations to agree on the coordinated management of the reception of Ukrainian refugees and cooperate on other fronts that arise .

The one that most worried the regional presidents before the meeting, apart from geopolitics, was the progress of the economy, with inflation falling to 7.6%.

Unknown maximums since 1986. Electricity has risen 80.5% in one year, diesel 28.4% and gasoline 25.1%.

Aragonès was going to be the only regional president absent on February 25, when the conference was intended to have been held.

But that was before Vladimir Putin launched the most serious war on the European continent since World War II.

The ERC leader has told Pedro Sánchez that his participation in the meeting should not be understood "as a step in the normalization of relations between the institutions of the State and Catalonia."

But the concerns of the Prime Minister and the majority of regional presidents go in other directions.

Pedro Sánchez will demand at the conference "co-responsibility" in the arrival of immigrants and that, therefore, the reaction of the territories is not limited to people fleeing Ukraine.

“Whether Andalusia, the Canary Islands or the Balearic Islands, after all, they are the borders of all of Spain and all the autonomous communities have to feel co-responsible in the care, reception and protection of a complex reality such as immigration, that needs the response of all administrations”, he stated on Canarian television.

Despite these claims, the attention of the conference of presidents will focus on the future of the conflict in Ukraine and its aftermath in Spain.

The "unity" with which La Moncloa hopes to mitigate the blow of "Putin's war" should be cemented this Sunday with an agreement that allows the reception of Ukrainian refugees to be reinforced together with economic contingency plans.

The objective is to establish the bases for a coordinated and fluid cooperation of the different administrations in the deployment of the reception system for those fleeing the conflict.

And there will also be proposals for various socioeconomic measures to alleviate the increase in energy prices and other economic consequences on the most vulnerable groups.

The next leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, will lead the requests of the barons of his party.

The president of Galicia will ask the Government to make a general reduction in taxes on electricity, gas and gasoline until the end of the year in order to reduce the impact that the invasion of Ukraine is having on the economy of families and Business.

Sánchez is willing to set electricity rates, highly influenced by the price of gas, in the event that the EU does not finally undertake them.

The barons of the PSOE will also request an agile response to the price of energy.