Feijóo's successor in the Xunta will claim new powers for Galicia

The succession of Alberto Núñez Feijóo in Galicia has completed a new procedure this Tuesday with the investiture speech of Alfonso Rueda, the only candidate to preside over the Xunta and who will be elected without problem thanks to the overwhelming absolute majority of the PP.

In an environment with as few nerves as illusion and between mechanical applause from the popular bench, Rueda has described as "memorable" the "last pages of History" signed in Galicia by the leader of the PP.

Despite the blunt adjective, he has assured that he does not intend to "photocopy" them.

“I am not, nor can I nor will I try to be Feijóo.

I am Alfonso Rueda and I will work to expand and improve the legacy of these years of Government”, has proclaimed who in the more than 16 years of Feijóo's leadership held the

positions of the Galician PP and the Xunta.

In an intervention of just one hour, the aspiring sixth president of Galicia has opted for a "quiet evolution" and has only launched a fleeting announcement that, if fulfilled, would mean a change with respect to his predecessor: he will claim the central Executive new regional powers.

The last time that Galicia received a transfer of powers was in 2008, when the Xunta was governed by a bipartisan PSOE and BNG and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was president of Spain.

In his 13 years of mandates with an absolute majority, Feijóo did not advance one iota in the self-government provided for by the Statute of Autonomy, a void that the opposition has always reproached him for.

Rueda has assured this Tuesday that he plans to change that line, although neither he nor his team have given any more information about what powers they plan to claim and when.

"We will be detailing them in the coming weeks," sources close to him have responded.

"Galicia will never tighten the seams of a State that, now more than ever, needs to stand firm against external threats", Feijóo's successor stated from the rostrum, later adding:

The "pillars" on which Rueda will base his government action are "work, family and future": "By adding work opportunities we will be able to multiply the possibilities that Galicians have to form a family, whatever their preferences may be at the time to set it up."

He has promised a reduction in personal income tax in 2023 for the lowest incomes (he will reduce the first tranche from 9.4% to 9%);

three new vaccines in the children's calendar (meningitis B, papilloma virus for children and quadrivalent flu);

discounts in hostels for pilgrims between 18 and 30 years old;

and an area of ​​thermalism in the Government of him that will be based in Ourense.

Rueda's inauguration ceremony will be held this Saturday.

Next week the already president of the Xunta will send a letter to the socialist Pedro Sánchez with his demands and a request for a meeting, as he announced this Tuesday.

The letter will include, in addition to a new regional financing system, other requests to the central government such as the increase in MIR positions for family doctors;

the payment of state contributions to care for dependency;

the AVE connection to Lugo that Feijóo promised to finance from the Xunta in 2009;

or support for the Atlantic Rail Corridor “at the same level” as that received by the Mediterranean.

Rueda has repeated some of Feijóo's criticisms of the Sánchez Executive.

He maintains that the coalition with United We Can is "hostage of all those interests, national and foreign" less than "the general interests".

“The future of Spain is in the hands of those whose political project is the dissolution of the country”, he has sentenced.

Both the BNG and the PSdeG-PSOE have given Rueda's intervention the same adjective: "self-indulgent."

The spokeswoman for the nationalists, Ana Pontón, has perceived a speech "detached from the problems and with no idea of ​​the future, which represents the past."

"It seems to us from another era," agreed the leader of the Socialists, Valentín González Formoso, who criticizes that Rueda only offers Galician youth "bonuses in shelters and 12,000 places in camps."

On Thursday the representatives of the opposition will go up to the platform of the Galician Parliament to reply to the future president of the Xunta.

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