Calviño and Ayuso, from the clash to the truce in nine hours

The President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, receives the First Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño. COMUNIDAD DE MADRID (COMUNIDAD DE MADRID)

At 9.30 this Wednesday, the first vice president of the Government of Spain, Nadia Calviño, is visibly upset.

At that time she already knows that the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, plans to leave her alone at the press conference that should culminate the meeting that both will hold in the afternoon to talk about the execution of European funds in the region.

It is the consequence of previous misunderstandings.

Calvino takes note.

And something else.

When asked about it in an interview on Telemadrid, she doesn't hold her tongue: "I don't know if she's afraid, if she's ashamed, or if she doesn't want to explain what she's doing with European funds," she says about Diaz Ayuso.

The conservative leader's team listens to those words in astonishment.

At 1:00 p.m., and taking advantage of the press conference that follows the meeting of the governing council,

The counterattack arrives: "We have found these statements inappropriate," complains the government spokesman, Enrique Ossorio.

A reaction that contrasts with the official conclusion of the meeting held at 5:00 p.m. by the two policies: “Constructive”, both coincide.

There are nine hours of tension that end in a forced truce.

Díaz Ayuso's team waits to hear Calviño's intervention before the press to decide what to do.

First thing in the morning, and a joint appearance by the vice president and the regional leader has already been ruled out, it is being studied that Calviño be accompanied by Javier Fernández-Lasquetty, the head of Economy and Finance in Madrid.

But the words of the minister in Telemadrid burst that possibility, in the same way that her intervention after the afternoon meeting, empty of reproaches, and loaded with positive messages, causes concern in the Royal Post Office.

To do?

Should Fernández-Lasquetty leave or not?

Shouldn't someone from the regional government face the positive tone of the minister's intervention?

Messages fly.

Díaz Ayuso's advisers go up and down the stairs in search of answers.

Jokes are made to release the tension that hangs in the air after a day of tug-of-war.

Finally, a statement and a tweet are chosen.

"Constructive meeting with the vice president of the government," reads the text written by Díaz Ayuso's communication team.

"The Community of Madrid is executing European funds at a good pace, as Calviño herself highlighted in the subsequent appearance," she adds, since the Community of Madrid has already called for actions amounting to 502 million euros of the 1,618 that have been received .

“Constructive meeting with the Vice President of the Government”, Díaz Ayuso later expands with a tweet, who during the meeting with Calviño presents 47 new projects, valued at 3,814 million euros, to be included by the Government of Spain in the modification of the Plan of Recovery and Resilience.

In total, the region expects to receive 2,468 million from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism until 2023.

Constructive meeting with the Vice President of the Government.

Madrid is executing European projects at a good pace, as she has highlighted.

pic.twitter.com/eQZNXXnEAl

– Isabel Díaz Ayuso (@IdiazAyuso) September 28, 2022

The message from the president of the Community of Madrid coincides with that of the minister.

”The meeting has been very productive because the message received is positive.

We have agreed to work together to eliminate any bottleneck that slows down the deployment of aid.

The message that I take away is positive and constructive”, says Calviño, who takes advantage of the appearance to show his disagreement with the tax reductions that the Autonomous Communities have begun to make, from Madrid to the Valencian Community, where the socialist Ximo Puig announced on Wednesday the income tax reduction for income of less than 60,000 euros.

"The race to the bottom in the tax area does nothing but impoverish us all," laments the minister of Pedro Sánchez.

His words bounce off the granite walls of the courtyard of the Real Casa de Correos, seat of the government of the Community of Madrid.

Calviño is alone before the lectern.

She is not accompanied by anyone from the government of the Community of Madrid.

A decision that contrasts with that of all the regional leaders who preceded Díaz Ayuso in the round of contacts with the minister, and who did intervene with Calviño, regardless of her party.

Since Díaz Ayuso came to power for the first time, in August 2019, his clashes with the Spanish government have been constant.

Having verified the differences in health, economic, international, or fiscal policy, the regional president has met twice with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.

There were no notable consequences for the citizens.

From the meeting held this Wednesday afternoon, focused on the execution of the 2,000 million euros of European funds that the State has transferred to Madrid, there is one tangible announcement: the confirmation that the national neurotechnology center is very close to settle on the campus of the Autonomous University of Madrid.

“There are fringes to finish off.

I hope that in the next few days we will finish finishing off”, says Calviño after his meeting with Díaz Ayuso.

They are words that serve as a thermometer, since they measure how low the fever unleashed between the teams of the two politicians at the beginning of the day.

Then, at 9:30, when the afternoon meeting looked worst, the vice president said this: “I hope you don't mean that you don't want to commit to the national center for neurotechnology.

We have other candidates from more parts of Spain.”

A sample that throughout the day it goes from the open clash to the tense truce.

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