Café para todos - "Coffee for everyone". It's a classic Spanish metaphor for equal political treatment, and it seems to have no end. After the governing Socialists (PSOE) agreed with Together for Catalonia (Junts) on the devolution of powers over immigration to Catalonia in exchange for the party's vital support on the decree laws which were voted this week in the Congress of Deputies, it now seems that this transfer of competencies could be extended to the rest of the autonomous communities which make up the Spanish state. The Spanish deputy PM and treasury minister, María Jesús Montero, admitted this Friday that the accords that could be made with the pro-independence parties in Catalonia are "able to be replicated" in the rest of the Spanish state. With regard to immigration powers, she stressed that first "it will be necessary to see if there are other territories that aspire to exercise it, as is the case of the Basque Country". Faced with the offer, the opposition People's Party has responded with a resounding 'no', assuring that the regional presidents in the party will not claim these powers because they must continue to be part of the state's competence.
In an interview on radio station Cadena Ser in Andalusia, Montero defended her party's agreement on delegating the powers under Article 150.2 of the Constitution and drawing up a law to establish the scope of the transfer. "A law, able to be debated, will be required, to see what perimeter it reaches and to be agreed with the rest of the parties and approved", she stressed, also pointing out that it will be drafted in the framework of the migration agreement recently reached in the European Union. Montero explained that the idea is to "construct a Spain that is governable under co-governance", so that issues on which there is interest can be decided "closer to the place where services are provided or where people are received".
Asked about "the extent to which the PSOE is prepared to make accords with the Catalan pro-independence parties", the deputy PM replied that "to the extent that we understand that there is common sense in it, that it makes sense for the state and for the legitimacy of democracy" and she noted that an "accord" can never be understood as a "humiliation". She also showed herself as optimistic that as the months go by, the trust between the Socialists and Junts will be "reinforced".
Regions where the PP governs will not assume the immigration powers
The PP, which from the first minute has criticized the agreement with Junts for the immigration delegation, has made it clear that its regional presidents will not assume these powers. The spokesperson for the People's Party in Congress, Miguel Tellado, responded with "obviously not", when he was asked about this possibility in an interview with La Sexta network, and he insisted that the pact with Junts is "a huge mistake that no one shares" because immigration must remain an exclusive competence of the state.