Valencia and Balearic Islands in favour of a federal Spain

In the contentext of the XX Economic Meeting of S'agaró, (Catalonia), the President of the Valencian Government, Ximo Puig, and the President of the Balearic Government, Francina Armengol, expressed themselves in favour of moving towards a federal Spain. "Catalonia, and its independence process, is not Spain's only territorial problem", stated the Valencian President, adding that the asymmetry among the different autonomous communities in Spain enshrines inequality. As a result, the citizens from the communities with a worse treatment have less resources for basic services. Ximo Puig denounced the fiscal mistreatment that, in his opinion, the Valencian autonomous community has been suffering. 

The Balearic President, francina Armengol, spoke in similar terms when she stated that her autonomous community is "under-financed". She argued that even if they are one of the richest communities in Spain, largely due to the buoyant tourism segment,  there are also poor sectors of the population, due to the seasonality of tourism. She stated that it is not acceptable that "being the third highest contributing territory, we we are the seventh region when it comes to receiving resources. This results in an infrastructure deficit and in having less resources for health and education than other communities".

For Puig and Armengol, the solution to this situation lies in undertaking deep changes in Spain's territorial structure. "The Spain of the Autonomies was a success -said the Valencian President- but it is now obsolete and needs to be redesigned". Francina Armengol advocated for a reform of the Constitution that would refer specifically to the autonomous communities and that would articulate effective coordination formulas between the regions and the central State.  Both in favour of a federal model, they agreed with the proposal to transform the Spanish Senate into a territorial chamber, the German way. 

Santi Vila, Catalan regional Minister and Co-President of nrg4SD, and Carles Llorens, Secretary-General of ORU Fogar, also attended the meeting.