The Minister of Finance of the Asturian Government, Dolores Carcedo, has made it clear that the Executive will reject the elimination of the current status quo of the communities that receive the most funding (Asturias, among them), if the measure is not compensated by the introduction of other variables that collect the cost of public services in the future financing system. In addition, he has shown the opposition of his Executive to the possible removal of debt for some communities, for understanding that it can harm those who have complied with the deficit ceilings.

Carcedo has offered a press conference together with Roberto Fernández Llera, the representative of the Asturian Administration in the Committee of Experts who is preparing a technical report on the future financing system between Autonomous Communities.

The Commission held its last meeting on Wednesday and has already finalized its report, which is still provisional in nature. The political representatives will have to debate about it. This Thursday

the expert and Carcedo have held a meeting with representatives of the political groups of the General Board to explain issues related to the document.

Carcedo has been prudent until the final draft of the report, which in principle would include the elimination of the status quo. However, he has defended that status quo, unless “the report says that it is phased out because other variables will pick up the cost of services.” In this regard, he added that all communities agree that “the current model is insufficient to cover the cost of public services, so” we need more, we can not lose on current funding, because it is insufficient “.

He also added that according to the aforementioned status quo, the state transferred funds based on what it cost to maintain public services in each community, which includes “the differences in spending.”

One of the controversial points, according to Llera, has been indebtedness. The Asturian expert has been favorable to look for mechanisms of restructuring of that debt (in conditions of loans or types of interest, for example), but has rejected the possibility of the removes, that yes have raised other autonomic representatives.

In this sense, the counselor has been blunt: “we must analyze the debt globally, within a multilateral body such as the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council.” Can not favor some communities and harm others, “he said. He has made it clear that they will not accept any asset that would harm Asturias, and he recalled that the state financing funds were “voluntary funds, so they can not be the instrument to decide on debt relief”.

On the other hand, Llera has pointed out that there is consensus on several aspects, including the harmonization of a common minimum rate of taxation in inheritance and estate taxes for all the Autonomous Communities. There has also been general agreement on the need to strengthen the compensation mechanisms and the Inter-territorial Compensation Fund, which currently has 400 million and of which Asturias currently receives about 13.

CRITICS OF THE RIGHT

After the appearance of Carcedo and Llera, representatives of the opposition parties have made statements. Emma Ramos, of the PP, and Cristina Coto, of the Asturias Forum, have been very upset because they understand that Llera has not come to Madrid to defend the interests of Asturias.

They have criticized that there is no calculation of the cost of public services in the community, and that the expert has not made concrete proposals based on it. According to Ramos, everything seems to indicate that the report will not collect the variables that affect the community, such as dispersion, population aging and orography, and has criticized that neither Carcedo nor its representative have been able to say whether Asturias will benefit or not. report.

Coto has assured that Llera has told them at the meeting that “if we stay as we are, it would not be bad”, which is why he has shown his “concern”. He has rejected the “lack of ambition” of the regional president, Javier Fernández, because “Madrid has to go with rigorous criteria.”

Emilio León, from Podemos, has defended, among other things, the equalization of the costs of education, health and dependency in the autonomous communities and the universalization of education from 0 to three years. He criticized that both PP and PSOE do not question the “scarcity of resources”, and finally the debate on the financing model becomes “a competition for those scarce resources.”

The deputy of IU, Ovidio Zapico, has limited himself to demand that the final report collect a “sufficient financing” of public resources, as well as the elimination of the “tax havens” that constitute some communities, from his point of view.

Nicanor García, of Ciudadanos, has celebrated the criteria of tax harmonization and that the communities with the regional system (Navarra and Euskadi) contribute to the Inter-territorial Compensation Fund and to the compensation mechanisms, as indicated in the document. He asked the Asturian Government during the political debate to be “proactive” in the rejection of debt forgiveness, and in the requirement of establishing variables when making the distribution: dispersion, orography, aging and other issues.

The President of the Government of La Rioja, Pedro Sanz, announced today that the San Millán Foundation will undertake the restoration of the access gate to the courtyard of the Yuso Monastery.

An announcement made by the chief executive of La Rioja after the meeting of the San Millán Foundation. As for the gate, it is a classic piece of plastón of the seventeenth century, built in walnut wood on an interlaced frame and hanged by late-Gothic-Renaissance ironworks. It forms part of the main cover of the monastery, a Baroque monumental portal from the 17th century.

The president stressed that this restoration, which will be financed with their own funds, will be promoted because “we believe that this door should look and make the cover look even better, since it is the first thing visitors see before starting the journey for the monastery. ” The Foundation continues with its responsibility to ensure and safeguard the Monasteries of Suso and Yuso as World Heritage Sites.

The restoration, which is going to be integral, has been entrusted to the La Rioja workshop ‘Renovatio restoration’, specialized in old pieces built in noble wood, and has a budget of 12,000 euros.

At the meeting of the Foundation, in which the annual accounts have been approved, it has been indicated that an audit was carried out on the financial situation of the Foundation, which concluded that it is perfectly managed.

Debt payment

In this sense, Sanz has announced that the central government has paid the San Millán Foundation, 216,000 euros that were due in 2005. He recalled that that year, the national executive, then led by the PSOE, “we had left a debt of 216,000 euros from a financing project of ‘Cilengua’, which came with European funds, something we claimed, and we were denied. ” Now, the Central Administration “has made a transfer to the Foundation for 216,000 euros” with what “has given us oxygen”

Thus, Pedro Sanz has detailed that “the foundation presents an image of financial solvency, which in turn reflects a good government and the fact that it has managed to grow maintaining a healthy situation and without debts, with assets of 3,057,229, 89 euros and own funds of 376,599.80 euros “.

Next activities

On the other hand, it has indicated that in the meeting of the board of trustees the activity has been reviewed in the last months and the one planned for the next semester. Thus, among the most immediate activities, the participation of the entity in the Spanish workshops for secondary teachers organized by the Ministry of Education for the United Kingdom and Ireland, which will be attended by 100 British teachers. It will be next June 20 at the Spanish Cañada Blanch Institute in London, where the San Millán Foundation will organize a workshop on illustration and calligraphy in ancient codices and a food and wine workshop, which will serve to spread La Rioja gastronomy as an important part of culture around Spanish.

The visit to London will also serve to manage the participation of the San Millán Foundation and Cilengua next October at the Language Show Live, the largest event on languages ​​in the United Kingdom, which annually gathers more than 10,000 attendees – students, professors, translators, linguists and language professionals- around exhibitors, seminars, language courses, talks and demonstrations.

Another important event that praises the international relevance of San Millán will be the celebration of the I PhiloBiblon International Seminar, which the foundation will organize with the University of California and that will be presented next week.

In addition, the Cilengua is preparing various publications for the coming months, which will gather results of their research, among which are the History of medieval Castilian metrics, The Bible in Spanish American literature or the Syntactic origins of languages. romances, in addition to carrying out important congress meetings that will gather specialists from all over the world in San Millán.

In its support to young researchers, the foundation has collaborated in the organization of the Congress of the Association of Young Researchers of Historiography and History of the Language and in the publication of the book Literary Tablets: around gastronomy in Hispanic letters, which will present soon.

It is also planned to celebrate, in collaboration with the Center for Training, Innovation and Counseling in Educational Matters of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Tourism, highlights the First Course of Linguistics and Didactics of Spanish, entitled ‘The new academic standards. Update on the training of Spanish language teachers’, and the refresher course on the origins of Spanish, aimed primarily at teachers and people working in the field of culture, especially Rioja.

Of course, in 2015 a new edition of the Language and Journalism Seminar will be held, which will also reach its tenth anniversary and in which it is expected to once again have His Majesty the Queen, and a new edition of the Sephardic Days.

Developed activities

It should be noted that so far this year, the San Millán Foundation has promoted an intense work that has led it to participate in national and international meetings, such as the one entitled ‘Around Sana Teresa. Holiness and devotions. Speeches and practices’, which brought together experts from national, European and American universities in February, or the celebration in San Millán of the annual meeting of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Hispanists, the most important international society that brings together teachers and Spanish language and literature researchers from around the world.

Similarly, the Foundation and Cilengua have participated in the first edition of the International Forum of Spanish FIE 2.0, held at the end of April in Ifema-Madrid, which brought together 4,327 visitors and more than six million Internet users around the Spanish . In this meeting, which revolved around the economic value of this language, San Millán had an exhibitor in which activities that were very popular were organized. In this framework, the first volumes of the collection ‘Thinking in Spanish’ were presented, co-published with the New Library publishing house.

Among the activities carried out in this forum, stand out the workshops’ From the word to the image. The illustration of books in the Middle Ages. Heritage education on the first written in Spanish ‘and’ The new academic standards. Update on the training of Spanish language teachers’, which had a large influx of public.

Finally, regarding the informative and dissemination work of the emilianense group, the Foundation has continued to develop its programs Emilianensis and ‘Cañas. The spirit of the Císter ‘, which include conferences, concerts, workshops for schoolchildren and diverse activities for families and tourists in general, in which more than 1,300 people have participated in these first months of the year.

And it has launched a new project that, under the title of ‘San Millán a escena’, aims to bring together the different cultural manifestations – especially in the case of the local people, but without ruling out other national and even international ones – not just the inhabitants of the Valley San Millán and nearby towns, but also tourists and anyone who wants it. A project that has been revealed as a success since its first activity – the representation of ‘The tale of Peter and the Wolf’ – had a large audience.