Overview

• María Guardiola and Alfonso Rueda signed a joint declaration in Mérida reissuing the 2021 Santiago Declaration as the foundation for unified talks on autonomous financing.
• They denounced the proposed Catalan debt cancellation as separatist extortion that would breach the common fund and warned of losses up to €800 million annually for Galicia and €2.5 billion if generalized.
• The two presidents called on socialist regional leaders Emiliano García-Page and Adrián Barbón to commit their votes in Congress against the Catalan financing quota.
• They will anchor negotiations in the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy and mobilize parliamentary support to reject any privileged bilateral deals.
• As part of broader collaboration they pledged to pursue joint infrastructure projects, including high-speed rail links with Portugal via northern and Madrid-Extremadura corridors.