<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The autonomous communities governed by the People’s Party have announced their intention to appeal the Royal Decree-Law approved this week by the Council of Ministers to introduce a mandatory distribution system for unaccompanied migrant minors.</strong></h4> Last Tuesday, during the press conference following the Council of Ministers meeting, the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, stated that the Royal Decree responds to a long-standing demand from border territories where minors arrive in small boats and cayucos. According to Torres, the text establishes a series of criteria for the distribution of minors, such as population, per capita income, unemployment rate, previous efforts, the structural scale of the placement system, and whether each territory is a border city or island. It also establishes a €100 million fund to finance the transfers. The minister also specified that the autonomous communities have until March 31 to inform the government about their reception system and how many minors they are currently caring for. The objective of this regulation is to relocate 4,000 minors from the Canary Islands and another 500 from Ceuta and Melilla. Speaking to Antena 3, the minister indicated that the distribution will begin "in the first half of April." The approval of the Royal Decree follows an agreement between the government and the Catalan pro-independence party, Junts, which will provide the necessary support to advance it in Congress. Last July, the votes of the PP and Junts themselves defeated a reform of the Immigration Law in Congress to establish a binding distribution of unaccompanied migrant minors among the different communities. <h5><strong>PP Reaction</strong></h5> Following the approval of the law, the PP warned that it will oppose taking in new unaccompanied migrant minors in the Autonomous Communities it governs if the central government does not provide them with more resources and funding. Likewise, the party's spokesperson in Congress, Miguel Tellado, accused the government of "unilaterally changing" the Immigration Law to "force the Autonomous Communities to address the results of their mismanagement" and announced that, although the regional governments controlled by his party will appeal to the courts, "they will not find a single autonomous community governed by the PP that violates the law." So far, all the Autonomous Communities governed by the PP have already announced their intention to appeal the Royal Decree: the Government of Aragon will file a constitutional appeal; the President of Cantabria, María José Sáenz de Buruaga, has warned that the agreement between the government and Junts jeopardizes the community's protection system; The president of Galicia, Alfonso Rueda, has announced that he may take the law to court against a regulation that, according to his estimates, will force him to take in nearly 300 migrant minors; the president of the Junta de Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, has instructed the regional government's legal services to appeal the Royal Decree Law; the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has already announced that she will take the agreement to court and file a complaint with the European Union; and the president of the Balearic Islands, Marga Prohens, also announced that she will not accept more minors if there are no "fair and balanced criteria and more funding." The governments of the Region of Murcia and Extremadura will also join the appeal of the People’s Party's regional governments, as will Andalusia. The president of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno (who has freed himself from depending on Vox for his government), has described the Royal Decree as an "abuse" imposed "by Mr. Puigdemont from Brussels on the Spanish government" and by the Spanish government on Andalusia, but assured that he will comply with the law out of "common sense and reasons of humanity." Eight months ago, the far-right party Vox broke the coalition agreements it had with the People's Party (PP) in Valencia, Murcia, Aragon, and Extremadura, specifically because of the reception of unaccompanied minors. Under these circumstances, the president of the Valencian Government, Carlos Mazón, has just signed an agreement with Vox to advance the regional budget in exchange for, precisely, refusing the entry of unaccompanied minors. Outside the PP and within the ranks of the PSOE, the president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, has harshly criticized this Royal Decree and asserted that, although his government will show solidarity with the reception of unaccompanied migrant minors, it will not accept "lessons of solidarity" from those who make pacts with an "identity supremacist" like Carles Puigdemont. For his part, the President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, has announced the convening of a conference with national NGOs to analyze the situation in the rest of the autonomous communities with a view to compliance with the Royal Decree-Law on Migrant Minors. According to a press release from the Canary Islands government, this forum will be held close to the deadline the government has given the autonomous communities to report on their reception systems: March 31.
