The political landscape is shifting as PP barons mobilize their forces from regional territories to the heart of Madrid, aiming to exert pressure on La Moncloa. In a critical virtual meeting this past Friday, the Presidencia advisors from the 11 PP-led communities and two autonomous cities convened. Their mission: to lay down a strategy to sway Minister Ángel Víctor Torres and ensure that the topics they deem crucial make it to the agenda of the Presidents' Conference scheduled for June 6 in Barcelona.

The tension has been simmering since a previous meeting on Wednesday ended without consensus regarding the summit's agenda. This prelude meeting, held behind closed doors, was a cauldron of heated debates lasting over two hours, signaling a stormy summit ahead between Pedro Sánchez and the regional leaders.

The atmosphere is becoming increasingly charged, not only due to lingering disagreements over the conference agenda but also because of the looming protest organized by Alberto Núñez Feijóo against what he terms the central government's "mafia," scheduled just 48 hours after the summit. In an escalating show of defiance, PP leaders, along with former presidents Mariano Rajoy and José María Aznar, have confirmed their participation in the protest.

The core of the discord lies in the proposed topics for the Barcelona conference. The government, led by Sánchez, suggested discussions on housing access and professional and university education. However, the PP leaders rejected these outright, suspecting them to be a façade for institutional propriety amidst the alleged corruption scandals surrounding the PSOE.

In contrast, the PP demands a broader discourse, including topics like squatting, regional financing, energy outages, and the shortage of healthcare professionals. The clash of narratives between the ministry and PP communities is stark. Minister Torres claimed that nearly all of the PP's demands were considered, except for issues like immigration competency delegation and retracting the PSOE's legislative proposal on justice.

Despite the discord, Torres maintains that the agenda items remain focused on housing and education. Meanwhile, the PP contends that the agenda is non-existent, seeking to leverage their territorial influence as per Article 5.2.c of the Presidents' Conference regulations, which mandates inclusion of topics requested by a majority of autonomous community representatives.

There is a resolve among the PP advisors to exhaust all legal avenues to have their demands met. This weekend will likely see deliberations on whether to formalize their requests through individual or collective submissions. They also consider utilizing their majority in the Senate to register their proposal officially.

The PP leaders are pressing for a change in the conference format to allow for rebuttals rather than limiting each regional president to a mere 10-minute speech, a practice observed in prior conferences.

While consensus on a unified strategy is being fine-tuned, the Community of Madrid is already threatening to boycott the summit if Sánchez refuses to broaden the agenda. Madrid's leader, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has previously snubbed face-to-face meetings with the central government, and now considers declining the Barcelona summit invitation if it serves only as a photo opportunity to "mask corruption cases" affecting the PSOE.

However, Ayuso's hardline stance is not universally shared among all PP barons. In Cantabria, President María José Sáenz de Buruaga expressed a commitment to attending the summit irrespective of the circumstances, citing "institutional duty." She echoed the party's sentiment by labeling the PSOE as "mob-like" and questioning the credibility of a summit orchestrated under the current ministry. "This is bound to be a futile conference," she remarked at a forum, lamenting that the Prime Minister no longer even attempts to disguise the reality.

The PP's united front has been months in the making, with strategy meetings orchestrated from their headquarters in Genoa. The most recent meeting on Friday was aimed at finalizing the agenda push, following a prior assembly on Wednesday. PP's Deputy Secretary for Regional Coordination, Elías Bendodo, emphasized the regional presidents' authority to introduce topics into the summit agenda, accusing Sánchez of attempting to "hijack" the multilateral cooperation body.