The PSC sees it possible to approve the budgets on time but awaits a gesture from Aragonès

All roads pass through the PSC.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
11 October 2022 Tuesday 04:30
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The PSC sees it possible to approve the budgets on time but awaits a gesture from Aragonès

All roads pass through the PSC. The Socialists are more than willing to support the new budgets of the Generalitat and they would not cause many problems to carry them out if the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, were to lift the veto that his party has imposed on any type of agreement with that of Salvador Illa . For this reason, beyond the pronouncements of the leader of the Republicans, Oriol Junqueras, assuring that "not with the PSC, at least not at the moment", the Socialists await a gesture from the president to move forward with some bills that they see as possible to approve in time and form, before the end of the year.

The PSC wants Aragonès to be the one to pronounce on the budgets to see if his opinion coincides with that of Junqueras or, on the contrary, there is room for agreement. They want him to do so in his next appearance in Parliament, in plenary session next week, where he will give an account of the remodeling of the Government after the break with Junts.

The socialists remember that the person in charge of the Government, the president, is Aragonès, not Oriol Junqueras, and therefore, the budgets are a matter of the former and depend on the interest he has in supporting his cabinet. If he wants to approve the new budgets, with which the Catalan Executive would take oxygen to survive beyond next year's electoral appointments, he will most likely have to count on Salvador Illa's party, but the ERC veto complicates the square.

The PSC-Units spokeswoman, Alícia Romero, believes that the accounts could still be approved in a timely manner if the Consell Executiu gave them the go-ahead and they entered the Catalan Chamber between the second and third week of October. Thus, they could be processed by the urgent route, like last year, and validated at the end of December. But "we will see what the will of Pere Aragonès is", the spokeswoman has summoned.

In addition, these are budgets that, according to Romero, Giró left ready, after the distribution of the resources that would correspond to each ministry, an extreme that the commons, who until the breakup of the Executive were the priority partner with whom to approve them, deny. Although some sources assure that the budget negotiation with the commons was quite advanced, the leader of the purple formation assures that she never saw a single number and that not even the Government did its job, since there was not even an agreement between the former partners on the accounts.

Be that as it may, Aragonès has the opportunity to make a clean slate and choose between whether it prefers to extend the current accounts or approve the new ones. In the case of wanting to approve them, it will be difficult for him to count on Junts, who make it a condition that the president submit to a matter of confidence. Faced with such a high price, the Socialists want the head of the Government to show some sign of understanding, reminding him over and over again that his government is only supported by 33 deputies from the Catalan Chamber and that "he is more alone than before".

“We will not leave them for a minute”, Romero pointed out about the new ministers who have taken office this Tuesday, because “they have been governing for 500 days” and after “500 days of instability in Catalonia, what it is time to govern”, he has justified.

The spokeswoman has ruled out any connection between the budgets of the Generalitat, those of the State or the fact that the dialogue table can bear tangible fruit before the end of the year. "ERC has a dialogue relationship in Madrid and not here (...) They have a position with the PSOE and another with the PSC", she lamented. Although Romero has admitted that "it would be good if there were budgets, both in the State and in Catalonia", she has insisted that "we will act accordingly, in relation to what Aragonès decides to do".

While Aragonès decides, the socialists plan to intensify contacts with social agents, this time throughout the Catalan territory, to gather impressions and ideas for the new accounts. They have already settled a first round of contacts with Foment, Pimec, unions and third sector entities, and now they will undertake 150 more meetings throughout Catalonia.