Before submitting to the control session in the Parliament, the opposition has made it very clear to Pere Aragonès that he is alone and that his "measure by measure, project by project" is unlikely to prosper if he does not first forge commitments with the parliamentary groups . The PSC is offered for the budgets, but the president keeps the Catalan socialists in the reserve waiting for a pact with the CUP and the commons that are increasingly bitter with the Government due to the lack of contact. But also waiting to see if Pedro Sánchez takes steps in Congress to end "with the repression." Today Aragonès has assured that his will is for the 2023 accounts to be effective in January 2023. His bet does not mean that an extension of the 2022 numbers must be assumed for a period of between "15 and 20 days".
Aragonès almost completely ruled out last week that the new budgets could be ready on January 1. With Junts' farewell to the Government, he justified that there were aspects that needed to be reviewed, taking into account, moreover, that the person in charge of preparing them up to that moment was Jaume Giró, when he was deconseller of the Economy and in the ranks of Junts, and that the new Minister, Natàlia Mas, from ERC, needs time to evaluate them. Today, before an interpellation from the leader of the commons in Parliament, Jéssica Albiach, she has admitted that she is aware that she will have to reach agreements "with different political forces". With 33 Republican deputies and the eight from En Comú Podem is not enough. Aragonès also has in mind to obtain the support of a CUP that assures that he is closer to presenting an amendment to the totality than to negotiating the budgets. The president needs the PSC or Junts to facilitate his progression. He has no other.
Salvador Illa, first secretary of the PSC, has offered today to agree on them. Aragonès is reluctant. The president looks first to the commons, but Albiach has made it clear that in order to approve the new budgets, he must first meet the demands that En Comú Podem agreed with the Govern in those of 2022. The leader of the commons has recalled that they have yet to materialize, such as the promotion of a public dentist, internalization of 061 or taxes on ultra-processed foods and polluting industries. She has also regretted that the third meeting to evaluate the degree of compliance has not yet taken place. “The Government has no word”, she has remarked.
Thus, Albiach has set three conditions to sit down to talk about the accounts of the Generalitat: that the 2022 agreements are fulfilled, that the ERC and the Government negotiate "assuming that they are in the minority", and that the budgets "are left-wing and not a rehash” of those produced by Giró.
Aragonès has been willing to hold the third follow-up meeting and to modify budget items. "We comply with the agreements", he underlined while stressing that the numbers he has so far should serve to finish off ambitious budgets, both from a social and environmental point of view, and that respond to the economic crisis marked by inflation runaway
With Junts he hasn't gotten anything clear. Aragonès has once again demanded his support before budgets created by Giró. Albert Batet, in the control session with the president, has preferred to guide his intervention on the general budgets of the State. "Sánchez is not trustworthy", assured the postconvergent "The agenda of the reunion is a fiction", he added while pointing out that the PSOE's policies harm the economic progress of Catalonia and the well-being of the Catalans. For all these reasons, Batet has asked Aragonès for the ERC to oppose the general budgets.
