Josep Sánchez Llibre warned this Thursday that Foment del Treball will “strongly” oppose the Generalitat's budgets for 2024 if they do not respect the agreements between the Catalan Government and the PSC in three key investments: the expansion of the airport El Prat, the construction of the B-40 and the Hard Rock complex in Vilaseca, in Tarragona.
These are statements prior to the meeting that the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has called for tomorrow with employers Foment and Pimec and with the unions CC.OO. and UGT in the framework of the Social Dialogue Council of Catalonia. Ministers Roger Torrent (Business and Work), Laura Vilagrà (Presidency) and Economy (Natàlia Mas) will also attend and it is expected to conclude with the signing of an agreement on some social aspects complementary to the Catalan budgets. Among them, a 4% increase in 2024 of the Income Sufficiency Indicator of Catalonia (IRSC), which determines access to various social benefits, according to Efe.
But yesterday Sánchez Llibre has already made it clear that this agreement in the Social Diàleg Council does not imply Foment's support for the budget project. “We will not endorse it without a reliable commitment from the president regarding the airport, B-40 and Hard Rock,” he insists.
“We will ask and demand with great modesty that all agreements between the Government and the PSC be fulfilled,” says the Foment leader, who has repeated several times that without the three aforementioned infrastructures “we will have a negative and forceful reaction due to the lack of word” of the Government.
He has also taken the opportunity to once again demand “competitive taxation for companies and citizens”, a requirement that he considers key to the return of business headquarters to Catalonia. And along these lines he has once again demanded the elimination of the wealth tax, “a crusade” that he was sure will be won when the Constitutional Court or, ultimately, the European Court of Strasbourg rules in Spain.
He has not commented on the possibility of resuming the demand for a fiscal pact for Catalonia and points out that "the important thing is that the investment commitments are met", while recalling that according to Foment's calculations "there is an accumulated investment deficit of 40,000 million.”
Regarding the future general budgets of the State for 2024, it points out that they need to promote competitiveness, strengthen industrial policy in Spain and respect entrepreneurs. “We need strong, efficient and solvent governments that defend businessmen and entrepreneurs, that guarantee social dialogue, that provide security to be able to invest and generate jobs. In short, governments that can help us ensure that the landing of the economy in 2024 is smooth, not violent and does not generate social cohesion problems,” he adds.
