The former Minister of Economy and Hisenda Jaume Giró has accused this Friday Esquerra Republicana, his former partner in the Government of the Generalitat, of accepting projects in the budget negotiation with the PSC that Junts per Catalunya would not have accepted when they shared a coalition in the Executive Catalan. "Things have been accepted from the PSC that Junts would not have been accepted," complained the also member of the JxCat management, who pointed out that "anyone can imagine the crisis that would have opened up" if its formation, " being in the Government and being, in principle, a priority partner" would have raised projects such as the expansion of El Prat airport, the Ronda del Vallès and the Hard Rock. All three had led to contrary votes by the two parties in Parliament and the first two had caused tensions and clashes in Palau.
In this sense, the leader of the post-convergent party, in an interview on Ràdio 4 and La 2, stressed that the requests made by his channel at the end of November were "acceptable" by the Republicans, and he remarked that "many They have accepted them because the PSC has also requested them".
Giró has also accused Pere Aragonès of "modifying" his principles to "preserve" the presidency of the Generalitat and has stated that Salvador Illa, first secretary of the PSC, "has been the first to be surprised at how Aragonès has dynamically modified his principles as he progressed budget negotiation. "He has shown an ideological elasticity that is really surprising. It is so surprising that I think the only reason is to preserve the presidency of the Generalitat," the former minister asserted. "The principles that ERC has have been modified, even in his political statement, and the president has accepted things that the ERC national coordinator would see as a mortal sin," he added. "It seems good to me, but it must be said, they are things that Junts would never have accepted," he concluded in this regard.
In fact, the post-convergent leader has gone further and has opined that "Illa has run out of margin and has had to say yes" to the agreement. "He has run out of room to see that Aragonès and his Government said yes to everything. Have no doubt that they did not expect this radical change," he assessed.
In his latest interventions, Aragonès has pressured Junts to support the accounts that right now already have the support of the socialists and En Comú Podem. The head of the Catalan Executive replied yesterday to a letter he received this week from the general secretary of JxCat, Jordi Turull, and assured him that 79% of the demands for his training to approve the accounts are already included in the current project. Since he has had enough support to validate the numbers for this year from the Generalitat, the president has pressured his former partner to join the majority that will support the accounts with arguments of this nature and remembering that it was Giró himself. who initiated contacts with the socialists when he was still in the Government. A formula that he also uses to shake off the criticism received by the pact with the PSC.
Regarding the project of accounts, Giró believes that they are not good budgets for the current moment. "This instrument must be sensitive to the problems we have at all times. Right now in Catalonia we have a very serious problem, which is inflation," said the former minister, who has put on the table one of the measures that Junts has requested , deflate the personal income tax by 3.5 points. "That they talk about lowering taxes is demagoguery and it does not seem correct to me, it is to prevent inflation from impoverishing us all," he asserted.
Those accusations of "demagogy" have already fallen on the president by Turull, for assuring in his institutional appearance yesterday in Palau that "he would not lower taxes for the rich" implying what JxCat is asking for. "Junts' proposal and my personal one was to deflate the income tax brackets for all income earners, not for the rich, and raise the personal and family exempt minimums," Giró pointed out.
Likewise, the ex-minister has reproached the republicans and the commons that their "ideological prejudices" have made it "impossible" for all these measures to be put into operation that, in his opinion, "are not political, nor identity-based." "They are policies in favor of the well-being of all citizens," he assured. "I think that Esquerra is getting very close to the commons and their economic, political, national ideology... in every way," he added.
Regarding his plans for the future and his aspirations to be a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat, on which he avoids commenting, Giró has conceded that "it is evident that anyone who is dedicated to politics aspires to have the maximum responsibility."
The former Minister of Junts has been touring Catalonia for a few months, meeting with local Junts groups, taking the pulse of the party, and meeting with representatives of different sectors of society and does not rule out running for primaries in the future based on the analysis he extracts from all this process. In any case, he has been prudent at all times about his plans.
