A meeting held this Wednesday between representatives of the Government of the Generalitat and En Comú Podem, led by deputy Joan Carles Gallego, has placed relations on the path of agreement for the Catalan budgets. At the meeting, the commons group has considered settled the existing differences regarding non-compliance with the measures agreed in the 2023 accounts, which will allow "to begin conversations in the coming days on the 2024 budgets."
According to sources from the parliamentary group chaired by Jéssica Albiach, the meeting has served to contrast "the differences in relation to the level of compliance and deployment of some measures" agreed upon last year, in areas such as mobility, health, housing and renewable energy, But the commons say they have obtained from the Government a "commitment" to the "scheduling and execution in the coming months" - during this year - of these pending agreements. In this way, the formation "closes the balance of the 2023 agreement." ".
Thanks to this commitment, the commons have committed to "start conversations" with the Catalan Executive about the 2024 accounts, although they remain unchanged in their demand that the Cabinet of Pere Aragonès renounce promoting "infrastructures contrary to the strategic transformations of the production model and the fight against the climate emergency", in clear reference to Hard Rock.
According to Joan Carles Gallego himself, these conversations will begin in the coming days. In addition to the rejection of the Hard Rock, which they consider a "delirium" due to the economic model it promotes, the risks to health and safety, and its impact in a scenario of rampant drought in Catalonia, the commons will focus their demands for the new budgets on issues that have to do, again, with health, on which they expect 25% of spending to be allocated to primary care, and education, where they demand greater investment and sufficient budget for measures such as the sixth hour in the public school.
The Hard Rock will be the issue that monopolizes this year's budget negotiations, since the demand of the commons clashes head-on with the agreement between the Government and the PSC in 2023. The Catalan Executive committed to approving the Urban Master Plan (PDU ) in the first half of 2023, but the Government keeps the report in a drawer despite the agreed deadline having absolutely expired. The socialists, essential to carry out the accounts, have been holding talks with the Aragonès Executive for this year's budgets for weeks, but they also demand compliance with what was agreed before giving their support or for the president to explain why he does not want to or cannot do it.
For the 2024 budgets, the Government plans to raise the spending ceiling by 5.5% to 36,684 million euros (1,811 million more than last year), an estimate made without knowing the data on advances and the settlement of financing. by the Ministry of Finance. The forecast for revenue receipts is 35,330 million, 12.5% more than in 2023, but it remains to be known if the central government will meet the demand for making the deficit more flexible, so the figures are calculated with -0.1 % of GDP forecast in the plan that the central Executive sent to Brussels for 2024.
The unblocking of relations between the Government and the commons comes the same day that the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, has guaranteed, in statements to RAC1, that the Amnesty law will finally be approved in Congress sooner rather than later. The same day, furthermore, that the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, has announced that he will once again take the Council's accounts for 2024 for approval and that he will submit to a question of confidence if he does not obtain support to approve them.
The question of the amnesty and the governability of the Catalan capital intersect with the budgets of the Generalitat. Without amnesty, the central government cannot consider presenting the general budgets of the State and the PSC waits to have the stability of Pedro Sánchez's Executive tied to give its support to the Catalan budgets. Doing it any other way would give ERC room to raise the price of its support for state accounts.
In the case of Barcelona, Collboni hopes that the amnesty and the budgets of the Generalitat will pave the way for a government agreement with ERC, and with the commons for the town hall accounts, although these also require entering into the municipal government.
The idea launched by Bolaños that an amnesty may be close allows negotiations between parties to be recovered in the Parliament and the City Council. Although PSC and COMMON make an effort to point out that there is not and will not be a "trading of cards", that is, agreement of some budgets for others without prior negotiations, it is evident for the governability of the three institutions that there are communicating vessels.
The deputy has also announced the willingness to "start conversations in the coming days about the 2024 budgets", in different meetings where different sectoral issues will be addressed. In Comú Podem reiterates the need to provide coherence to the negotiation of accounts and demands the Government's commitment not to promote or promote infrastructure contrary to the major strategic transformations related to the change in the productive model, tourism and the fight against crime. climate change and drought.
