The leader of the PSC, Salvador Illa, has cooled the possibility of a budget agreement in the coming days with the Government, since he does not feel "responsible" for the delay in the approval of the accounts, for which he has raised a new demand: unravel the B-40 or Cuarto Cinturón road in El Vallès.
In an interview with EFE, the head of the opposition in Catalonia has analyzed the situation of the negotiations that his party has open with the Generalitat for the Catalan budgets, on which Illa has wanted to be "serious and prudent": "We are at the beginning ".
Despite the urgency of the Catalan Government to close an agreement now and bring the accounts to Parliament before the end of the year, Illa has said that he has "a very clear conscience" and has warned that his party wants to analyze the budgets in depth and to achieve "a good agreement", for which there is still "a way to go".
"I do not feel responsible for the fact that Catalonia does not have a budget in force on January 1, 2023," he stated. "The PSC wants to do things well done and we will take what we will take. I do not feel any responsibility for the calendar. The person in charge is called Pere Aragonès".
The socialist leader has reproached the Catalan president that "first he did not want to know anything about the PSC, then he said that nothing would happen if budgets were extended and now he wants to quickly approve them and give them a list of things."
The Socialists, on the other hand, propose "a face-to-face negotiation" in which "parliamentary weight" is not forgotten, since PSC and ERC have the same deputies. "If someone thought that the PSC would go with a list of a hospital here, a road there, a soccer field further... they are wrong."
But he did want to verify that "in what depends on the PSC, Catalonia will have budgets", as long as "there are no more swerves or jerks from ERC, something that cannot be ruled out either".
Within the framework of the six sectoral meetings between the Government and the PSC, the Socialists have insisted on unblocking projects such as the expansion of the Barcelona airport and the Hard Rock complex, to which they now also add another claim: the Fourth Belt.
Last June, after the low number of execution of State investments in Catalonia in 2021 was revealed, the Generalitat planted the Minister of Transport in an act in which an agreement to unblock the construction of the B -40, better known as Cuarto Cinturón or Ronda del Vallès, a road that has been stranded for years and that causes misgivings in ERC.
But Illa considers that, as with the Hard Rock, "it cannot be that the Government blocks" the B-40 for its "narrow chimney and electoralist" interests, against "the very majority will of those responsible for institutions of Sabadell and Terrassa and its civil society" of those territories.
And regarding the health field, he has shown himself in favor of there being "significant progress" in this matter and, as former Minister of Health, he has said that he personally feels "very close" to health professionals, with less than two months to go. for the strike called in January by the Catalan doctors' unions.
But even in the event that budgetary agreements are reached, Illa has pointed out that her obligation will be to "take some precautions so that what has been agreed is fulfilled."
The leader recalled that Aragonès lost the support of CUP or JxCat for "not fulfilling" their pacts and that the commons have also reproached him for breaching budgetary commitments; For this reason, he will demand "guarantees" that what has been agreed is carried out. "It must be in writing. Generosity, all of it. Ingenuousness, no," he warns.
And he has denied that among the demands of the PSC to close a budget agreement is to convene the dialogue table of Catalan parties: "I have always said that I want to carry out a strictly budgetary negotiation and not condition it to other issues."
On the State-Generalitat dialogue table, on the other hand, he has been emphatic in stating that there will be "neither amnesty nor self-determination, and they (the Generalitat) know it perfectly", and has opted for "turning the page", as in his opinion claims Catalan citizenship.
Finally, asked if a transfer of the management of Rodalies to the Government would improve the service, as the Generalitat puts it, Illa has opined that it would be a "self-deception". "Everything that the Government carries out is going wrong and everything that the Generalitat carries out is going well? Well, no, it is not like that. It seems arrogant and false to me. What is needed is cooperation between administrations", he has sentenced.
