The Government and PSC agree, and not only on the content of the budget project for this year, which will finally be approved with the vote of the Socialists in Parliament, but also on what this pact means. “This agreement is not a legislature agreement, it is not. It is a relevant agreement, thinking of Catalonia, but it is nothing more than this, a budget agreement at a very complex time for Catalonia", pointed out the leader of the Socialists, Salvador Illa.
Illa thus coincides with the opinion of the Government, which a few hours after the agreement was concluded, also warned that the agreement did not imply a pact for governability in the remainder of the legislature.
If from the Catalan Executive they placed the accent this Tuesday on the practically "opposite" country model that they have with respect to that of the Socialists, the opposition leader has emphasized that "we will continue working on the construction of an alternative" and with the "constructive inspection task".
Illa says he is "satisfied" with an agreement that incorporates "important aspects of the country project" that his party has, with "minimum issues" so that Catalonia "passes from inertia to action." And he assures that "we have not gone with the electoral calculator", because he is "little" concerned that the Government can exhaust the legislature or not. “I am concerned that he govern and I have given instruments with this agreement for him to do so. We will see the rest ”, he has settled it.
But what this agreement does mean for the PSC is the definitive rupture of the blocks (independence vs. non-independence) that took hold in the times of the 'procés'. In fact, Illa has highlighted it in the announcement of the agreement: "It is also the explicit, deliberate attempt to seek consensus, because we want to unite the Catalans and put efforts into what unites us."
Regarding the content of the agreement, the socialist leader has highlighted the points related to infrastructures, such as the B-40, El Prat airport, Rodalies or the Hard Rock. In addition to what has already been agreed on the B-40, Illa has highlighted the "very relevant" agreement for the airport to "gain capacity", an expression that avoids the "expansion" that his party intended to impose but with which he ensures that feel "comfortable". The objective, as he has said, is for the infrastructure to go from assuming 90 operations per hour instead of the current 70. "Means will be put in place to study how we have to do it to gain capacity" and work will be done in a technical commission in collaboration with the Government to reach an agreement, he has highlighted.
Illa has also appreciated that in the case of Rodalies, they are committed to collaboration and to improving the service through the acquisition of new trains.
The Socialists have also made concessions with respect to their original proposal. Thus, the text of the agreement no longer includes conditions relating to subsidies to the Catalan media; the one related to the Center d'Estudis d'Opinió (CEO), which the PSC wanted to become dependent on the Parliament or for the Government to suspend the opening of new delegations abroad or even consider closing some of the existing ones. "They are not here because we have made an effort to reach an agreement," Illa has justified.
