A sector of Junts, which in conventional terms we could classify as the most conservative from an economic point of view or the most pragmatic and pactist from a political point of view, identified with the extinct Pujolian Convergència, has been explaining in recent weeks, always discreetly, that it is possible that President Carles Puigdemont, the leader of the party, lost a golden opportunity to achieve something similar to the fiscal pact during the last negotiations for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. In the opinion of this informal current of the independence movement, parliamentary investigation commissions or generic references to the meaning of the process or the demand for a referendum that seems impossible to them, will hardly produce practical results, while a new model of financial relationship with the State it would have changed things radically.
Had they chosen that path, things would have returned to how they were at the end of the summer of 2012 - in the first stages of the process - when Artur Mas, then president of the Generalitat, met in Moncloa with president Mariano Rajoy and proposed that fiscal pact, with a success known to all. What makes your applicants think that it would now have been possible to obtain a concession of that magnitude where they achieved nothing?
Obviously, parliamentary arithmetic, Sánchez's unavoidable need for your votes to once again occupy the presidency of the Government. In the first episode, Rajoy enjoyed an absolute majority, he did not need the Catalan nationalists at all and European power was focused on preventing almost any magnanimity from the Spanish government. Now, critics of the Junts orbit maintain, Sánchez would have finally conceded before giving up repeating his mandate. Although it should be remembered that they and their former Convergència never achieved, in similar situations, either the fiscal pact or anything similar.
But, returning to Sánchez's investiture, could he have added an economic concession of such magnitude to the controversial amnesty? Defenders of the agreement reached argue that, simply, no.
Little by little it is becoming clear that, as the complex processing and application of the amnesty is cleared up, undoubtedly the main issue, the axis around which the new legislature will orbit will turn towards the negotiation of financing as an alternative to the discussions on self-determination and referendum. In the political situation the guideline will be applied that the more abstract proclamations are made on these last two points, the closer it will be to materializing agreements on the first. As now, but around the discussion of specific proposals on regional financing. It is up to ERC to present itself in the elections as a political force with management capacity and to Junts the viability of its commitment to be the new formation of the measured classes and the Catalan bourgeoisie, which by the way have already abandoned their past whims all or nothing.
From that point of view, how do you read the recomposition of the Sánchez government to accommodate the departure of Nadia Calviño from the Ministry of Economy? She is a markedly presidential executive. Sánchez controls everything and imposes the necessary changes with little discussion. He talks about pacts with other parliamentary forces - including the minimum margin to give flight to Yolanda Díaz and Sumar, since he is the essential partner to aspire to run for the investiture - or about long-range political decisions, such as amnesty or political abroad. This presidentialism limits the ministerial changes on Friday.
The Sánchez governments, for the purposes of their management in the economic sphere, have functioned in the economic sphere as a pact between María Jesús Montero, the Minister of Finance now promoted to first vice president, and the now absent Calviño, but with the qualification that The political criteria of the first, which was that of Sánchez, predetermined the technocratic position of the second. Díaz chose to fight some battles, knowing in advance that he had the two ministers in front of him.
In this new council of ministers this feature is accentuated, given the new authority of Montero and the inevitable technocratic novice, even if temporary, of Carlos Body, the new Minister of Economy. His presidency of the Delegated Commission of Economic Affairs, which brings together all the ministries of the branch, will be hierarchically below Montero; Just the opposite of what happened before with Calviño, for whom Europe was the vault of his political priorities, although always in the minority.
And Montero is in charge, precisely, of regional financing, the central folder. His ease in negotiation allows us to intuit agreements at the end of a complex and tense negotiation. But there is no doubt that the State must substantially increase its contributions to the autonomous communities; that is, more expense, so that the signature is possible. The situation has refilled the coffers of the central administration for that situation - increase in revenue, maintenance of the growth of the economy - and this gives it a certain margin. Also the drastic moderation of inflation heralds an upcoming decrease in interest rates, which will reduce interest payments and may make deficit control somewhat easier.
The new formation of the government indicates that the financial pact with the autonomies is its main goal; largely because without it there is no margin for survival. In principle, trying not to conflict with the new fiscal rules of the European Union, that is the role of the Corps; but making it clear that this will not be the main beam of his policy. Sánchez's asymmetry of preferences has been accentuated with the new cabinet.
