The Parliament has given the go-ahead to decree law 15/2022 on financial needs of the public sector in budget extension, after the Government has been unable to approve the 2023 accounts in a timely manner, but the surprise has been that Junts y The PSC, with whom the Catalan Executive is holding talks for an agreement on the accounts, have joined forces to request and approve that the decree be processed as a bill. This maneuver will force the Government of Pere Aragonès to gather support in the Catalan Chamber for its final validation, allowing the groups to introduce technical changes to the text.
What happened this Wednesday in the Parliament with the budget extension shows the blockade situation in which the negotiation of the Catalan budgets finds itself. In fact, in the parliamentary debate, the Government and PSC have shown their availability to the agreement but also the distance between both parties. The vote on the decree precisely reflects the length of this distance.
With 69 votes in favor, 12 against and 46 abstentions, it was Junts per Catalunya who saved the Government's decree together with ERC and En Comú Podem. Against, the CUP and the PPC and the PSC-Units, Vox and Cs have abstained. And after its validation, the vice president of Parliament has asked the Chamber if anyone requested its processing as a bill. Junts and PSC have agreed and the corresponding vote has been taken.
Socialists, post-convergents, Vox and the CUP have voted in favor, while Ciudadanos, PP and comunes have abstained and ERC has been left alone in no. In total, 78 votes in favor, 33 against and 16 abstentions.
Processing as a bill means delaying the entry into force of the budget extension until its final validation and obliges the Government to agree on the technical modifications with the groups in order to obtain support for the vote. In this way, the Catalan Executive will also have its hands tied in the event that there is no agreement for the next budgets because it will have to incorporate a large part of the requests made by the groups with which it wants to validate the bill.
The Junts and PSC maneuver is understood as one more scene of the tug of war in the budget negotiation, where the Government tries to obtain, for the moment unsuccessfully, the support of the Socialists. The disagreement between both parties has reached the Parliament with several initiatives: first with the processing of the bill against illegal occupation of homes, in which ERC has once again shown its solitude; then with the budget extension, and tomorrow it will be seen in the debate and vote on two motions on infrastructure, one from the PSC, which may once again show the weakness of the Government and its inability to carry out the Catalan accounts.
