Salvador Illa's “it would be very difficult for me not to support them” and Pere Aragonès's request to the commons to “not sacrifice” the budgets for the Hard Rock were two indications last week that an agreement was being brewed between the Government and the PSC for the 2024 accounts. Now it is more than a symptom: the Catalan Executive and the Catalan socialists are finalizing the pact that would mean an increase of 6.3% in spending –2.4 billion more– compared to previous budgets.
With the signature, yet to be made official, the Republicans and the PSC would repeat the alliance that allowed, together with the commons, the 2023 numbers to go ahead. The difference lies in two factors: for the upcoming budgets, the PSC is the first to agree with the Government; Furthermore, the agreement on the accounts still in force was announced with greater advance notice. This time they would be approved much later and it is the commons that keep their endorsement in the air, conditional on the demise of the Hard Rock tourist and recreational center, planned in Tarragona. Aragonès is not enough with the PSC alone. He would need at least the abstention of some other parliamentary group.
For the new budgets, the Government and the PSC have maintained a much more discreet negotiation than last year, without noise and keeping in mind the commitment to mutual support that Pedro Sánchez and Pere Aragonès acquired during the conversations for the re-election of the socialist leader as president of the Government. This mutual support inevitably passes through the Catalan budgets and those of the State, but the PSC has insisted on demanding that matters already agreed upon around the 2023 accounts and which it considered basic be fulfilled: the improvement of the road connection between Terrassa and Sabadell through the B-40, the commission for the “transformation” – in terms included in the black on white pact – of the El Prat airport, and promoting the Hard Rock recreational complex, between Vila-seca and Salou.
For the rest, the Catalan Executive wanted to show that there were no major impediments to reaching an agreement, which is why it reported on February 5 that, in strictly budgetary terms, it had fulfilled more than 70% of the commitments adopted with the PSC.
The negotiation on this year's games has not generated debate. The socialists established an affordable framework based on three axes: education, where they proposed the objective of increasing investment to approach 6% of GDP; housing, demanding comprehensive actions in the neighborhoods in collaboration with city councils”, and security, where the PSC asked to “reinforce the courts”.
But the support of the commons will be lacking. Jéssica Albiach's group is the protagonist this time, unlike last year, when she agreed with the Government to support the accounts long before the PSC and the socialists received all the spotlight.
To give their votes, the common people have drawn a red line, the Hard Rock, and demand that the Catalan Executive “definitively rule out” the construction of the tourist complex, in other words, that it does not approve the urban master plan that has been under review for years. They are afraid that this process will be unraveled soon due to the demands of the PSC and they are frontally opposed. To justify their position they refer to the drought and to endorse a productive model that reinforces tourism in Catalonia.
Matching the conditions of the PSC and the commons will not be easy. The socialists question whether the commons have the true will to provide the Government's budgets for the fourth time a few months before the Catalan elections.
“Whoever governs should not be afraid of the PSC and Salvador Illa,” demand the commons, who ask ERC not to be afraid and “face its internal contradictions,” remembering that the Government and ERC take on the project reluctantly.
