The Government of the Generalitat has been moving for weeks to try to obtain the support of the main opposition parliamentary groups for next year's budgets. Since President Pere Aragonès inaugurated the contacts at the beginning of the month, various meetings have taken place, among them with the PSC, the Commons and the CUP. The group chaired by Jéssica Albiach has met for the second time since then, this Wednesday, to broadly understand the budget framework for the next year.
According to sources from the commons, the meeting that took place at the Palau de la Generalitat has served to monitor the current agreement, about which the formation warns of numerous non-compliance in areas such as health and housing, without which they will not begin a specific negotiation for next year's accounts.
The PSC is in the same situation, which also plans to hold a new meeting with the Government with the same objectives: to monitor the execution of the current agreements, where they have once again put the focus on the three major projects that have already been monopolized last year's negotiations -B-40, Hard Rock and expansion of the El Prat airport-, and to know the budget structure proposed by the Catalan Executive for next year.
At a meeting this Wednesday, a Government delegation made up of the Secretary General of the Presidency, Núria Cuenca; The general director of Interdepartmental Coordination, Marc Ramentol, and the general secretary of Economy and Finance, Josep Maria Vilarrubia, have presented to the commons team “the approach” of the accounts for 2024 as well as “the proposals and budgetary framework.”
Sources from the commons point out that in this approach “there is nothing new” with respect to what Councilor Natàlia Mas outlined just before starting the new contacts, when she indicated that the Government will raise the spending ceiling by 5.5% to 36,684 million of euros (1,811 million more than last year), an estimate made without knowing the data on advances and the settlement of financing by the Ministry of Finance. The forecast for revenue receipts is 35,330 million, 12.5% more than in 2023, but it remains to be known if the central government will meet the demand for flexibility in the deficit, so the figures are calculated with -0.1 % of GDP forecast in the plan that the central Executive sent to Brussels for 2024.
The common people have made known to the Government something that they have been pointing out in public, that "they are the ones who must make a move", so that "right now the ball is in their court", and that if they want to start negotiating the year's budgets What is coming must comply with what was agreed in 2023, especially in health and housing. In this sense, they have established the need to execute the commitments made before the end of the year, after verifying that the Government's intention is to fulfill during 2024 part of what they have not fulfilled in 2023. “This time they are going to have us "that seduces a lot" and "if they want budgets to obtain political air, they will work for it," they warn.
The delegation of the commons, made up of the Economy spokesperson Joan Carles Gallego; deputy spokesperson, Susanna Segovia; The Salut spokesperson, Núria Lozano, and the coordinator of the parliamentary group, Ximo Balaguer, have also requested more information from the Government about the 2024 budget framework, in particular the planned territorialized investments.
They have also demanded “a budget strategy that faces the country's great strategic challenges, the necessary transformations and responds to the needs of the people.” Before the end of the year, the commons will meet again with the Catalan Executive to re-examine compliance with the 2023 budgets and talk about the priorities of the 2024 budgets.
