The Government takes a step with the PSC in the race to the bottom of the Catalan budgets

That of the budgets of the Generalitat will be a long distance race, until the pieces fit together and allow the Government to sign an agreement.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
07 November 2022 Monday 14:32
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The Government takes a step with the PSC in the race to the bottom of the Catalan budgets

That of the budgets of the Generalitat will be a long distance race, until the pieces fit together and allow the Government to sign an agreement. First, the times and objectives of each part will have to be adjusted and make room for the parliamentary groups necessary for the endorsement. At the moment, the Government sees serious possibilities for an agreement with the commons and has taken a small step today by meeting with the PSC parliamentary group.

After an hour and a quarter of meeting this Monday, the Socialists make a "positive" assessment to be the "first contact" in which to know the budgetary framework proposed by the Government. The formation of Salvador Illa reaffirms its willingness to "open a sincere, responsible, realistic and honest budget negotiation", but warns that "it will be necessary to step on the accelerator" if the accounts are to be approved "in a reasonable period of time".

For its part, the opinion of the Government is more restrained and is limited to verifying the meeting in the Palau de la Generalitat with the PSC. As on previous occasions, with Junts and the commons, in today's meeting with those from Illa "the main lines of the accounts have been exposed". In addition, the ERC Executive insists that its priority is that the Generalitat's budgets be agreed with "Together and the commons". The Cabinet of Aragonès has already considered virtually impossible any understanding with the CUP.

In this sense, Esquerra's spokeswoman, Marta Vilalta, warned this morning that her party's priority is to agree on the numbers with Junts and the commons. It is in the first party where the Republicans focus the pressure. Today, the also deputy general secretary has invited the postconvergents to facilitate the processing of the Catalan budgets as they have done with those of the Barcelona City Council, directed by Ada Colau.

The viability of the Government beyond the next municipal elections, the reform of the crime of sedition of the Penal Code, the approval of the general budgets of the State with the support of ERC, the accounts of the Barcelona City Council, and the yes of the Catalan socialists to those of the Generalitat are the pieces that are just beginning to approach. But the liturgy in politics is important and in this case it is marked by the fact that despite being the first group in the Chamber, the PSC was the last to be summoned to Palau to talk about the Catalan budgets.

Before, the Minister of Presidency, Laura Vilagrà; that of Economy, Natàlia Mas and their respective general secretaries, met with the commons and with Junts, while the CUP gave them pumpkins. Two conclusions can be drawn from this first round of contact: on the one hand, that the Government's preferred way of approving the accounts (with Junts and the CUP) is born lame due to the disdain of the anti-capitalists, while the alternative way, which includes the PSC, still alive. And the second, that the pace will be slow and will be marked by new clashes between the ERC and the post-convergent ones.

Illa has put up with her nerves despite the president's dismissal. The outstretched hand of the leader of the opposition is still there -since August- even at the risk of osteoarthritis due to the apparent snub from Aragonès -and ERC-. But the president's could be a calculated, measured operation, like the words of Oriol Junqueras in the interview this weekend in La Vanguardia, which no longer closes the door to the PSC: "We'll see." Before, the Government -and ERC- wants the outcome of the sedition, of dejudicialization in short, to be the one it expects. If that were the case, everything would be shot: budgets in Catalonia, in Madrid and in Barcelona.

There is no longer time for the budgets of the Generalitat to see the light in a timely manner, on January 1. They will have to be extended, in the best of cases, if there is an agreement, a few weeks. Until then, the meetings between the Government and the parliamentary groups serve to clear the way and go through the screen step by step, with the necessary story that justifies the pact. Long-distance race.

This is how it is understood that while the socialist spokesperson Alícia Romero, the deputy Jordi Riba and the coordinator of the group Nelia Martínez meet this Monday with the Government in Palau to talk about the Catalan accounts, the socialists maintain their role as forceful but constructive opposition, urging Junqueras to "leave resentment behind so that Catalonia can move forward" and calling for the resignation or dismissal of the Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena.

The meeting with the socialists has been like the shot that starts the race. The will of the central government is to approve its budgets to go to the polls with an economic scenario far from recession, and in the same way, that there are budgets in the autonomous communities; as not in Catalonia, which concentrates 19% of the state GDP. Gasoline for everyone. Sánchez will do everything possible to collect ERC support for the State accounts, and Illa will do the same with those of Catalonia. Quid pro quo.

Before entering fully into the negotiation, the Socialists have been in charge of collecting the demands of civil society with more than a hundred meetings throughout the territory with entities and sectors of all kinds. Among its great demands, the PSC calls for a shock plan of 848 million euros to fight against the effects of the crisis caused by the war in Ukraine (the commons raise the figure to "a minimum of 1,000 million"), tax deductions for families with low incomes, increase the guaranteed citizenship income by 15%, and 300 million in aid for companies and the self-employed most affected by the increase in production costs.

We will have to see how the "essential" demand to negotiate that Jéssica Albiach imposes to raise personal income tax on income above 175,000 euros.