The President of the Government with the smallest parliamentary majority in a democracy has tied his third consecutive general budgets. Those of 2023 will probably be the last of the legislature. 175 yeses are already confirmed and the goal is to close the process in Congress with 188, like last year and like in 2020. It would be twenty-one more votes than in the investiture and eight more than in the motion of no confidence. The path that would allow Pedro Sánchez to exhaust the four years of his mandate is cleared. The key, one more year, is once again the regular members of the Executive. PNV, EH Bildu, PDECat, Más País, Compromís… and ERC, which will most likely be inclined to join this vast majority. Those of Oriol Junqueras have not yet taken their affirmative vote for granted, but the parallel negotiation to eliminate the crime of sedition and perhaps redraw the embezzlement tie the Republicans.
In fact, despite the fact that the favorable vote of the 13 Esquerra deputies is not essential, the group led by Gabriel Rufián in Madrid has paved the way for its yes on Tuesday with an agreement to transfer 900 million to the Generalitat de Catalunya for infrastructures slopes. The model is similar to the one applied in the Basque Country: ceding works with guaranteed investment by the State, in such a way that the central government shakes off all responsibility and any non-compliance is the responsibility of the regional administration.
For the Republicans, the crux of the budget issue was to guarantee the execution of the budget. The agreed follow-up commissions did not serve much. Examples: in 2021 only 32% of the investments planned in Catalonia by the Government materialized; in the first semester of 2022 the executed budget has been only 16%. Now ERC believe that they have finally managed to secure that investment with that formula for assigning the work to the Generalitat.
The agreement between the PSOE and ERC also includes a whole string of items, including 40 million for the Autoritat de Transport Metropolità (ATM) and 60 million for the audiovisual hub Catalunya Media City.
All in all, EH Bildu got ahead of Esquerra and was the formation that tipped the balance on Tuesday. After intense conversations with the Ministry of Finance, the five deputies led by Mertxe Aizpurua confirmed on Tuesday their support for next year's public accounts. In return, the Executive promised to extend two of the most important measures of the anti-inflation shield: the 2% cap on rent increases, which was not easy due to the reluctance of the Economy, and the 15% improvement in pensions non-contributory. 450,000 pensioners benefit from this decision, a majority of them women. The estimated funding, according to the text released by the Basque formation, is 420 million.
The Government undertakes to include both extensions in the next royal decree-law that will be approved by the Council of Ministers in December with the anti-inflation measures that the Ministries of Economy and Finance deem appropriate to maintain or expand. The economic area of the Government is still in the air whether it will extend the discount of 20 cents per liter of fuel.
The abertzales also agreed to the transfer of the Traffic jurisdiction to Navarra before March 31, incorporate 200 new MIR jobs and increase the budget for those affected by thalidomide, among other measures.
With the five favorable votes from the Abertzale left, the Government already has 175 votes tied up, enough to pass the process next Thursday. To the 154 votes from PSOE and Unidas Podemos (Alberto Rodríguez's seat remains vacant), we must add the six supports from the PNV, the aforementioned five from EH Bildu, the four from PDECat, the two from Más País, the two from Coalición Canaria, that of Compromís and that of the Cantabrian Regionalist Party. In the Moncloa they have cast these accounts and face the final vote on Thursday calmly.
Teruel Existe, a regular partner in the latest budgets and key formation in Sánchez's investiture, keeps his vote unknown until the last minute. Training sources point out that if the Government does not improve aid to companies in unpopulated areas, its position will be no. In the Moncloa they still aspire to add them to the abstention. The BNG will be inclined to abstain.
In the no to the public accounts of the year group there are also the usual groups in this vote: PP, Vox, Ciudadanos (which in 2020 came to not present an amendment to the entire Budget), Junts and Navarra Suma.
