When in 2021, the execution of State investments in Catalonia hit the bottom at 36%, all the alarms went off. The economic agents came out in force against the situation and President Pere Aragonès agreed on a bilateral commission with the State to look for the causes. The problem – far from being solved – has become chronic with the second lowest execution in history in 2022. That year, the State spent 43% of what it had budgeted despite pressure from the Generalitat and economic agents a few months before. .
Perhaps one of the most eloquent examples is that of Adif, the State's railway infrastructure manager. In November 2021, a press release from Moncloa included the investments planned by the Ministry of Transport in Catalonia in the coming months (in 2022) where “840 million for Rodalies, between Adif and Renfe” stood out. In the document on the execution of regionalized investments for 2022, an Adif allocation in Catalonia of 849 million appears, of which only 177 million have been executed, 20.9% of the total. The Ministry of Transport, headed by Óscar Puente, has declined to comment.
On June 1, 2021, the Ministry of Transport and the Generalitat agreed to create a bilateral commission to analyze the causes of the State's low investment in Catalonia. Their conclusions, if any, are not known. Sources from the Generalitat explained that a meeting was held but that the greatest progress on the matter did not occur until the investiture pacts, more than two years later, last November. And meanwhile, the execution remains more or less the same. This week the data for the first half of 2023 was released, where the percentage stands at 16%, very close to the level of 2022.
The change compared to recent years is that on this occasion the complaints of the Generalitat or civil society about the low execution of state investments have been left in the background due to different circumstances. From the point of view of the economic world, due to the publication of a joint manifesto of all business organizations in favor of better regional financing that shifted the focus away from investments. And on the political level, due to the debate on the amnesty, which also occupied a good part of the political class. But the problem of execution still exists and is not resolved.
The president of the Cercle d'Economia, Jaume Guardiola, believes that in reality the aforementioned joint document on improving financing also talked about complying with budget execution. Guardiola adds that after successive Catalan governments for years had left aside the issues of financing due to the process, "now is a time when this is once again very much on the agenda and also the execution of investments."
In the period 2015-2022, the State's annual investment in Catalonia has not exceeded 1,000 million, while in Madrid it has not only been above that psychological figure but in 2021 it exceeded 2,000 million. The comparison with Madrid is not easy in the last two years, since the execution includes the costs of rescuing the radio stations for a few hundred million.
In 2022, Catalonia also had an extraordinary note of 1,069 million euros for compensation to the Abertis concessionaire. That amount has been eliminated from the execution figure, since it was not a real investment: no new work was paid for with that money, but rather existing infrastructure. It is unknown if there is a similar game in the case of Madrid. That is another of the big problems with regionalized investment data: opacity. The report on the execution of investments for 2022 was closed on May 30 of last year and was not published that day as planned. It emerged last Monday, after the Ministry of Finance of María Jesús Montero sent the text to the Budget Office of the Congress of Deputies. It was the parliamentarians who distributed the data to society. Not the Ministry, which confirmed that the reports will no longer be published, but they will be available to the deputies.
Meanwhile, the opinions of business leaders are similar to those of previous years. The president of the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona, Josep Santacreu, affirms that “the latest data that we have learned reflects once again the failures of the State with respect to its investments in Catalonia.” In his opinion, the figures made public “reaffirm the need to reform the current territorial financing system.”
From Foment del Treball, its director of Studies and Economy, Salvador Guillermo, says that it is surprising that “since 2015, when lights and stenographers were put into execution and in the midst of a complicated economic context, the State has not complied.” Guillermo adds that a lot of debate is generated when budgets are approved but “what is relevant is what we do and now a shock plan is necessary.”
Guardiola believes that the first thing that should be done is to “understand the problem well” because in his opinion “the explanation that there is recurrent abuse does not seem valid.” In fact, both the PP and PSOE governments have carried out poor execution. And this situation has occurred in times of crisis such as Covid or in times of expansion.
One of the classic criticisms that is always leveled is the lack of projects to spend money on. Salvador Guillermo denies this and assures that there are works that have been stalled for years to which money could be allocated, such as Rodalies.
