Esquerra has expressed the controversy that has surrounded Pedro Sánchez's decision to finally stay at Moncloa. And he will continue to squeeze her. Yesterday afternoon Pere Aragonès strengthened his speech on this point. "It is a shame that the PSOE has succumbed to this season of exploitation of feelings, to this wave of populism", he said in Santa Coloma de Gramenet.
But in turn he asked to speak more "of serious things" from now on. One, own funding for Catalonia. It is ERC's flagship proposal for the May 12 parliamentary elections, the one it has put in the spotlight and the one it wants to confront with the other parties, which have been rejected. Especially with the PSC and Junts, their biggest rivals in the polls.
If the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, a month ago called ERC's own funding proposal for Catalonia an "electoral pamphlet that discredited the institutions", yesterday morning it was up to Aragonès to disregard the one announced by the post-convergents. The president described it as "outlandish", "unfeasible" and "improvised". So much so that he accused JxCat of "badly copying" the idea of the Republicans.
Aragonès again detailed the own funding he claims in the media, with the Vice-President of the Government, Laura Vilagrà, and the Minister of Economy, Natàlia Mas. The initiative put on the table by Esquerra wants Catalonia to collect all the taxes on its territory, then transfer money to the State for the investments it carries out and establish a solidarity quota that would gradually disappear over the years.
He contrasted it with Junts' approach to reverse the fiscal deficit -calculated by the Generalitat of 22,000 million euros-, and with his funding proposal which also calls for the collection of all taxes, but proposes to reduce the debt of the Autonomous Liquidity Fund ( FLA) for all budgeted investments that are not executed.
It falls short, according to Aragonès: "In recent years, this sums up to 5,000 million euros, and everyone knows that 5,000 million euros is less than 15,000 million euros, which is what ERC and we have agreed on for the forgiveness of the FLA", he argued . Therefore, according to the republican, with the proposal of J unts Catalunya he would lose 10,000 million euros.
The ERC candidate in the May 12 elections also did not leave Salvador Illa's proposal to rescue the State-Generalitat joint tax consortium provided for in the 2006 Statute to collect taxes. "He says they will do what they didn't do when they had all the power", lamented Aragonès, referring to the period between 2004 and 2010, when the Socialists ruled Moncloa and the Generalitat.
In Santa Coloma, alongside Gabriel Rufián, Anna Balsera and Diana Riba, Oriol Junqueras intervened. He warned that Catalonia generates many resources that "are not available to the people of Catalonia". "The allowance is much lower than that received by other citizens of the Spanish State", he stated. "And that's unfair." The president of ERC made it clear that, in his opinion, the most reliable way to degenerate resources is with independence. Meanwhile, ERC considers that its own financing is the best way to "help the public".
