"We are in discount time". This is agreed by PSC and En Comú Podem, the parties that have allowed the Government of Pere Aragonès to approve its accounts in previous years. The 52% legislature with which independence wanted to take flight was broken at the first turn due to discrepancies with the CUP and Junts, and survives due to the support of the opposition via the budgets. With permission from the drought that Catalonia is suffering, the "complicated" mandate enters the final stretch in the same situation.
No one knows how long the legislature will last. The opposition believes that Aragonès wants to "hold on" at least until next autumn or until the beginning of 2025. And despite the fact that the PSC is running polls in which they exceed 45 seats, they have doubts about the digestion of the amnesty among their electorate and say that an abrupt end to the legislature does not suit them. Perhaps they confuse the president's intention with the reality of the "weakest democratic government in Catalonia", but before that it is unlikely that elections will be called, unless the water crisis worsens and makes the social and political pressure unbearable.
With no major rain forecasts on the horizon and with plans underway to import water in large ships, the opposition warns that the situation may end up exploding in the Government's face. "What will happen when there are water restrictions in homes, businesses or tourism at the gates of summer?", they question. A fact that leads them to doubt whether "a government can hold on" in this situation, and to conclude that "if anything can burden the Government ahead of time, it is the drought".
Only a copious episode of rain can dilute the crisis, as happened in 2009, because the infrastructure planned to mitigate it will not be ready for at least two years. Meanwhile, the Government suffers the scourge of PSC, commons and Junts for its management in the face of this and other adverse situations, such as the possible departure of Formula 1 in Madrid or the educational level of the students, after it was known the latest PISA report.
Salvador Illa's party lashes out against the "inaction" of the pro-independence Executive over the last decade, but they are also not happy with the president's management or the role of the Catalan Water Agency, which is why they demand to agree on the measures to take "The Government continues to go it alone", they lament, and "the drama will come when there are more severe restrictions on companies, in the agri-food sector, which generates 19% of the Catalan GDP", they warn.
The communes are taking advantage of the drought to demand an ecological turn from Aragonès, which involves renouncing projects that, in their opinion, "go against the times", such as ice rinks, ski resorts, the Hard Rock... "We may have restrictions on drinking water in a few weeks and the Government has not approved a saving measure in the tourism sector nor has it regulated the snow slopes, many of which are owned by the Generalitat, nor the ice slopes, installed for Christmas", they complain.
With this panorama, the Catalan Executive will approve its budget proposal in a few days. But "from January we will be campaigning (electoral)" all the parties agree. So, those of Oriol Junqueras need to sell successes. The agreements for the investiture of Sánchez and the approval of two budgets in a row are a good letter that breaks the trend of the years of the process, which approved less than half of the bills.
Catalan politics will return in January to dive into the budget debate. Last year there were six months of negotiation for an agreement with the PSC and commons that both denounce that it has not been fulfilled, or not completely, which is why they prioritize executing what was agreed.
The Socialists refuse to negotiate until the commitments on the B-40, the Prat airport and the Hard Rock are tied, although unlocking the first two points depends on the central government. And this is what ERC maintains, who argue that it is not up to them to clear them.
The expressway is pending a reform of the law on roads and the airport, which the Ministry of Transport and the Government appoint the mixed commission that will analyze the possible extension; but Minister Óscar Puente has just landed and changes at Aena are not ruled out. While the Hard Rock expects the environmental report prior to the Urban Master Plan to be approved.
The budgets of the city of Barcelona are also at stake, waiting for the socialist mayor, Jaume Collboni, to decide with whom he wants to govern for the next four years: with Junts or with ERC and Barcelona En Comú. But the maxim of "we want budgets everywhere" that led the commons when they were in charge of the Consistory, no longer forces the formation of Ada Colau, who this time is determined to play hard.
The commons are demanding compliance with what was agreed in 2023 and are calling on the Government to put a stop to projects like the Hard Rock, incompatible with the possibility of complying with what the PSC is asking for. "This time they have to seduce us a lot" and "if they want budgets to get political air, let them work for it", they recommend.
ERC has also met with the CUP in recent weeks. They are unlikely to pass the budgets, but Republicans want to regain their support for other issues in the remainder of the legislature.
