The Ministry of Finance is once again postponing and continues not to publish the data on the implementation of the State’s investments in the autonomous communities, after Catalonia has been particularly disadvantaged in recent years. Yesterday it was planned – according to the calendar on the website of the Treasury – to publish the data corresponding to the first half of the year, but at the close of this edition it had not appeared and sources in the ministry doubted that it would be done. But it is that, in addition, the execution of the investments for the second semester of 2022 has not yet been reported, although it should have been done last May 30, four months ago.
Ministry sources opined that the reason for the delay is because “these are reports that draw from many sources and that different bodies must validate before they are finally published”. In previous years, the figures were published on the day that was fixed in the calendar.
In the case of last May, the publication of the information coincided with the pre-campaign of the general elections, and yesterday, with the investiture debate and the negotiations with the Catalan parties to form a government. From the Generalitat, the fact that they do not publish the execution data is considered an “institutional disloyalty” and “a very serious problem of transparency”, in the words of the Minister of Economy, Natàlia Mas.
“When they do not publish the investment execution data for 2022, it seems that they consider that this information belongs to the central government, but this is not the case. This information belongs to the citizens and the obligation of the Spanish Government is to publish it when appropriate”, declared Mas. For months, the minister has been complaining about the lack of information about real investment activity. Mas recalled yesterday that “from 2015 to 2021, the State has invested in Catalonia 62% of what it had budgeted for, while Madrid has allocated 122%”.
In the last budgets, Catalonia had a higher allocation of resources than Madrid, which generated harsh criticism from governments such as that of Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The reality was exactly the opposite, as the Madrid community obtained a greater volume of real investment than the Catalan community. The councilor added that “three quarters of the money that was stopped from being executed should have gone to Rodalies”.
The problem of lack of transparency also occurs in other areas, the councilor recalled: “The State does not want to provide the information to make the fiscal balances, something that the PP even did when it was in Moncloa”. Even so, the Department of Economy estimated with the few available data how much it could amount to and placed the 2021 deficit at 21,982 million euros, the equivalent of 9.6% of GDP. Although in absolute value it is the highest figure in the series, it is not as a percentage of GDP.
“And the State also doesn’t want to tell us how much money is due to us from the funding model for next year, basic information to be able to draw up the budgets for 2024”, adds Mas. This data is the advance that is given to the communities based on the expected collection in the territory.
