Already heading towards the early elections in Catalonia for next May 12, the Moncloa consider it preferable for the Government of the Generalitat to focus its efforts on demanding better regional financing, instead of the pro-independence formations continuing to put all their focus on the self-determination referendum or the unilateral independence of this territory. But the Government does not accept the proposal launched today by Pere Aragonès to agree on a unique financing model for Catalonia, similar to the Basque concert, with full fiscal sovereignty. The objective of the central Executive is to achieve a new financing model for all the autonomous communities of the common regime, for which it demands an unlikely agreement with the Popular Party of Alberto Núñez Feijóo that now governs in the majority of the autonomies.
Pedro Sánchez himself already warned this last week, in response to the demand expressed by Esquerra Republicana in the Government control session in the Senate. “The response has to be multilateral,” argued the President of the Government, ruling out singular and specific financing for Catalonia in line with the current model in the Basque Country or Navarra. And this was pointed out again this Tuesday, at the end of the Council of Ministers, both the Government spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, and the Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, after the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, had raised Catalunya a system similar to the Basque concert.
“The will of this Government, and we already raised it during the last legislature, is to reach an agreement with all the autonomous communities,” the minister spokesperson reiterated from the Moncloa. We must not forget that the regional financing model currently in force has expired since 2014, ten years ago. Alegría, in any case, has directed the focus towards the PP.
“I wish an agreement was also possible with the PP for this reform of the regional financing model that we have already proposed on numerous occasions,” noted the Government spokesperson. “We are also at an opportune moment, since there are eleven autonomous communities that are governed by the same political color,” she noted, referring to the PP. “It would be desirable and positive for the PP and Feijóo to establish a joint position of all these autonomous communities regarding regional financing,” she demanded.
Alegría, in any case, has once again stressed that the autonomous communities have received with the Government of Pedro Sánchez “the largest resources in their history”, exceeding 35% of the financing they obtained during Mariano Rajoy’s mandates.
In the same sense, the Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, has highlighted that, for the reform of the financing system, “the dialogue between all the autonomous communities is what has to lead us to a decision”, within the framework of the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF), where the first vice president of the Government and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, meets with the Treasury advisors of all the autonomous communities of the common regime. In this multilateral forum, Body has assured, “it is where the reform of the financing system must be developed,” which is already a decade behind schedule.
