Pere Aragonès has not managed to avoid looking askance at Jéssica Albiach, leader of the commons, just after the Minister of Economy, Natàlia Mas, accused her of being partisan: “Nothing will be voted on a casino. There are some who have preferred to ignore it, as they also ignored that in 2022 they did vote on budgets that did have a budget of 120 million; “This is incoherence and electoralism.” Here, look and smile of the president of the Generalitat.

The debate on the entire amendments to today’s budgets in the Parliament has begun with the announced rejection of all groups, except the PSC and ERC. They paint bad things for the Government. It has the support of the Catalan socialists, but not of En Comú Podem, the other party in which the Republicans had hopes of approving the 2024 accounts. Hard Rock has focused the debate. The commons have repeatedly warned these weeks that their support was in exchange for withdrawing the project. The Aragonès Executive assures that it does not have the capacity to reverse it unless it is assuming million-dollar compensation. Even so, yesterday at noon I made one last offer: among others, applying a moratorium to the recreational complex in case of drought (the area where it is proposed, Vila-seca and Salou, does not currently suffer from a water shortage). But those from Albiach have rejected it.

So Mas has not done any containment exercises. He has assured that running out of new budgets means “saying no to the demands of health professionals, teachers or prison groups.” “Perhaps they don’t care about their demands and it seems more reasonable to focus the debate on a casino that has been talked about for 12 years and that has nothing to do with these accounts,” he added, addressing especially the common people.

For the councilor, the attitude of En Comú Podem, as well as Junts, is “incomprehensible and unacceptable”, since, in her opinion, they “have blocked” resources for the “8 million inhabitants” of Catalonia. “The casino depends, not on the Government, but on many other variables,” Mas stated, while, however, she was convinced that the Hard Rock will have “a rocky road.”

In fact, both the head of the Economy and the Republicans are convinced that even if the urban master plan (PDU) is approved, the project will not materialize. That is why Mas has accused the commons of developing “lower case politics.” “Dynamics like this distance citizens from politics,” she remarked.

Before breaking down the numbers in detail, he recalled the big figures. If approved, the budget would grow by 2,443 million euros, “with 800 million for health separately”, which would reach a 3,200 million increase. 1,045 million are also planned to face the drought. He has also highlighted the 10% increase in Education and more than 1.2 billion euros are allocated for housing, “the highest figure ever.” The documentation also foresees 1,000 million in research for the first time, and public works up to 3,064 million euros, “the highest value in thirteen years.”

“They are the best budgets that Catalonia can have today,” said Mas. With the numbers stated, he has once again attacked the commons. You have reminded them, as members of the Spanish Government, of their continuous appeals to facilitate the State’s accounts in previous years and have called on them to look after the interests of the Catalans. Junts has also received: “They should place Catalonia at the center of their political action, because they can be found approving budgets in Madrid”, having previously rejected the Catalan accounts.

In any case, Mas has considered that the post-convergents have never had a real will to negotiate budgets. The councilor has demanded “more rigor and coherence” with their tax reductions, which subtract 1.2 billion euros from the public coffers with measures, for example, such as the elimination of the inheritance tax. Furthermore, she has criticized that “they prefer a casino over a high-tech industry,” she stated in reference to her opposition to the investment of the South Korean company Lotte to settle in Mont-roig del Camp.

“Junts and comuns have to assume all responsibilities (…) for setting red lines and conditions that are absolutely impossible to assume,” the councilor concluded.