The critical speech of the Minister of Economy, Natàlia Mas, highlighting the consequences for the Catalans of not approving this year’s budgets and making a dent in the “incoherence” and “electoralism” of the commons for rejecting the budgets, had its response . The president of En Comú Podem in the Parliament, Jéssica Albiach, stood up to the Government’s attack and attacked President Pere Aragonès for having bowed to “the interests of the lobbies and the PSC”, always due to the stumbling block between the two. parts, the Hard Rock.
The councilor toured the departments listing the loss of millions of euros that will result from not having the new accounts, but Albiach responded harshly in two areas, the political and the programmatic. In the first, the leader drew a Government “incapable of leading” and an ERC that “has not stood up” to the demands of the PSC, which “has not led nor have they set limits”, to the point that “the most heard in this negotiation has been: ‘the PSC does not accept this,'” he lamented.
Albiach assured that his sincere wish was for there to be budgets, but not to offer a blank check. For this reason, he reproached the ERC president for having offered “the right-wing program” during his mandate, in reference to the Hard Rock, which in his opinion “is not an anecdote”, but rather a project that aims to “turn Catalonia into Macau, into Las Vegas.” of the Mediterranean,” he compared.
The leader of the commons also discredited the offer launched by the Government at the last minute to try to achieve an agreement, with measures around gambling taxation and the possibility of “studying” a delay of projects such as the Hard Rock for the duration of the drought. “I have no words, it is a toast to the sun, wet paper. I ask respect for the intelligence of the people of Catalonia,” she rejected.
But in addition, Albiach attacked the ways in which these negotiations have taken place, especially in their final stretch, with pressure from the Government via Madrid to force the commons to an agreement. “Of everything that has been said and done, what has disappointed me the most is that you think that Catalonia’s budgets are resolved in Madrid. It is disappointing and unprecedented. Neither Madrid nor La Caixa governs us, I don’t know if everyone can say the same. Catalonia’s budgets are decided in Catalonia,” Albiach resolved. Even so, the leader left a gap open for the agreement: “If you rectify and clearly say that for the Hard Rock, we withdraw the amendment. It’s up to you.”
From Junts, the president of the parliamentary group Albert Batet, called on the Government to reach an agreement with his group to save the accounts or call elections. The post-convergent reiterated the “disarray” that in his opinion has dominated the Government since he governed alone and reproached him for having sought “a simple accession, instead of a negotiation” on the budgets. The leader regretted that “they have prioritized the tripartite, first with the PSC, with the exchange of stickers (budgets in Madrid, Barcelona, ??in the Generalitat), and then they have tried it with the commons”, but the resistance of those from Albiach made him suspect that “the common people are less branchist than the Government.”
After comparing his party’s achievements in six months of negotiations with the central government with the “disarray that we have seen with the Catalan budgets”, Batet once again put his party’s proposal for an agreement on the table, based on a tax reduction which the Government has rejected because it would mean a loss of income of 1.2 billion euros. “The country cannot wait. We have gotten worse and they cannot prolong this agony. For a minimum of patriotism, they have to rectify or call elections,” Batet stated.
The CUP showed for its part that “the reality” is that “we are where we were a year ago, you and us, and there has been no possible way to reach an understanding.” Deputy Xavier Pellicer made an allegation about the lack of social sensitivity of the Government’s budgets despite the overall growth of resources. “The reality is that this does not reach the pockets of the workers. How is it possible that we have the most social budgets if all the indicators have worsened?” lamented the deputy, who also appealed to the Hard Rock to disapprove of the “country model.” “which, in his opinion, ERC accepts. “There cannot be agreements with the grayest and most right-wing PSC in history, and the CUP; We have antagonistic models,” Pellicer concluded.
The PSC, the only party with which the Government has reached an agreement, insufficient, for the budgets, attacked Junts, against the CUP as “co-responsible for all the policies” of the Government during the last 10 years because “they have been since 2013 until 2023 governing with ERC.” But above all, against the common people, whom he accused of electoralism. Spokesperson Alícia Romero recalled the history of support from the common people for the Government’s latest accounts “What has changed? “That we are at the end of the legislature,” resolved the deputy, who concluded that the commons “are going into electoral campaign mode.” For the socialists, “the obstacle for the budgets is called the commons, which have decided, with the excuse of Hard Rock, that they do not approve it.”
For their part, the right-wing parties -Vox, Ciudadanos and Catalan PP- charged, for their part, against the “fiscal hell” in Catalonia and the “great cut” in public spending by the Generalita; against the elephantine structure of public organizations and entities, many of them “duplicated”, and against “the embassies, propaganda and the process.”
