A few days after presenting budgets with record investment for Catalonia, the data shows that execution in the first six months is still very low. It reached 16% of what was budgeted if the compensation of 1,069.9 million euros paid to Abertis is discounted. It is a percentage slightly higher than the 13% of the same period last year and lower than the 52% of Madrid, according to data from the General Intervention of the State Administration (IGAE).
On the other hand, if the payment to Abertis is accounted for, the execution in the period shoots up above 64%. In absolute value they are 347.3 million and 1,417.2 if compensation is taken into account.
This payment to Abertis is in compensation for the lower income it obtained due to the crisis after investing in Catalonia in the construction of a third rail. The allocation as an investment in Catalonia follows the same criteria that the State adopted last year with the 191 million euros of redemption of the Madrid radio stations, which was also incorporated into the accounting of the community.
The Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona calculated yesterday that if the data of all the autonomies are analyzed, Catalonia received 11.2% of the investment that can be regionalized. And once again –without counting the payment to Abertis– during the first six months, the State invested more in Madrid (553 million) than in Catalonia (347 million), despite the fact that the budgets contemplated just the opposite. Catalonia received 37% less.
If the degree of execution is analyzed, Catalonia does not come out particularly well either. The aforementioned 16% of execution is less than the 25% average in Spain and is far from the 52% of Madrid.
The most important part of the investments corresponds to the Ministry of Transport, directed by Raquel Sánchez. If this area is analyzed in isolation, the figures presented by Catalonia in comparison with the rest of Spain are somewhat better than for investments as a whole. Although the budget execution is also 16% without counting Abertis, the volume of 314 million is higher than the 216 million of Madrid.
“We are not happy with low execution percentages of the budget. The budget is a possibility that we have and it is true that with the volume that we have in Catalonia it is difficult for us to activate. We are working to fix it and make it higher”, said yesterday the Secretary General of Infrastructures, Xavier Flores.
From the Ministry of Transport they defend that investment in Catalonia is not bad if its package is analyzed in isolation and is put in relation to the rest of the communities. In this case, Catalonia is the community where the most resources were spent counting Abertis, but also without counting it, as Minister Raquel Sánchez defended in Barcelona on Monday. This causes that, from the Transport part, 14% is invested in Catalonia. Xavier Flores assured yesterday that they trust in accelerating the investments of his ministry in the remaining months and in this way achieve that the weight of Catalonia with respect to the total of Spain is 18%.
With the partial figures up to June, it will not be easy for Catalonia to achieve a degree of execution like the average of recent years, which was below 70%.
Both the Chamber and the Foment del Treball employers’ association demanded last week that all the money that remains unexecuted be transferred to the Generalitat so that it can make the investments it considers.
