The possible increase in public transport fares next year (6.75%) and the new pediatric care model announced by the Minister of Health, Manel Balcells, only distance the En Comú Podem group from a possible agreement with the Government for the 2024 budgets, an agreement that was already being choked for the commons as a consequence of the Hard Rock, the leisure and tourism macroproject projected in the Camp de Tarragona.
“The ERC Government, with an increase in the price of transport and the decisions adopted in matters of paediatrics, is moving one step further away from the budget agreement,” warned the spokesman for the commons in Parliament, David Cid. And the fact is that these two issues “go along completely opposite lines” to what the Albiach party has battled and agreed upon in the latest budgetary agreements with the Government, which, thus, Pere Aragonès’ Executive, “is moving away a another step of the budget agreement” with the commons.
The irritation of the left-wing formation comes just on the day that the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM), which is in the hands of the Generalitat, has arranged an appointment in which it will discuss precisely the increase in transport fares. public transport in Barcelona of 6.75% by 2024, “more than double the current inflation”, Cid has denounced. A decision that, if definitively adopted, “what they do is put more difficulties for citizens, in the fight against climate change” and represents a change in trend compared to recent years, in which it was decided to freeze the price of public transport, the spokesperson has rebuked.
Along with this fact, the common people have denounced the “announcement of fait accompli” by Minister Balcells, with the “first major cut by the Government” in health matters. The commons reject the proposal of Minister Balcells to prevent all primary care centers in Catalonia (CAP’s) from having a pediatric care service per system. In this way, Catalonia will concentrate all primary care pediatricians in a total of 79 health centers, which represent 20% of all those in Catalonia (374).
For the common people, this idea means that “thousands of citizens who will lose pediatrics will have to travel more than 30 minutes” from their residence and that is why they ask the Government to “reflect” on the matter.
These decisions further complicate the possible support of the commons for future bills, although the litmus test remains Hard Rock. The leisure project “is the minimum”, the “starting point to know if they want our votes or not”, said Cid, “but we see with concern that things are approved that go along the opposite lines of what we have approved in the latest budgets,” he said.
The spokesperson recalled that in the last budget negotiation they struggled for the Government to reach 25% investment in health because “public health policies have to be reinforced, especially in primary care”, but the proposal of Minister Balcells ” “It goes along the lines of destroying everything we have done in the last budgets”, which makes them question: “Does the Government really want to approve the budgets with the commons?”
“The common people have given support to three budgets and in the end one has the feeling that we give support but they do not comply with the agreements,” Cid accused, referring to what was agreed in areas such as housing or access to public health. That is why the common people suspect that the Government is taking a strategic turn in its policies for an electoral issue: “Perhaps they want to dispute a central space with PSC and Junts,” they point out, but with this turn “every day that passes the Government gives way more to move away from a budget agreement,” they insist.
