Carles Puigdemont assures that if the amnesty has been possible, a referendum is possible. The Sanchista maxim of making necessity a virtue is a field without doors for the speeches of the independence supporters of 12-M that the Government is now rushing to fence. Nothing “divisive” or outside the Constitution is negotiated, repeats the ministerial chorus. And yet, apart from the calls by ERC and Junts for the referendum and tasks to be completed, there is no one who ventures to guarantee new financing for Catalonia. Neither the candidates nor the Government.
Puigdemont offers himself as a new driving force in the negotiation with the PSOE, Pere Aragonès sees a window of opportunity for his unique financing, and both use comparative grievances with Madrid’s budget execution… Salvador Illa clings to concord and legality. Untill there.
The current regional financing system has been out of date for a decade, twice as long as the General Council of the Judiciary, and no Executive or party has been embarrassed by the failure to comply with organic laws and statutes. The regional coffers are on the path to agonizing again with the new European rules, and the waiting period is subject to partisan interests and the electoral calendar.
When on November 7, 2007, José Montilla warned in the halls of the Ritz in Madrid about the growing Catalan disaffection, a businessman responded “that can be fixed with money.” The negotiation of the financing system and, in compliance with the Statute, of the tax consortium between the State and the Generalitat was underway. A date was even set, August 2008, and a first objective: the management of personal income tax. VAT, special taxes and corporate taxes should come after them. The agreement came a year late – July 2009 – and the consortium, endorsed by the Constitutional Court, remains in limbo and is rejected by Treasury inspectors. Any singularity is unconstitutional, and complying with the Statute, they maintain, favors fraud. There is no third way without political clashes and within the State Administration itself.
The Minister of Finance alleges that the reform requires the participation of the PP. It is a false shield. The vote in the regional forum is not binding, and the popular barons have become accustomed to demonstrating against it, denouncing inequalities following party discipline, lowering taxes in the Esperanza Aguirre style, and then passing the buck so as not to lose a single euro. thinking about your community’s finances.
Candidate Illa maintains that ERC and Junts “have not even sat down at the table” to talk about financing during the years of the process and only he is “in a position to negotiate fair and effective financing.” The independentistas did include it in their agreements to invest Pedro Sánchez. ERC agreed with the PSOE on a bilateral commission to achieve “adequate financing” taking into account “the singularities” of the Catalan self-government: Mossos, judicial bodies, prisons… And Junts left in writing that it aspires to a modification of the law that includes the transfer of 100% of the taxes paid in Catalonia. The electoral event has adjusted the speeches. Aragonès returns to the fiscal pact of Artur Mas from 2012 and Puigdemont, to his 2017.
The diagnosis on the system collects dust in the drawers. It is “unfair” and “not very transparent”, according to experts, it alters Catalonia’s position in the ranking of per capita financing, it does not weight the population, nor the differential cost, nor the population at risk of exclusion nor the fiscal effort… Nor complies with the Statute.
What remains to be seen is the room for maneuver of a Government dependent on Junts and ERC depending on the electoral result in Catalonia. With the PSC in the Generalitat thanks to ERC, Montilla stood up: “José Luis, the Catalan socialists love you very much, but we love Catalonia even more.” He caused a crisis with the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Moncloa claimed “loyalty” to Montilla. “What Catalonia is asking for is fair and necessary. We cannot suffocate the country,” he responded.
