The PSC has presented up to five amendments to the budgets that can significantly alter the agreement it signed with the Government of Pere Aragonès. The Socialists demand to suppress some initiatives related, for example, to waste or agricultural spaces, but the one that worries ERC the most is the one that establishes the monetary allocation of the pilot plan of universal basic income. The Republicans affirm that those of Salvador Illa are already breaking what was sealed on February 1 by presenting these amendments “unilaterally” and without agreeing on them, which is why they have asked this Tuesday to withdraw them.
Marta Vilalta, spokesperson for Esquerra, has clung to page 25 of the Government-PSC agreement. Under the heading “commitments”, the PSC, in addition to voting in favor of the budgets, undertakes to “guarantee that the content of the bills is not altered during their parliamentary process”. The Republican has warned the PSC that these five “irresponsible” amendments would have to decay before being put to a vote.
The Generalitat’s accounts for 2023 are expected to be approved on March 10 in Parliament and ERC awaits a response from the PSC. Meetings are scheduled this week, but Vilalta has attributed the initiative of the Socialists to a supposed will to “brand profile” rather than a real intention to move forward. Universal basic income is, as the ERC leader has said, one of the Government’s priority projects “and wanting to kill it is going against the budget agreement.”
In Esquerra there is the conviction that Junts will cling to any amendment that could question the ERC Government, which is why it demands that the PSC not play with fire, no matter how much it believes that the suppression of the universal basic income will be rejected. Otherwise, if the changes of the PSC are approved, the budgets will remain in “water of borage”.
There is another open front. Junts presented amendments to assign items to the B-40, the Hard Rock and the El Prat airport. The Government and the PSC reached an agreement outside the budget to advance on these issues and for this reason ERC trusts that the Socialists will vote against including them in the text of the accounts. The Republicans are sure that the PSC will reject all the Junts amendments. Opinion shared by the commons: Jéssica Albiach referred to the words of the socialist spokesperson, Elia Tortolero, on Monday, with which she made it clear that they would respect the agreements.
