With the departure of Junts from the Government, the negotiation of the Generalitat’s budget for 2023 became a tour de force. Esquerra managed to shake hands with the commoners, on December 14, and sweated ink with the PSC. Today, the accounts will pass the first procedure when Parliament rejects the amendments to the entirety presented by Junts, Vox, the CUP, Ciudadanos and the PP with a very clear message from the Minister of Economy, Natàlia Mas, addressed to Junts and the anti-capitalists : that the pact with the socialists and En Comú Podem is “concrete and punctual at a time of special uncertainty on a global scale.” The ERC Government reaches out to the rest of the pro-independence formations to recover pro-independence unity.
But, in his appearance in the Catalan Chamber to present the basic lines of the budgets, he has highlighted to the post-convergents that the “essence of a Government is to speak, negotiate, agree and govern avoiding blocking positions that may be more comfortable”. And he has admitted that negotiating and agreeing with someone “you don’t feel close requires effort and also sacrifices”, in reference to the formation of Salvador Illa. To do this, as the Minister of Economy has recognized, ERC has had to “get out of the comfort zone, raise internal debates and assume contradictions”.
The minister has left the door open for Junts and the CUP to join the agreement during the process of processing the Catalan accounts in Parliament, “due to many differences” that may exist between the three pro-independence formations with parliamentary representation. In fact, Mas has drawn the budget agreement as one more step towards the goal of self-determination, inasmuch as they favor prosperity in Catalonia.
A point of view that the Junts spokeswoman, Mònica Sales, has not shared. In her intervention, she has assured that these agreements with the socialists and commoners are a brake on independence.
Junts has defended its amendment to the entirety, claiming the “rigorous and responsible” work carried out first in the Government and then in the opposition and has lamented the “curious” ERC negotiation procedure by first agreeing with a group of eight deputies, the commons , and relegate another that has 32 seats. All in all, Sales has assured that Junts “has always been available” to the Executive, but Pere Aragonès’s budgets “are not good for the country” because they do not respond to the “duality” that for Junts is non-negotiable: solvency and independence.
For this reason, Sales has criticized the “non-compliance” of Aragonès, to whom the amendment has also been extended to the entirety for “departing” from the commitments made for the investiture and in the government pact. “These are the assumptions of the resignation”, the Junts spokesperson has baptized them, who has blamed ERC for the loss of the “strategic unity” of the independence movement.
Nor has the CUP been complacent with the Government. He has harshly charged against the ERC Government for having allied with the “grayest, right-wing and Spanishist PSC in its history”, as Eulàlia Reguant has pointed out, to approve the budgets. In this sense, the anti-capitalist spokesperson has stressed that Aragonès has settled his accounts with the two parties that govern in Spain and has accused Salvador Illa of getting “all the shit” of Foment del Treball, referring to the expansion of the airport of El Prat, the B-40 or the Hard Rock, have entered the investment agenda.
For this reason, Reguant has urged the commons to leave the agreement and to prevent the “drainage of public money” towards private interests that, in the CUP’s opinion, suppose the Government’s budgets, comparable, in his opinion, to a “process of covert privatization.
Be that as it may, Mas has reminded Junts and the CUP that the blockade of the budget “would have accentuated” the economic grievances of the financing of Catalonia. “What sense can there be in depriving Catalans of an increase in social benefits? What sense can it make not to provide more resources for the green transition, or for teaching or health personnel? ”, She has maintained. “I invite you to abandon maximalist positions, all or nothing, or black and white,” she concluded.
During her speech, the Minister wanted to highlight that for the first time in eight years a Government will be able to approve the budgets for two consecutive years. With those of 2023, the financial capacity increases by 3,842 million euros, social benefits are increased for 100,000 vulnerable families, the contribution to primary health care is raised to 24% of the total allocated to Health and “the National Pact is shielded for the Industry.
The budgets increase the spending and investment capacity that exceeds 41,000 million euros, which will largely be divided into three main axes: the activation of an economic and social shield, the acceleration of measures for the ecological transition and the generation of prosperity.
On the first of the pillars, Mas has influenced the idea that the most vulnerable families will benefit from a monthly contribution of between 50 and 100 euros, in housing aid, the increase in Health of 1,284 million euros and the commitment to reduce by half the waiting lists in the dependency to access financial aid.
Regarding the second axis, the minister highlighted the additional 17 million euros allocated to railways and metro lines to improve their operation, the 63 million to expand the electric vehicle charging network, 700 million euros for water treatment plants, or the implementation of public energy, or the new support resources for the industry to reduce energy costs and decarbonisation.
Lastly, the Minister highlighted the 680 million euros for the National Pact for Industry, the contribution to implement the Science Law, the 106 million euros increase for universities, with 27 million of them intended to reduce fees university. Likewise, the Government intends to promote fiber optics with 140 million euros, while Mas has highlighted the contribution to Culture, which for the first time reaches 1.5% of the total budget.
The amendment to all Citizens has been defended by Carlos Carrizosa, who has referred to the more political elements of budgets in which the PSC “validates” issues such as “harassment of Spanish” or the “unproductive beach bars” of a “administration eaten away” by the “saladazos” of its high positions, and Nacho Martín Blanco, who has criticized more specifically the “sectarian” bias of the accounts, which, as he has denounced, allocate items to “superfluous” objectives such as delegations abroad, dedicated to “insulting Spain”, instead of dedicating them to eradicating the barracks or the waiting lists.
The PP has had an impact on these same aspects, whose amendment to the entirety is based on the fact that the Generalitat’s budgets “do not respond to the challenges and objectives of Catalan society,” announced Alejandro Fernández. Thus, the leader of the popular Catalans has questioned that they grant more stability to Catalonia and has denied that they are more expansive, since, in his opinion, they are “only for their little things”. In this sense, Fernández has charged against the “incoherence” of the commons, which he has accused of “posturing” for having ended up supporting some accounts in which the socialists have included projects that for those of Jéssica Albiach represented red lines, and He has accused the PSC and ERC of “politicking” by not being able to offer the public, according to the president of the Catalan PP, a “minimum shared criteria” when it comes to defending what they have agreed to in a joint press conference.
The amendment to all of Vox has been based, in turn, on questioning the pact to three of ERC, PSC and the commons. “The tripartite of communists, socialists and separatists is reborn,” said Juan Garriga, for whom the budgets have arrived “late” due to the lack of “professionalism” of the Government, which should have worked more. In addition, the far-right spokesman has indicated, they are “unclear” accounts in which “waste” is, in his opinion, very present for ideological reasons, as seen, in Vox’s opinion, in the increase in dedicated items to public television or to policies elaborated with a gender perspective.
