The investiture pact between the PSOE and ERC entails a commitment between the presidents Pedro Sánchez and Pere Aragonès to facilitate the legislatures, the Spanish and the Catalan one. The second is in some danger. The commons are not willing to allow the Generalitat’s budgets to go ahead if there is no commitment from the head of the Government that he will stop the Hard Rock. The Catalan Executive assures that it has no margin and that ordering officials to avoid processing the project “would be prevarication.” So with such acrimonious positions, Aragonès and Albiach met this afternoon at the Palau de la Generalitat. The meeting barely lasted half an hour and ended without an agreement. The will is to continue negotiating, if necessary until the moment before the vote on the amendments to the entire budgets this Wednesday, but the budgets are approaching the precipice.
The dialogue will continue, but the Government also keeps a letter: it has slipped this morning that it contacts Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz to force a change of mind from En Comú Podem.
“It is obvious that there are communicating vessels and that everyone is aware of the situation,” admitted the spokesperson for the Catalan Cabinet, Patrícia Plaja, at the press conference after today’s Executive Council. The statement fits with previous statements by Republicans: ERC spokesperson Raquel Sans acknowledged in an interview in January that the budgets of the State and those of the Generalitat are linked; Pere Aragonès, Laura Vilagrà and Sergi Sabrià have sometimes resorted to the formula “it would not be understood that in Madrid they had budgets and not here”.
Plaja has even gone further. The way to go to Madrid may be another: “We all know that Mrs. Albiach [leader of the Commons in the Parliament] has channels and levers to force the PSC, here and in Madrid.” “If she wanted to, she can do it, she also has the tools.” The Catalan socialists are totally in favor of the Hard Rock recreational complex planned for Vila-seca and Salou and the spokesperson has tried to summon En Comú Podem to convince those of Salvador Illa to give in on this matter. The PSC is for now the only group along with ERC that supports the budgets.
The Government is not a supporter of Hard Rock. He alleges that stopping him could imply million-dollar compensation for financial liability. “Even penalties,” Plaja assured at the press conference. However, Jéssica Albiach demands a verbal commitment from Pere Aragonès to stop the project. “It does not depend on the president. It is not a decision that either this Government or any other can make. Not allowing it would be prevarication,” Plaja stressed.
Both the Government and the commons are rushing the last hours to reach an agreement for the 2024 budgets. The vote will be this Wednesday at noon in the Parliament. The spokesperson for the Catalan Executive has stressed that “there are many points in common” when it comes to budgetary matters, and she has once again recalled that the Generalitat’s numbers do not contemplate “not a single item” for the Hard Rock.
However, during Plaja’s appearance a certain fatigue on the part of the Government has emerged. “Blissful Hard Rock”, “whim of the commons”, “they are making things crazy”, “the project is an excuse” are expressions that the spokesperson used today who, along with her doubts that En Comú Podem “has a real will “politics” of agreeing on the budgets paint a complicated scenario for a favorable resolution for the Government. “We will negotiate until the last moment,” Plaja said despite everything.
