The day that Pere Aragonès, president of the Generalitat and ERC candidate for re-election in the imminent Catalan elections of May 12, dropped (in Madrid) that the next desire of the Catalan independentists is to have a quota similar to the one that exists in the Basque Country and in Navarra that have no limits – both recognized in the Constitution for supposed historical rights – Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, the president of Andalusia, was in Rome, in the anteroom of the Vatican, waiting to be received by the Pope .
The leader of the Andalusian PP had traveled to Italy to ask the Pontiff to pray and mediate before God against the drought – the embassy was successful: this Holy Week it has not stopped raining in Seville – and he found himself with a complete ordeal: “ I am not going to tell the citizens of Andalusia what financing they need. “Let them always defend their interests, but I will not accept that they in turn limit the financing system that Catalonia needs.”
Aragonès was not referring this time to Madrid, with whom the institutions of Catalonia maintain a secular pulse, but to the great autonomy of the South. Because? There are those who believe that the mention is a coded message – quite evident – ??to the vice president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, who is from Seville. It is not ruled out, but the idea – Andalusia has nothing to say in relation to Catalan financing – seemed to want to conjure up a historical precedent.
The South of Spain, during the years of the conquest of self-government, achieved not only legal equality (in terms of historical nationality) with Catalonia, but also completely unbalanced the autonomous map (asymmetrical) conceived by the UCD and facilitated decentralization general autonomy for the rest of the regions, thus preventing, through emulation, the consolidation of a different tax regime for Catalonia.
Something of this, without a doubt, underlay the president’s words. Aragonès let a week pass before insisting again on his claim (all state taxes, a solidarity fund with a time limit and a bilateral negotiation) through a variation of the famous phrase of the former Minister of the UCD Regions, Manuel Clavero Arévalo, also from Seville: “Some prefer watered down coffee for everyone so as not to disturb.”
The pro-independence parties – Junts and ERC – want to take control of all the taxes of citizens residing in Catalonia. It is their new electoral asset and, also, a condition imposed on the Government to not let down the parliamentary majority that supports Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz in the Moncloa. They think they either get it now, or never.
The challenge, fueled by the electoral struggle between former Convergents and Republicans, introduces a new element of discord on the political board. Superior, even, to the amnesty law, since it is no longer limited to the (Phoenician) interests of the parties. It directly affects the Welfare State in Spain and the principle of territorial cohesion, which is, in turn, social.
The Government aspires to double the income at its disposal – from 25,600 to 52,000 million – and achieve de facto fiscal sovereignty (not contemplated in the Constitution) that surpasses autonomous autonomy. In addition to the radical opposition from the rest of the regions, which would see their funds diminish immediately, and the refusal of the communities governed by the PP (some of them with Vox), the tax desire of the pro-independence parties collides with established jurisprudence (until now) by the Constitutional judges.
The legal thesis of the High Court is that the constitutional mechanisms allow the autonomies to collaborate with the State in the collection of the taxes that have been transferred in whole or in part, but only based on the powers assigned to them. With his demand, Aragonès intends the comprehensive tax replacement of the State in Catalonia and ignores, very consciously, the instrumental condition that, according to the Magna Carta, limits the principle of regional financial autonomy, which is different from full fiscal sovereignty.
The impact of a change in Catalonia’s status for tax purposes – its departure from the common regime – for Andalusia and other regions is simply unacceptable and, politically, equivalent to a nuclear bomb. Hence, it has meant that the Andalusian socialists, for the first time in five years, have not taken a martial position with the federal leadership of the PSOE, which has not yet formally ruled on this demand.
The position of the Andalusian socialists, bound by party discipline, is however secondary. His role is theatrical. The southern leaders of the PSOE, worn out by their defense of the amnesty, know that supporting the formula of the Catalan independentists is suicide. Another issue is that, when Ferraz takes a position, he encourages them to murder each other, just as the ancient Romans did with family heads who betrayed Caesar.
The tax war, which is the next chapter of this stormy legislature, especially affects the immediate future Moreno Bonilla, who, in addition to verbally opposing the demands of Junts and ERC, has to do something to prevent or make it difficult for him, in the Persian market what Spanish politics has become, such an approach will go forward. Aragonès’s words about Andalusia are framed in this logic. And the official response of the Board – “the Catalan quota is blackmail and a total attack on the Constitution” – as well.
It is doubtful, however, that Moreno Bonilla could be strengthened in Andalusia itself in the event that the tax quota of the independentists was accepted or even negotiated. The Andalusian president’s crossroads are analogous to what happened during the Transition, when popular mobilization and negotiations between political parties brought about autonomy in the South of Spain that was never on Suárez’s agenda.
The political conflict is served. Andalusia will not be able to financially sustain its Welfare State if Catalonia, which in economic terms concentrates 20% of the GDP, compared to 7% in Euskadi and Navarra, abandons the common tax regime. If this happens, the state fund to compensate for public services in the rest of the country would be deprived of 75% of the taxes paid in Catalonia, invalidating the equality established in the Constitution.
The Board estimates the impact of this hypothetical Catalan quota on the public coffers at 30,000 million euros. It is an amount that leaves Andalusia without political margin, which cannot cover such a hole through tax policy, much less in a scenario of chronic underfinancing and a return to the budgetary discipline imposed by Europe.
The reform of the economic regime of the autonomies, an issue that Pedro Sánchez has not wanted to address in the last five years, is the Pandora’s box of Spanish politics. It stirs up grievances – real and imagined – between communities and will increase the political tension caused by the amnesty. It is a diabolical challenge for a Government that is not guaranteed its own stable parliamentary majority and that has not been able to approve the 2024 budgets.
The territorial financing model, established in 2009, harms all regions to different degrees and in multiple areas. To those with higher incomes, as is the case of Madrid, the Balearic Islands and Catalonia, because it means a brake on their competitiveness. For the regions that have a worse situation, because it discourages economic activity and places them in a compromised situation: almost 60% of their expenses are allocated to education or health chapters, but they can only be financed autonomously for 20%. .
The leveling of the autonomies, which should bring the per capita resources of the regions closer to the state average, is arbitrary and is not working from the perspective of Andalusia. Without Catalonia, it will be literally impossible. It’s not exactly about choosing between Italian coffee (espresso) or American coffee (watered down). The question is another: coffee or champagne.