“Unavailable to discouragement.” With this tagline, the Ombudsman of Compromís, Joan Baldoví, presented this Monday the umpteenth bill to try to unblock the financing system that is so damaging to the Valencian Community. After his first legislative proposal on the subject failed at its debut in the Valencian Parliament, Baldoví has ??presented a new text – incorporating the nuances made by the Consell on the previous proposal – to insist on his firm commitment to placing it on the agenda of the Congress of Deputies the change of the model.
In the text, Compromís calls for the three issues on which the consensus of the Valencian political parties has revolved these years: reform of the model, the equalization fund and the regularization of the historical debt. The idea is that the proposal will be debated in Les Corts before going to Congress, although it will be necessary to see if before the end of the session whose agenda is already very tight with the five legislative proposals from PP and Vox.
Compromís’ approach adds a novelty to avoid the blockade, Baldoví explained. And if the stars aligned and the proposal was approved in the Lower House, there would be a “reasonable period of six months” to make the model change. Otherwise, a new simplified financing system based on the criterion of the de jure population would come into force.
In the text of the proposal, Compromís points out that regarding the equalization fund, the proposal is based on the calculations of the report of the Committee of Experts “and would have to be in force as long as the financing system is not reformed,” without the waiting for the six-month margin, Baldoví stressed.
The third axis of the proposal calls for the regularization of the historical debt. In this sense, the proposal determines a mechanism for this debt to be calculated, through the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), and which can be regularized through an agreement between the State and each autonomy.
The Compromís text is presented two days before a Non-Law Proposal of the PP is voted on in which it is requested that “the leveling fund be implemented in 2024, carrying out the necessary regulatory and budgetary modifications, and be maintained every year until the reform of the regional financing system is completed.”
A PNL that Compromís considers unambitious (it does not have the status of law as the Valencians propose), but which, even so, Baldoví has ??advanced that his parliamentary group will support.
